
Category Archives:
Anecdotes
There was that time – you won’t remember – when this man knocked on the downstairs windows of the house. The curtains were drawn and I was in my underpants. I opened the curtains and the man was crying. He asked for my mum or dad. I got on with crying too. He asked for [...]
PS3
I have a fear of doing that’s made worse by not doing, and solved only by doing some more. And it happens with writing more than anything else I can think of.
Bear with.
Posted in Writing 5 Comments
Story
Metazen published a weeny story I wrote. It’s called The Omelette, and it isn’t about mashed eggs.
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Odds
Here are the odds.
It starts with thousands of us. Not ten, or a hundred, nor a creative writing class’s worth. It’s more like a legion, or several, with millions of words between us. It’s not just you at it, either. It’s me, and it’s him down the road, her in the next town — the [...]
Posted in Writing 10 Comments
Dear Dan Brown
I’m sorry.
In the last six years, I called you a lot of naughty things. A bastard and a hack; some kind of pestilence and another sort of joke. I said you were the worst writer I’d read, oh, the worst by far. Happily, I threatened to set your point-of-sale stands on fire. And I told [...]
Posted in Writing 10 Comments
You’re a writer and nobody really cares*
There was no way to prove — actually prove, really prove — that that man was me. The story was familiar — I knew I had written it — but that name on the paper still was not me. It was a symbol, a name. It was alien. And then I realised that even if [...]
Posted in Writing 22 Comments
Nine ways to trick yourself into writing
After last week’s moan about writing anxiety, I spent the days since tricking myself back into writing. Has it worked?
Well, I’ve got myself 4,000 words for the trouble. Below, I’ve listed what I think I did better. It’s not a methodology. It’s not life-coaching for writers. But it’s something.
Use Microsoft Notepad, not Microsoft Word
Notepad looks [...]
Posted in Writing 25 Comments
Half a thought on new writing
I am pregnant with a story.
It’s overdue, but I can’t get myself into labour. It won’t crown. It’s kicking my belly but it doesn’t want to play. It’s a distraction; I feel it most of the time. It’ll be the third time. The first time it was diarrhea. The second was a textbook delivery — [...]
Posted in Writing 19 Comments





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