Welcome to the blog Faye, it’s a real pleasure to have you here. Can you tell us a little about Roast Books? Who are you? What do you do?
Hello Nik, thanks for having me on. Well Roast Books is an unusual little publishing house which produces literary titles with an emphasis on quality of presentation and design. We like our books to look good as well as being delicious to read. It’s a tiny organisation and so far we’ve produce about 4 books a year.

How and why did it get started?
I was interested in the idea of literature that was suited to the modern lifestyle, reading for on the spot entertainment, so I decided to produce some contemporary novellas. There is a dearth of interestingly presented book. Not enough new authors are given the opportunity to publish their work. So Roast Books began as a remedy to these things. An A-Z of Possible Worlds [see my interview with its author here - Nik.] was a really exciting project, because the short stories can be read individually, at the readers’ convenience, but are packaged as a complete work. …….

What do Roast Books do best?
Take chances! I am proud of the care and attention that goes into each title, and I think in the case of ‘An A-Z of Possible Worlds’ the packaging really suits the work, we haven’t compromised on that just to make it easier to distribute.

Who’s the ideal reader of a Roast Books title?
Five foot four, brown hair, glasses, with a healthy amount of facial expression. Oh and book lovers.

Read Full Post

Here's what you do: Write a story where the first letters of each word are in alphabetical order.

Here's mine.

All because Christopher didn't expect five girls here in June Kevin lost. My natural opinion's pretty quiet really. So the unlikely victor was x-rated yet zesty.

Care to have a go and share yours? Just for a bit of fun?

Read Full Post

The issue of accuracy in historical fiction is one I'm often asked about. Does the word 'fiction' give a writer licence to ignore historical detail where the story demands it, or should the story be moulded to fit within the known facts, perhaps with a resulting lack of drama?

When people talk about historical inaccuracy, they are usually thinking of outright anachronisms – medieval serfs scrubbing germs off potatoes, or a Tudor apothecary doing CPR. Often, however, it's not that black and white. If I wrote a full exploration of historical accuracy in fiction it would be somewhat too long for a blog post, so I'm going to concentrate today on dialogue – an aspect where getting it 'right' can actively thwart your chances of creating a novel that works.

Let's take an extreme example, and say your book is set in Roman Britain. Are you seriously going to have your Roman characters talking in Latin? What about your heroic underdogs from various Celtic tribes? The likelihood of a significant number of modern readers been well-versed in each of these languages is slim, to say the least. Historical accuracy, in this instance, would prevent the novel ever reaching an audience. Even in the event of someone desperately wanting to read in Latin and Iceni, they would never get the chance because no publisher in their right mind would take it on.



Read Full Post

I thought Roy would miss his cronies, not to mention his bridge games, if he stayed too long in Zamora. So I suggested two visits instead of one; stay a week, return to London for two and join me for the final ten days. I even managed to book us on the same return flight.


Read Full Post

A lot of talking about writing ponders and circles around the mysteries of inspiration: the genie, the zone, the muse, the cloud of unknowing, the necessity for darkness or music, the fetishism about notebooks or mascots, the alcohol, the drugs, the digging in the garden, the long country walks, the endless games of patience (Heyer's preferred method, along with 'a little gin and benzedrine'). Some of the best-selling - and best - how-to books, including Brande's Becoming a Writer and Cameron's The Artist's Way, are all about such things, and the hands-down winner in the Most Often Asked Festival Question stakes is 'Where do you get your ideas from?' It's the great, and therefore fascinating, mystery.

Since it's easy to believe (not helped by the publisher's need/desire for high-concept, elevator-pitch promotions) that all writing a novel takes is a brilliant idea, writers then spend much of the school visit/festival session talking about how hard they work to cut and shape and re-cut and polish the idea. Or they talk about how we let characters walk in and misbehave, or find the ending was quite different from what we expected. (Dodie Smith said this of I Capture the Castle. How I'd love to know what she did expect!) Good writing courses, such as the Open University one I'm teaching, start by exploring how you find the material for your work - freewriting, clustering, keeping a notebook and what to note - and then tackle the cutting and shaping. In other words, even if there's lots of toing and froing between them, everything tends to assume that, fundamentally, inspiration comes first, and technique later.

