I've always been interested in graphology, or the science of discerning character through handwriting.It's fascinating to see how it applies to Chinese calligraphy, especially that which has been consciously developed as an art form.


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A book develops a life of its own once it’s published, and you don’t know who, if anyone, will pick it up and read it. One of the things that worried me as a new author was the thought that some readers might be upset by things in my book, Numbers, which were too close to home. Although the basic premise of the book – that a girl can see death dates in other people’s eyes - requires a suspension of disbelief, I tried to make the rest of it contemporary and relevant. But then I worried that it might be too relevant, and could upset someone who’s in foster care, facing serious illness either their own or of someone close to them, a victim of a terrorist outrage, or whose parents have died.


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I write early in the morning, after rising out of my bed and refreshing myself in the shower. On these occassions I will only have about two hours, as have to leave for work at 8am. After a day working, I pop to the gym on my way home and start writing around 7pm for several hours. My note book accompanies me throughout the day which I use to note anything of interest, ideas or descriptions that I witness or think of. I find that I write better in the evening, whilst sat at my desk in my bedroom. I write in silence, but often ideas materialise whilst I am talking to people, or busy shopping. I can not write with the television on, or with people in the room.
I am not lacking ideas, maybe just a little time. My aim is to write full time, but at the moment, as many writers still need to work. Perhaps the next step is to work part time, so I can increase my writing hours. I write about 1500 words a day and would love to increase this.
I am curious as to writers habits. You may be a full or part time professional, published, novice looking to be published or a writer that enjoys it as a hobby. How do you best find inpiration? Where do you write the best work? In what conditions do you write best? Are you systematic to your approach or do you write as inspiration comes to you? If you have a little time, it would be lovely to hear about your writing habits.
Carlton Relf

Ruth's diary is the new novel by Fiona Robyn, called Thaw. She has decided to blog the novel in its entirety over the next few months, so you can read it for free.

Ruth's first entry is below, and you can continue reading tomorrow here.
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These hands are ninety-three years old. They belong to Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. She was so frail that her grand-daughter had to carry her onto the set to take this photo. It’s a close-up. Her emaciated arms emerge from the top corners of the photo and the background is black, maybe velvet, as if we’re being protected from seeing the strings. One wrist rests on the other, and her fingers hang loose, close together, a pair of folded wings. And you can see her insides.
The bones of her knuckles bulge out of the skin, which sags like plastic that has melted in the sun and is dripping off her, wrinkling and folding. Her veins look as though they’re stuck to the outside of her hands. They’re a colour that’s difficult to describe: blue, but also silver, green; her blood runs through them, close to the surface. The book says she died shortly after they took this picture. Did she even get to see it? Maybe it was the last beautiful thing she left in the world.
I’m trying to decide whether or not I want to carry on living. I’m giving myself three months of this journal to decide. You might think that sounds melodramatic, but I don’t think I’m alone in wondering whether it’s all worth it. I’ve seen the look in people’s eyes. Stiff suits travelling to work, morning after morning, on the cramped and humid tube. Tarted-up girls and gangs of boys reeking of aftershave, reeling on the pavements on a Friday night, trying to mop up the dreariness of their week with one desperate, fake-happy night. I’ve heard the weary grief in my dad’s voice.


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"I've taken horrible liberties with folklore and mythology, but I'm quite unashamed about that, because British folklore and British mythology is a totally bastard mythology. You know, we've been invaded by people, we've appropriated their gods, we've taken their mythical creatures, and we've soldered them all together to make, what I would say, is one of the richest folklores in the world, because it's so varied. So I feel no compunction about borrowing from that freely, but adding a few things of my own."
J.K. Rowling

“To be honest, after our persistent ‘collaborations’ with Goya, we’re the last people on earth to claim the sanctity of authorship.”
Jake Chapman

The debate about the alleged plagiarism by J.K. Rowling continues to rage. I’m no expert on copyright, but I have an interest in the matter. My creative drive, you see, is in taking work that already exists and making something new out of it.


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When you spend as much time propping up the bar as I do, sooner or later you're bound to come across some joker with an attitude. Ahem. This week it was my turn to be on the receiving end, and naturally my sense of outrage and indignation knew no bounds, until I got to thinking what exactly it was that had caused me offence.

An opinion, aired in the spirit of lively debate, is one thing: if it's one I don't agree with I can argue with you, attempt to change your mind with well-deployed facts and dazzling polemic, or if it happens that your voice is louder (ahem again) I can choose not to challenge you and suggest we 'agree to disagree.'

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Characters can come from anywhere. They can be earthlings or moon people, half-man half-beast, they can be folks the writer knows well, or slightly, or perhaps someone glimpsed briefly on a crowded subway platform never to be seen again.

Characters can also come out of pure imagination, as a compilation of people and events that create a fire in the writer’s mind, something that can’t be put out with a hose or by beating it down with a rug. It can be a seed that irritates the writer’s brain, a type of fantasy, much like the fantasy of sand that irritates the oyster to form a pearl. Then over time this seed (pearl) connects to an egg that makes an embryo into a fully formed character. A birth!

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In putting together the list of Books for Writers, over there in Resources on the right-hand sidebar (which I keep adding to, and welcome more of your favourites in the comments), I realised that there's one kind of book I really, really wish someone would compile. There's nothing I enjoy more than a happy ten minutes (half hour... hour... Remind me what I was looking up?) pootling about in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, for example. But if I'm really in full, writerly cry, what I want is reverse dictionaries and encyclopaedias.

For example, as a word-nerd I might be idly curious about a piece of slang, either its origin or its meaning, but when I'm writing what I really, really want is something which where I can look up the polite word, and be offered a whole slew of rude ones, some of which I'll have thought of, some of which I'll be reminded of, and some of which will be new and delicious.There is such a book, for slang at least: Jonathon Green's Slang Thesaurus, but it's not in print and, compared to his magisterial Dictionary of Slang for Cassell, it's a slimmish volume, without dates, which are essential not just for hist-fickers, but for anyone tangling with anything as shifting in time and place as slang.

But where are all the other reverse reference books?

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In no-choice economy class at the Arcola an empty adjacent seat is almost a necessity, so being told to close gaps for a full house wasn’t good news. It’s a tribute to Thomas Bernhard’s prose that the first half, despite its 85 minute length, keeps the audience spellbound.


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