Real life can get in the way of writing at times. As can barking dogs and everyone deciding to cut their hedges at once, noisily. So it's not been a productive week thus far for me.

But I am, as ever, curious (nosy??); writers, what stops you from writing?

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Yesterday I was surfing the net, as you do when, frankly, you ought to be writing book four.
In fact I’m addicted to the internet with all the ardour of a junky, or one of those saddos that spend twenty three and a half hours a day watching porn.
But I digress.
I have, of late, been having a crisis of confidence and so I did what I always do ( instead of the obvious which is to write the next book!) and began looking for a creative writing course.
This annoys my husband who points out, not unreasonably, that this is like bolting the stable door etc...
What popped up was astonishing. There are courses at colleges across the land. There are internet courses. There are even, for the full writerly experience, residential courses in misty, remote Shetland Islands.
Now, I’m always honest about the fact that before I wrote my first book I had never attended a creative writing course. To be fair, I was working as a lawyer at the time and had baby twins. Where was I going to fit in a few hours a week to discuss the misuse of adverbs?
But once Damaged Goods was sold and I was under contract to produce book two sharpish, the worry worm appeared. What if DG had been a fluke? What if those 90,000 words had simply fallen into a random, yet coincidentally, pleasing order? More importantly, how could I ensure that the next 90,000 wouldn’t disappoint even my Mum.


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Kathryn Robinson is Managing Editor of Cornerstones Literary Consultancy, where she works with Director, Helen Corner. Do visit the website for information on their book doctor services and workshops.


The author I wish we’d ‘discovered’ most is…..
Ooh where to start. There are so many authors whose work would have loved to be involved in. Growing up, I was a huge fan of Joan Aiken - these were the books my mum used to read to me and I loved them so much I'd wait until she said goodnight and then read ahead. She has a huge range as an author - from chilling present-day ghost stories to gritty historical fiction with a fantastical slant. I also adored Gillian Cross who writes with fantastic warmth and wit and does tension as well as any author I've ever read. I find her depth of emotion and characterisation inspirational.

Left on a cliffhanger or told all?
Even books within a series ought really to have a good solid resolution – I’m not really a fan of books which end on a total cliffhanger (though ambiguity can be good) and I don’t think readers find them satisfying. But with individual chapters in a book – a cliffhanger, every time!

The perfect book deal is…
One where the agent, publisher and author all feel as though they’ve made a healthy investment for the writer’s career, rather than a deal that’s all about promoting a one-book sensation then leaving the author high and dry.



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Stats are pretty poor for the last few months. I started out this year with some pretty good intentions but things got in the way. I still keep my daily stats and monthly totals. So far, they're not very impressive: (note that these figure are for new fiction only, and don't include editing, which is a pretty lame excuse, but here we go...)


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A show which is religiously series linked on my Sky TY planner, is BBC's Masterchef. Ever since Gregg Wallace and John Torode took over from Lloyd Grossman, I've been addicted to this fabulous culinary show which enables amateur cooks to demonstrate their best recipes and ingenuity. While watching the nervous contestants slice duck, knead bread and stir sauces, the sweat lashing off them as they dart around in the kitchen attempting to create that sumptuous masterpiece, I realised, laptop on knee, that their finished product is not unlike the author's novel. And the process too which results in the completed dish is similar to the procedure the writer follows as he or she attempts to create that novel.

The author needs to have the right ingredients, the book has to be enjoyable for the palate and it has to be free from mistakes - oops I've burnt the pancakes, messed up the POV, and the cream has curdled - help me! While it's often too late to salvage a Masterchef dish that has gone wrong under exam-like conditions, the novelist has the advantage of time to perfect the book.

Here are some thoughts on creating a lovely dish - or a novel, if you are a writer...

1. Use the right ingredients. Don't put black bean sauce in pasta and give it to John and Gregg to taste, and don't throw Bisto all over a Dauphinoise potato dish. Don't salt and pepper it to hell and back. The author can quite easily overdo the adjectives and get a little heavy-handed with the herbs and spices, making it go all flowery needlessly. Furthermore, make sure that the POV is right. Don't confuse the reader who is digesting your book. Don't have too many flavours going on - don't have the action taking place with a hundred characters. After all, you wouldn't heap thyme, garlic, ginger, sage, nutmeg, corriander, tarragon and curry powder into your starter.



