Googling analogies. 17200 results in search of a simile for hissing like… something less cliched than snakes. Found some interesting comparisons.

Hissing like:

Liberals / a cat / a banshee / an ex-wife / a rabid dog / a mother / a can of spray paint / a bad connection / hedgehogs / a live wire / angry goose / deflating inner tube / soil leaking through a coffin lid / a gas leak / a wild man / a bewildered orchestra / a steam valve / ...

[more]

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This post was going to be a confessional, of sorts. It was going to be me telling you that I'm an unreliable reader. That I feel guilty. See, there are lots of books I want to read. I buy loads, I get sent some, and I want to read them all. But something happens. I know exactly what it is - it's a complete lack of time coupled with my being cautious of what I read while I'm writing (and I'm writing most of the time). So what ends up happening is many, many books get added to the To-Read pile, and they're often there for a long time.

But sometimes something strange happens. I don't know if it's me thinking sod it or just chance - but I'll buy a book and read it straight away. It's not planned, it's not that I fancy it more than the others that are waiting - it just happens (can you see why I'd feel guilty?).

But I'm not going to tell you (any more) about that. Because I have just finished one of the best books I've read, the reading of which, it just so happens, was precisely one of those jump-to-the-front-of-the-queue-without-reason occurrences. (And I hope that is more interesting than telling you what I haven't read.)

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'The trivial round, the common task,
Should furnish all we ought to ask'



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As promised, here is the new cover for the second Changeling book, Dark Moon.


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I recently did one of those “25 random things” lists that have been doing the rounds of Facebook and forums, and in a failed attempt to make myself sound interesting I put that I can draw Celtic knots. That reminded me to dig out some paintings I did a while back, and seeing as I’ll probably never get round to framing them or anything (plus I’m casting about for stuff to put on my blog) here they are ...


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How well do you know your main character? Better than you know your best friend? Your partner? Better than you know yourself?
I thought I knew the 13-year-old boy at the heart of my children’s book. But there was a common thread to some of the criticisms I’d received on earlier drafts. The voice isn’t quite convincing; I haven’t got a clear enough picture of him; I’m not sure I cared enough about what happened to him. It was a real worry. I tried to address this through plotting and dialogue, and even changed the whole book from third person to first and then back to third again. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I still wasn’t quite there.
There’s lots of advice to be found on this particular problem. Some people recommend filling out a questionnaire on everything from your character’s family history to their favourite food. I’ve no doubt this approach can be very helpful, but in my case, the answer lay in something much more straightforward.
I wasn’t seeing him properly. Literally, seeing him.
And by that I mean that his appearance was all wrong.
It happened like this.

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Two opposite things are rubbing up against each other in my mind, and I can't work out how they fit together, so I've come over here to try to do so.

First, my friend, the thriller writer Debi Alper, who's also a photographer, has been blogging about a part of her life which I, for one, didn't really know about. Twenty-five years ago she was living in Grenada, taking part in the Revolution which seemed to have created a free and democratic state in the Caribbean. She was there when the military took power and then assassinated Maurice Bishop and his pregnant partner, and when the US invaded, and she kept a detailed diary. Now she's finally found the courage to revist the past and, day by day in her present, she's describing what happened day by day then. (That link is to the latest post, but it's really, really worth starting at the beginning by following the links at the top of it.) It's a story which needs, and gets, the plainest, most simple treatment: there's no need for high verbal drama or elaborate descriptions of states of mind, but just the kind of telling that, paradoxically, only real writerly craft can bring to such a story.

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'In the room, the women come and go,
Talking of Michelangelo'
(T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 1915)

So different from Tate Modern on a Sunday afternoon.

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I am terrible at choosing titles. So I try not to. I hide away from them, and hope that they'll go away.


I wrote what was finally to be called Changeling with a working title that I hated (no, I am not going to tell you what it was), and I never referred to the work-in-progress, even to myself, by that title. The final title came about by chance: I was doing a bit of research into...

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Here's a list (really, for the benefit of those who might be interested in buying a ticket) of all the books I've received for the World Book Day/Book Aid raffle - and above is a pic of how I've arranged them. Not quite as impressive as L's classroom displays but I have, I feel, done myself proud.

A huge thanks to all who've contributed and to all whose books are in transit/waiting to be sent. I really, really, hope what we raise does justice to your generosity.

And the books are:

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