It’s time we talked about dot dot dots . . .

Are ellipses – aka, suspension points – a punctuational plague, or are they great tools with which to create interesting effects in fiction? (I’m thinking not of the well-established use of dot dot dots in dialogue but of their use in narration, by the way.) Do you use ellipses in your novel? If so, how and why? If not, why not?

Click on the link if you'd like to see what I have to say about the growing use of ellipses in genre fiction.


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The Tara Arts director said fund-raising for a first class venue for South Asian performing arts in London is going well. Work is to begin later this year. It can't happen too soon for me - the play went on until 10.25pm, which rarely happens in London. Worse, it ended just as the train left for Waterloo so I had to wait for the 10.53pm one and didn't get home until half past twelve.

I should have waited until the show's tour reaches Stratford East, where it can be seen from 6th to 9th of March.


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Sharon Holiner has a stunning pen and watercolor portrait with an eerie, descriptive bit of fiction published at PP&P today. It's a one minute read but you should pour a cup of tea...you may want to stay longer.

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I've neglected this blog recently, but that’s set to change. It’s not so much that I’ll neglect my other blog –hopefully I’ll continue to review plays - but current projects will take over.

A busy week brought two surprises: I learned I’m to teach a day course on Pride and Prejudice, and, for the very first time, one of my short stories appeared in a magazine.


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Every now and then you run into someone who is interested in, well, everything. Conner North is just such an individual. We feel fortunate over at Postcard Poems and Prose to be able to give readers a glimpse of his work and a sliver of his life. Shoot your way across the interwebs and touchdown HERE to read more. You won’t be disappointed. Pour a cup of tea or coffee…you’ll want to stay for a bit. Oh, and don’t forget to drop in on Conner’s blog while you’re there.

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A student has just quoted a how-to book, 30 Steps to Becoming a Writer by Scott Edelstein. As with most how-to books, she says, lots isn't specially useful - at least not to her - but one or two things are. And the one she quoted which struck me was from a list of things you see in your writing which should ring an alarm bell: Beginning with an almost immediate flashback. This is probably caused, suggests Edelstein, by the desire to avoid the work of showing full-fledged events. And the thing is, I know exactly what he means.

I should say that I haven't got hold of the book, so I can't be sure I'm reading it right. But I have lost count of the number of MS I see which start with a moment in the story, and then zig straight back to the past. It's not, of course, that you should never do it - never say never about anything in writing (at least, not within my hearing). But I think there are several things that might cause you to do this, and they all need interrogating.

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Winds gusting to 40 knots and an impending blizzard didn’t scurry these finches into hiding. (Note angle of feeder in picture.) We did, however, set a new record at our five feeders and needed to refill them twice during the day. There’s simply something special about a blizzard and being snowed in for hours on end. A pioneer spirit envelops the household. It’s inspiring and, since the power never went out, I was able to write all day and evening. What a luxury.

Sixteen hours and eighteen inches of snow later and...Read More Here...

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Bruce Louis Dodson has spent time in India. While there he took photos and, quite naturally, wrote poetry and fiction. A postcard from Benares, India was the inspiration for tody's poem.
...Read More Here...

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Postcard Poems and Prose brings diverse selections to publication in the second half of February. Bruce Louis Dodson returned from India with a postcard and the inspiration for his beautifully written poem, ”Oarsmen”. Oonah Joslin found time from her busy schedule as Managing Editor at Every Day Poets to...Read More Here...

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In my novel A Secret Alchemy, Antony Wydvil, Earl Rivers, uncle and guardian to the new, young King Edward V, has been arrested by Edward's other uncle, the Regent Richard Duke of Gloucester. In one, long midsummer's day Edward rides under guard from the castle of Sheriff Hutton to Pontefract, where he knows he is to be put to death.

It is some time after midday. Anderson spies a spinney a couple of furlongs off the road and orders a halt to rest the horses. The corn in the fields is well grown, and we ride along the rising ground of the headlands to dismount in dappled shade, like a group of friends taking their ease after a morning’s coursing. One of the men leads my horse away but no man tries to hold me. They have no need, of course: I am disarmed. There is no help on its way for me, and I could no more escape on foot across these open fields than I could from an island in the sea.

So no formal watch is posted, no sentry-duty ordered. These men know each other and their trade too well. They are quiet, but for a jest or two: taking off their helmets, loosening girths, checking horse and harness, going aside to piss, eating barley bread and cheese because men must eat to do their work, watering the horses when they have cooled, but always watching. That their watch is not needed is beside the point. Still they watch, bows and horses to hand, because that is what soldiers do.

They say that each man destroys the thing he loves the most. Through my agency Ned is destroyed, for though he lives, he is alone, and I cannot hope that he will ever be crowned. Day after day and night after night in the chill quiet of Sheriff Hutton I have known that it was my own failure, and no other, that Ned was taken from my guardianship. By comparison with that, my own death is as naught.

And yet, wherein did I fail? Where – at what moment – did I decide wrongly? To this day I do not know. Sometimes I have thought that it would be easier to bear if I could comfort myself that we had fought Richard of Gloucester and been defeated in battle, that Ned was torn from my hold. But Richard was in command, a prince of the blood royal, and I did not know Richard for an enemy. He was my fellow in faithfulness to the memory of his brother, and in care for our new king.

I destroyed my boy because I trusted a man I had no reason not to trust: a sworn knight, an honourable ruler, the most faithful brother of our late king.

*

We came to Stony Stratford on the last day of April, Ned sagging in the saddle with weariness when he thought himself unseen.

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