Balancing peripheral characters with main characters ~ or how to stop Sideshow Bob murdering Bart Simpson.

Balancing peripheral characters with main characters ~ or how to stop Sideshow Bob murdering Bart Simpson.     One of the few novels I never actually finished was Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I was set it over Easter in my final year at university, as a part of my course entitled, “The Art of the [...]

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Chinese menus, books, Harvey Wall-bangers and our lost sense of adventure

Chinese menus, books, Harvey Wall-bangers and our lost sense of adventure When I was growing up, Chinese food was considered really rather exotic and adventurous but these days, most people consider it almost a mainstream part of their diet. The small market town I grew up in had a single Chinese restaurant and it was [...]

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“Power is the ability not to have to please” ~ selfishness versus selflessness

“Power is the ability not to have to please” ~ selfishness versus selflessness A few years ago I bought a small pendant shaped like a stylised goddess figure to hang from a leather thong; on the reverse it said, “Power is the ability not to have to please.” It was a kind of motto for [...]

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The myth of permanent growth ~ or what goes up must come down

The myth of permanent growth ~ or what goes up must come down Recent news reports on the British economy have been pretty depressing lately. I really don’t find either politics or economics even vaguely interesting but I was struck by various things recently. The concept of growth, for example. Some years ago, I was [...]

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Analysing the creative process~ part 2 by Marc Nash

(This post came from an email exchange between Marc and I after I had been worrying about losing my creativity. Marc was happy to have his process shared here) I’ve read books on the sources of creativity, mainly by psychologists & analysts. None really clinch it for me. You’ve probably got your own ideas on [...]

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Synaesthesia, the senses and why characters in books need to smell

Synaesthesia, the senses and why characters in books need to smell I’ve written before about being something of a sensitive bod but I’ve never mentioned except in passing anything to do with synaesthesia. One of the reasons for this is that it’s such a complex subject and is actually little understood. The usual explanation is [...]

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Analysing the creative process ~ part one

I’ve been trying to frame my ideas for this and it has simply been like trying to herd cats! First I must say that this is purely personal and I can only really speak about what I do most and that is to write. I suspect something similar may go on with art and music and [...]

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The Year in Review: highs, lows, triumphs and tragedies of 2011

The Year in Review: highs, lows, triumphs and tragedies of 2011   It’s the very last day of the year and I thought I might do a quick run through of how the year has been for me. Travel: countless trips with students to London, Cambridge, Norwich and so on. Enjoyable, as I get time [...]

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“The Black Mist Descended” ~ a guest post by the legendary Jake Barton

 My guest blogger today is the amazing Jake Barton, enigmatic author of Kindle bestselling thrillers Burn, Baby Burn, its sequel Blood and a number of others (one of which is FREE currently). Do go and look him up on Amazon or at his blog:  Ramblings of a Deluded Soul  The following bio is written by Jake at [...]

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Why the poet’s garden may be a jungle, the artist’s house a mess and why writers often live on noodles

Why the poet’s garden may be a jungle, the artist’s house a mess and why writers often live on noodles A couple of years ago, a friend expressed puzzlement at why we had stopped making our own wine and beer. It had been so much a part of our lives that at one time I [...]

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