If you haven’t read Bram Stoker’s 1897 classic Dracula, go out and find a copy now. My friend had been recommending it stridently for many years, but only recently did it catch my eye in an airport bookshop. I was looking for a romp that would keep me distracted on a long flight, which pitted…
Long sentences are bad, we are told. The enemy of plain English. Today the average sentence is 14.4 words long, and that’s less than a quarter of what it was 200 years ago. The UK Government has gone as far as to mandate a maximum count of 25 words in official publications. (For reference, if…
Where have I been? You may have noticed it has been months since my last post. I would love to be able to reveal that my silence was because I was on a highly classified government mission to deepest Antarctica, or I that I finally took part in that round-the-world blimp race I’d always had…
Taika Waititi was a surprising choice of director of the third movie in the Thor series, Thor: Ragnarok. Primarily known for his quirky, feel-good comedies—most recently the surprise hit of 2016, Hunt for the Wilderpeople—Waititi does not seem a natural fit for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But it works. And not only does it work,…
This website gets a lot of spam. Most it is in Russian or is trying to update me on the latest developments in erectile disfunction management, but sometimes those spam-bots are just downright friendly. For example: ‘You are a very intelligent person!’ – Abet Spzoo Thanks, Abet Spzoo. The internet can be a quiet and…
The winners of the 2017 NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge have just been announced, and I am pleased to announce I am one of them! Sort of. My final story landed me an ‘honourable mention’, sufficient for a handful of minor prizes, but just outside the cash. I’m totally excited about the outcome and proud…
For those of you who have been hanging out to see how I fared in the next round of the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge following my success in the first heat, I am pleased to announce that my next story, Crossing the Thin Blue Line, just won through the second heat! This time the…
I just hatched a Pikachu from a 2km egg. The moment has changed my life. Let me explain. My boys and I have been playing Pokemon Go for a few weeks now. We have traveled dozens of kilometres together, caught hundreds of pokemon, battled a few gyms, hatched countless eggs. I even spend my lunch…
I came across this review of Hunters in the Dark by Lawrence Osborne, written by none other than Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher novels. I’ve pulled out his intro below, which contains an uncomplicated and practical definition of ‘literary’ as opposed to ‘suspense’ writing. A valuable distinction for genre writers wanting to move…
My final post as blogger-in-residence for the ACT Writers Centre can be found here (or below, as usual). Thanks for coming along for the ride, and prepare for the brutal honesty… Keeping the Dream Alive I want to be a writer. For the longest time I found this difficult to admit. I guess I thought…