Straw Into Gold : Writing, Reading, Making

I’m working on the second draft of my memoir/fictionalised autobiography – keeping to a straight forward chronological structure, from earliest memories until now. At the same time, I’m doing a lot of thinking about a better structure. One of the problems with my current linear approach is that the first twenty thousand words are in …

It’s hard to know when to give up, especially on a piece of work which has taken years, but I’ve reached that point with my second novel. Another rejection arrived today, and it confirmed a decision I’d already made. Compared with the first novel, it collected a lot of personalised rejections, with praise for my …

Yesterday I discovered my memoir piece, “If…” was shortlisted for the Fish Short Memoir Prize. I am so encouraged by this – for a couple of reasons. First, when I wrote it, I instinctively felt it was a piece of writing I could be proud of, and I submitted it unusually soon after I wrote …

This meme surfaces on Facebook with depressing regularity. I wrote about it on my expired blog back in 2015, but I saw it again earlier this week. There seem to be a never ending stream of people who like and agree with it, and every time I see it, I argue. It keeps me out …

An eggcorn is a misheard word – eggcorn itself being a mishearing of the word acorn. I’ve always enjoyed the misheard lyrics – from Gladly the cross eyed bear in my childhood Sunday School days, to the more adult collection from Peter Kay which you can watch on YouTube. There’s something just a little bit …

Spoilers everywhere, so do read the book first. It’s only a very intense seventy pages or so… I read Max Porter’s Grief Is The Thing With Feathers at the end of last year (thanks Graham) and I immediately pre-ordered Lanny. I was nervous about Lanny because how could it measure up to such an extraordinary …