It's undeniably true, at the fundamental level: you can't shape an idea till you've had it. But, just as I was arguing that you could ask your talent what it wants to work on, rather than expecting it to do its best with whatever you want to write about, maybe we should stand this idea, too, on its head occasionally. Maybe it's not always a matter of inspiration first, then technique.

Well, to be honest, there's no 'maybe' about it, at least not as far as I'm concerned, because I know that I've done things in my writing which began as cold-blooded, technical decisions.

Read Full Post

This morning I got an acceptance for the last unpublished flash in my folder. Yikes. I'd better write some new ones. I totted up, and this latest will be my 100th flash to be published. Yikes again. Did they all go to good homes? Well, maybe not all. Would I rewrite any if I had the chance (or the time)? Yes, nearly all of them. But there are maybe a dozen of which I am unreservedly proud, ones that connected with the reader. Which is not to say I regret sending any of them out into the world. The process of subbing and being rejected is essential, I think. Writing is a solitary art but we get better by engaging with our readers. I couldn't keep my flashes unread any more than I could keep children in an attic; words need a turn in the real world of reading, a rough and tumble, the chance to have the edges knocked off them. It's how stories grow and get better.

Read Full Post

1) Don’t save good ideas for “later on”. When I first started writing novels, I would hold onto my darlings, such as an original metaphor. But in time I realized, that if get your best bits of inspiration down straightaway, more will follow. So if you imagine a really exciting scene between your MCs, or have thought up a highly relevant, amusing joke, run with them then and there. This is one more way of making sure that every chapter sparkles, not just the first and last and climatic ones. In other words, don’t let the quality of your work wax and wane – aim for it all to be the best it can.

2) Don’t be scared of adverbs. I recently battled over the use of ‘reluctantly’. I told myself it was lazy, that really I should show the character’s feelings about having to go down and answer the door in the middle of doing her homework.
Nessie tossed her pen on the table and went downstairs – um, no, makes her sound ratty.
Nessie sighed and went downstairs – um, not too bad but she’s already done a bit of sighing.
Nessie stuck her fingers in her ears and carried on with her homework – um, no because then the doorbell will have to be run more frantically/she will have to be called down more loudly, and really it’s not that sort of scene.
Reluctantly Nessie left her homework and went downstairs – perfect.

3) Probably not something many of you need telling, but when I first started out I got it into my head that my prose and dialogue had to be written ‘properly’, that I couldn’t possibly put down abbreviations and contemporary references and slang and ungrammatical sentences. I now realize that is not the case at all - especially with my current commerical teen book. I guess what I’m saying is, don’t be afraid to write how people speak - where necessary.



Read Full Post

Michelle's Blog

Literary ramblings
Giving up the day job (4): Luisa Plaja

leave a comment »

Time for another in the series of interviews with writers about giving up their day jobs. This week it’s Luisa Plaja, writer of teen fiction, whose books include Split by a Kiss (2008), Extreme Kissing (2009) and Swapped by a Kiss (2010). She also edits a teen fiction website called Chicklish.

MT: What day jobs have you done?

LP: I have a degree in Linguistics and have always worked in wordy jobs: dictionary editing, television subtitling, speech recognition software research and development, and software localisation.

MT: Anything in those day jobs that has inspired your writing?

Read Full Post

I've been having a wonderful two weeks, all of it reinforcing that this country is the right place for me right now. It hasn't left me much time for blogging, or reading other people's blogs - apologies for that. I won't make this a very long post (famous last words). So, where have I been?

Two weeks ago I flew to Ireland for the Waterford Film Festival awards evening on Nov 8th. ...........

Read Full Post

I have loads to write about but let me start by saying.....

The Bristol Short Story Prize is now officially open - too all writers worldwide!
3000 words maximum -

Read Full Post