Claire Waller

Haha Odo the lurcher will always have a special place in my heart but I was talking of bishop Odo – who behaved exactly as a bishop was not supposed to both in going to war bearing arms and in other matters 🙂

Yes, Flying to the Edge. It’s a slight connection, but it’s there

Yes, when I first started on An Argument, I kept thinking ‘Who’s that?’ and ‘What’s going on here?’ I soon got into it, but a straight-through read would avoid those little glitches.

So what’s your last NF book? I’ve lost track. Flying to the Edge?

@jillybean Odo the bishop of Bayeux or Odo the lurcher?

Wow, thanks Richard, thanks all. I’d be interested to hear how a back-to-back read feels, actually. The two books were written together in the first instance, although there was a lot of editing in the mean time, so it ought to work as a flowing narrative. The second one definitely has the advantage of pace – the history definitely felt as though…[Read more]

Thanks, Richard. I’m so glad you enjoyed the books. (Hopefully there will be future collaborations at some point 😉 ) I love Gallet, and I’m oddly partial to Odo too 🙂

As the frog said, ‘Read it.’ I’m not that big on historical fiction and it took me a while to get into An Argument of Blood (though it turned out to be worth it), but A Black Matter for the King is a corker and had me gripped from first to last.

Aelfgifa (can’t do the dipthong) is a really compelling character, which is all the more impressive…[Read more]

Is this the kind of thing peeps meant? Still needs a tweak or two, yet, but…

By Tilda’s twenty-sixth attempt to produce an illuminorb, Silviu’s patience was wearing thin.

“Concentrate, Tilda,” the Ambakian powermage snapped.

“I am concentrating.” Tilda rubbed her palm against her trouser leg. It felt hot; surely she must’ve been close to…[Read more]

Yeah. I recommend not posting Thompson’s regime as writing advice

So would I.

‘We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers… Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.’

Er, no…

You mean this one?
Schedule

Anquetil had a comment for that, too – it was something along the lines of ‘you expect us to do what we do on mineral water alone?’

If there was a performance enhancing drug for writing, I’d be sorely tempted by it right now. (Not sure Hunter S Thompson’s idea of such a thing counts, btw)

He left out ‘Take the dope, take the dope, take the dope.’ Though i’m not sure what the equivalent would be for writers.

Thanks Jonathan, Raine – more food for thought!

Glad you’d read on, though… 😉

So glad to hear this, Claire. I don’t recall hearing anything from you since you blogged on the Cloud about your first meeting with your agent, and that seems ages ago (though yes, glacial pace is about it). I’ve been wondering what happened, so this is all the more welcome. Congratulations.

Well that’s just unreasonable WB 😉

Jacques Anquetil, first five time winner of the Tour de France was once asked what advice he’d give aspiring bike racers. ‘Ride a bike, ride a bike, ride a bike’ was his answer. The equivalent for aspiring writers could be ‘write a book, write a book, write a book’.

Fantastic news CJ. Can’t wait to read!!