Awaiting the Verdict

My husband is currently reading my new book. In the past he would have read it at manuscript stage but lately he’s not been well enough to shuffle four hundred loose sheets of paper. I waited until I had a bound proof to offer him. This is always a tense time for me. Naturally I want…

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Dickens Made Easy

   Here’s that Daniel Maclise portrait of young Dickens I mentioned yesterday. He didn’t improve with age, but which of us does?  Choosing a new Dickens to read proved to be fairly easy this morning. The bookshop had a long position on Nicholas Nickleby but no Barnaby Rudge or Dombey and Son. They did have Our Mutual…

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What the Dickens?

I’d kind of been ignoring the Dickens bicentenary fest. Somehow the press these days doesn’t know when enough is enough and if I read one more Charles Dickens may have blown his nose here in 1835 type article I shall surely scream. But then last Thursday Mr F and I went to an excellent lecture…

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Over-Egged

       Self-promotion is a horrible, fascinating thing. You kind of wish the person who’s doing it would stop but you kind of can’t stop watching them. ‘Dennis Arblaster,’ he says, shaking you limply by the hand whilst scanning the room for more profitable pastures. ‘Best-selling author of  The Shape-Shifters Conspiracy Enigma Papers.’ I mean, where do you go…

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Wotcher Reading?

  My daughters are not great readers, though one of them looks like she might turn out to be a late-onset writer. But most of the grandchildren are avid for books, which gives me every excuse for loitering in the Dr Seuss end of book shops, and my son, an English major, usually has something interesting to suggest.…

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Spell Cheek

        Any day now I’m going to get an exasperated message on my screen telling me my document is so full of errors that Spelling & Grammar Check can’t take it any more. I’ve taken one liberty too many and brought it to its knees. It happens every time I write a book.  ‘Good,’ I think to myself. ‘Now bugger…

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Buzz Creation Schemes

Time was, you delivered a manuscript to your editor, corrected the galleys, and your work was done. At a later date you might possibly be required to do a 3am telephone interview with Radio Whernside or go and sit behind a pile of your books in a deserted bookshop and smile bravely.  But essentially you were free to go back…

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