Kate

Thank you, @Janette !

Thank you, @janeshuff . This is the first time I’ve won a monthly Den competition and I’m really pleased, and especially so as everyone else’s entries were excellent and a delight to read. Many thanks!

‘You don’t have a future, not really,’ said Gregor. He shifted his bones on the stone floor making his chains rattle.

‘Ah,’ said the philosopher, at length, ‘you’re one of those Zenonians. A Stoic I suppose. You imagine that because we can never sufficiently divide the instant we call the present, then it must be an illusion, as is the future. A…[Read more]

Thanks @RichardB 🙂

I forgot to mention that book 2 of my ‘Fortress of Malta’ series of WW2 novellas was out, but it’s now on 99p promotion on Kindle, so a good time to point it out https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bastion-Fortress-Malta-Book-2-ebook/dp/B07Y5MDLWZ/

Hi @skylark, good to see you’re back.

@squidge hello! Great to hear the Tilda series is progressing. I’ve got the first one in the queue for bedtime reading to the boys and can’t wait to see how it’s evolved from when I first read it years ago on the Cloud. I think I missed that there as going to be a remake of David Copperfield as well. I see most films at our community cinema club…[Read more]

@kazg yes, how I will laugh! I came across my very, very first shitty draft a year or so ago and it was quite something. Good to see how far I’ve come, at least!

@philippaeast Hello Philippa!! Good to see you too. I’m not sure I’m at the elbow-grease point yet. Mostly shovelling all the words into various sorting piles while scratching my head and wondering when the novel will apppear. But it’s all good. Ideas firing off all over the place. How’s it all going at your end? So excited for you. Are you not…[Read more]

Skylark! Hullo! So glad you’re here with us after such a long and difficult break. I’m not around here as often as I’d like to be either, but it’s lovely to know that the Den’s still here, even if I’m not.

First drafts are a pain, aren’t they, when you revisit and find all the issues you missed in the excitement of getting it down initially.…[Read more]

WELCOME HOME, MANDY!!!!

So great to have you back. I have been wondering how you’ve been getting on. I know a lot has gone on for you.

I’m pleased you’re engaging with your draft. It’s rough, that point int he process!

Power to your elbow…

@raine Hello! Yes, I think I’ve solved it, though it would help if everyone could just accept that in the first few chapters of my novel, Thursday becomes Friday without anyone sleeping 😀

@kazg Hello to you too! I’m feeling a bit of second book pressure, mainly because Home had the USP of a child’s voice and this one doesn’t have that so I’m…[Read more]

@libby I didn’t for a long time (esp with Twitter) and now I have, it’s hard to switch off from it as it is addictive. But I think I’m learning to manage it better to get the best bits out of it without the worst bits dragging me down.

@janeshuff I’m sorry you and your family have been through a similar thing. It does change everything. I hope…[Read more]

@Raine I like that quote (it reminds me of the fake George Orwell one). Whether it helps or not is a different question, but as Joseph Conrad pointed out, ‘action is consolatory’.

@skylark I’ve been following your family’s journey when you’ve posted on Facebook and I can’t begin to express my admiration. The strength conferred by love is…[Read more]

@libby my take on it has always been that the laxative story is apocryphal. I think you’d have to ingest an awful lot of the stuff to have any effect, and the diffusion of the oil in the exhaust would make that difficult. One version I heard was that there were all sorts of things likely to have a laxative effect on pilots of that era – alcohol…[Read more]

Thanks, @Daedalus. I’ll read the article with interest 🙂
I can use castor oil as a bit of sensory detail in my novel. It was just that I know the smell of linseed but can’t remember the smell of castor though tins of Castrol were ubiquitous during my childhood, as was the smell of oil in general.

I suspect the laxative story was probably…[Read more]

Hi @Libby – I can recommend trying to channel the emotions from current affairs into writing, although I think you have to be in a reasonably strong state to do it. It can be hard to write anything much when life has you beaten down.

Ah, oil in biplanes! I don’t know about linseed oil, but castor oil was a very common lubricant for early…[Read more]