What is it that makes us who we are? In the space of a few days, the world has lost three wonderfully individual and very different men: Lemmy, David Bowie and Alan Rickman were all hugely significant in their own artistic spheres and massively influential in my own personal sphere, too. It’s strange how the…
‘The Good Son’ by Paul McVeigh
The Good Son Ten-year-old Michael Donnelly has a dog called Killer, an almost-telepathic relationship with his sister Wee Maggie, and a bit of a crush on the girl down the street. He’s also got a father who breaks promises and a bullish older brother who calls him ‘gay’. When Michael finds a gun in the…
Getting the Word Out
As mentioned in my previous post, one of my tasks for this year is to get folk interested in my books (and ideally, buying them). As there are several ways to do that, I decided to tackle a couple of things I’ve been putting off: The Mailing List Reviews But before doing that, I thought…
Resolutions and Other Irritations
As my mate John Lennon used to say (when we were in The Beatles together), “Another year over – a new one just begun”. So as the New Year approaches, I’ll be making a few resolutions. Or not, as the case may be. In fact, what I’ll actually…
This Year Winding Down Now…
Misquoting Dylan Thomas is as good a way as any to start one of my final posts of 2015. As the year draws to a close, it’s always useful (I like to think) to look back on all my achievements in the last twelve months. Naturally, I wouldn’t be doing this if I hadn’t achieved…
Blackwater Lake by Maggie James
Blackwater Lake Back from his idyllic life in Crete, Matthew is somewhat disinclined to spend time at his family home – with a house chock-full of junk and rubbish, his mother’s hoarding habit holds only negative memories. Inevitably, he can’t avoid it forever, but discovering his mother is dying, turns out to be only the…
Paperback Writer – Making Books
While thousands of Indie authors get published via the eBook route, thousands more are venturing into the world of paperbacks. Over recent months I’ve been seeing more and more blog posts about one of the popular options – Createspace – so I thought it was time I found out a bit more… Createspace is an…
The Mangle Street Murders by MRC Kasasian
The Mangle Street Murders When March Middleton goes to live with her guardian, the ‘personal’ detective Sidney Grice, she is faced with two problems: firstly, how is she ever going to live in the same house with a man so annoying, so irritatingly contrary and so stuffed with self-importance that she can barely get a…
First Drafts and Other Hurricanes
Ernest Hemingway once said, “The first draft of everything is shit.” Maybe it is, but it also depends on what you term to be a First Draft. As my approach to writing has changed a bit over the years, I no longer write and edit as I go along, but instead, simply write until I…
Stand Up and Write!
Some years ago, I hosted a writing course with the above title. I forget why I worded it this way, since the course was certainly not about standing up to write, however, this post is about that very activity – writing standing up. Ernest Hemingway famously wrote standing up. Even though he apparently had a ‘tower workroom’ which…
Colin Garrow 