Jurassic Park We all know the story – a remote jungle island, genetic engineering that knows no bounds, and a bunch of humans who (mostly) think they’re in control. Naturally, the creatures Hammond and his pals create have other ideas and when given the opportunity to escape their enclosures, carnage and catastrophe can’t be far…
Category: Writing
‘The Lights Went Out and Other Stories’ by Fiona Cooke Hogan
The Lights Went Out and Other Stories Taking the ordinary and everyday, Ms Hogan weaves her fictions around seemingly unexciting people and commonplace occurrences, creating recognisable and occasionally extraordinary stories, that reflect the feelings and obsessions we all encounter from time to time. From the petty arguments and disagreements in ‘Table By the Window’ and…
How to Turn an Idea into a Novel…
All writers are asked where they get ideas from and whenever I start a new project, I often find myself wondering about the process I go through from that first spark to the finished novel. For instance, with Death on a Dirty Afternoon, I know very well where the original idea came from but I’m…
Squeeze it Like Arnie
Over the last few months I’ve read and reviewed a fair number of books, and while most of them were enjoyable (good story, interesting characters etc), I kept coming across one particular issue. Now while this issue doesn’t cause me to chuck the book out the damn window, it’s quite irksome and constantly distracts me…
How to Tweet Nice
One of the things I love about the online writing community, is how supportive everyone is, promoting each other’s books, blogs and anything else that needs a bit of publicity. However, this bonhomie doesn’t extend to everyone and there are a few writers whose work I regularly re-tweet or otherwise endorse, who rarely (if ever)…
How Songs Saved My Characters…
Writing dialogue is often a bit of a sticking points for authors and finding ways to get past it to free up our creative juices can be frustrating to say the least. These days I find dialogue quite straightforward, but a few years ago, a couple of female characters had me tearing my hair out…
5 Things I Learned from Writing
I always assumed my writing would improve as time went on, though I have to say I wasn’t sure how that would happen. With 13 titles out in the world now, it got me thinking about what I’d learned from each of my books and how that affected subsequent creations. I’ve only included my middle-grade…
‘Sandlands’ by Rosy Thornton
Sandlands From ghostly whisperings in a run-down Martello Tower (‘Whispers’) and the solemn toll of Old Jack’s bell in ‘Ringing Night’, to the unearthing of a strange talisman in ‘The Witch Bottle’, Rosy Thornton tells ordinary stories tinged with more than a hint of the odd and the unusual. In this magical collection of sixteen…
New Release by Rainy Kaye
Today, we’re celebrating the release of THE DEEPEST BLACK by USA Today Bestselling author Rainy Kaye. THE DEEPEST BLACK is 99 cents for a limited time! Check it out, then scroll all the way down to enter to win a $10 Amazon gift card! Ember has a little problem…fairies want her dead.…
How to Be a Crap Writer (Part 2)
In my previous post on the topic of being a crap writer, I looked at ways of identifying those among us who are not literary greats, and how those writers might justify churning out dross. This time, I’m interested in the kinds of basic errors many people seem to make between the title and the…
Colin Garrow 