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A huge and very warm welcome to my blog, Tamar. It’s a genuine pleasure to have you here. Can we start with you telling us all a little about what you do?

Thanks, Nik. I’m delighted to be here. I guess my qualification for being here is that I write novels and short stories. I’ve published three books – a novel, The Genizah at the House of Shepher, a collection of stories, Kafka in Brontëland, and my most recent book, a novel in linked stories (what some people call a mosaic novel), Tales of the Ten Lost Tribes.



I’ve just finished reading Kafka in Brontëland, your first collection of short stories, and I utterly loved it. There’s such a delightful mix of surrealism and realism: where do these stories come from? Do they share similar roots?



On some level they’re all stories about identity and belonging, themes which have preoccupied me a lot over the years. Because of my background I’ve always felt like a bit of a floating person, and I really found my way as a writer when I realised that this was my subject. At the time of writing them, I felt Jewish but was on the outside of the Jewish community, Yorkshire but with foreign roots, lived in the countryside but had grown up in the city – in so many ways I was in the margin between identities. I found this to be a very creative place.

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Lots to read, as ever! There's a new blog post up on the Short Review blog as part of Dzanc Books' 2009 Best of the Web anthology launch that I highly recommend you pop over and read. It's a guest post by M. Thomas Gammarino, one of the authors picked for BoTW, talking about his story, The Fridge. It's here.

Another source of lit: the latest copy of Irish lit mag The Stinging Fly landed in my postbox this week, and it looks great, with short stories by Aileen Armstrong, Jon Boilard, Philip Cummings, Catherine Finn, Alison MacLeod and Heather Richardson, poetry from Arlene Ang, Carolyn Jess-Cooke and others, and a fabulous article by Colm Liddy called "My Struggle ... to Grow Up and Be a Writer", which talks about how getting his first book deal affected him. I haven't read much of this Summer issue yet, am saving it!

And me-centred news: two flash stories have been accepted by the London magazine for their August issue, which I think will be science-themed, something that always thrills me. Lovely way to welcome me to England when we move at the end of August (although not to London, but who's quibbling?!)...........

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So last week I got up to date with everything I'd been struggling with over the past couple of months. Now I'm trying to get everything organised. And get back to writing. This is good.

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Here are our top websites and blogs - we'd love to hear what yours are in the comments below!


Gillian: One of my favourite writing-related websites is The New York Times Books. In the absence of enjoying a copy of the paper in my hands, the next best I suppose is the comprehensive website featuring reviews and features plucked from the supplements. With info on all the latest books as well as archival articles, conversations and interviews, New York Times brings you the latest in the world of literature. My natural interest lies in American literature, so once the books have crossed the ocean to the UK, I'm already in the know! You can check out all the movers and shakers via the hardcover and paperback charts too. And of course, you can download the podcasts - simply go to the website.


Susie: I've been a member of WriteWords online writing community for a couple of years. The members take writing seriously - there are loads of published writers on the site who are extremely generous with their advice and experience - and there's a very supportive and encouraging atmosphere there. It's a place where you can ask (or tell) anything, both writing-related or generally. As well as forums for every kind of writing - from Chicklit to Flash Fiction, Non-Fiction to Poetry - there are also specialist forums for discussions on Getting Published, Technique etc. You can also post your work for critique - and the quality of critique is high. Why not try it - you can have a free month's trial: thereafter it's just £35 for a year's membership. All the Strictly crowd are members (if that's a recommendation!) and we'd love to welcome you onboard.

Geri: I have many reasons for nominating Womag's website as my favourite writing website. Through it I've made contact with writers whose bylines have become very familiar to me over the years, and who I hope I can now count among my many online friends. Without her research and her generosity in sharing it I wouldn't have entered and twice won Write-Invite, which led to an interview on Express FM. Nor would I have submitted a story to Bridge Publishing - a story which will appear in their Ghost Anthology in October. There are many websites to do with writing but generally the focus is on writing novels or literary short stories. Womag understands that if you're a writer aiming at the women's short story market then unless you understand that market before you submit your story then you won't get very far at all. And she is fabulous at providing and collating all the information you could possibly need in an easily accessible format. Womag gets my vote for best website every time!



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This week’s Weekly Geeks challenge is to blog about our favourite book-to-movie adaptations. I’m not that much of a film buff and I don’t have a TV, so I’m sure I’ve missed out on some great films over the years, but here are some favourites...

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