Kate

@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]

I’m very sorry you and your son have had to cope with a cancer diagnosis, @skylark.

I’ve never signed up to any social media and so far haven’t felt tempted. Not just the polarised views but the amount of time it can take up!

I’m glad you were able to translate real life into other real life, as it were, @Daedalus . Sounds a very successful strategy.

BTW, please can I ask you a question about linseed oil in biplanes? Was it used or have I imagined this? If it was, presumably pilots and passengers would have been able to smell it?

I know that Brexit and politics in general has had an impact on my writing because I found myself getting more and more sucked into arguing on Facebook and Twitter and that, I have come to realise, is the worse kind of political discussion because there is never any nuance. It is all so polarised. But I found it hard to switch off from and it…[Read more]

I agree that the political situation over the last few years has been difficult and distracting. I suspect it has affected both my writing and my mental health.

I can name one effect Brexit has had directly on my writing. On the night of the referendum, I had run out of time to finish the William the Conqueror novel I was co-writing with…[Read more]

What a wholly satisfying tale Libby. Thank you.

The Future (399 words with title)

I awake dry mouthed and tight headed but without the regret usual to such mornings. Sunlight warms the floorboards and in the lane outside my lodging a song thrush rings out his tunes as if he sees something new.

Last night in Sedham’s rooms, while enjoying his Madeira wine and Spanish sherry, I drank down S…[Read more]

I sympathise with you, Richard, over reading more politics than normal. I was the same then got cross with myself not least because it stole time from other things.

I think some involvement, however, can make one feel better. There are many causes still to fight for – environmental and social – if one is that way inclined. Though preservation of…[Read more]

I think the premise might have been plausible, Jane and Amanda. If I’ve got this right, the telephone lines between the front line and HQ had been cut and therefore the regiment (?) on the front line didn’t have up to date intelligence. The idea was to get the despatch drivers to update the officers on the front line so that they wouldn’t make an…[Read more]

Yeah, that doesn’t sound so plausible! Libby, I agree with Jane – that sounds much more interesting.

Hello Amanda, it doesn’t sound my kind of thing either. One thing the reviewers said in its favour was how balletic and choreographed it was. Coincidentally I saw a short silent film – 5 minutes or so – a while ago which depicted the Western Front by using only two male dancers in uniform, dancing in slow motion and getting tangled up with each…[Read more]

Hello, Libby 🙂 It sounding less and less like my sort of film.

Hello, Sandra! That all sounds brilliant! I think I must have missed that last year in amidst the chaos. What are they called? I’ll look them up x

That’s a shame, Jane. What was the basic premise? I’m not that big a fan of war films with a few notable exceptions.

Waving back at you, Janette. It’s lovely to familiar faces here. It’s a shame it’s been quiet but these things sometimes go in phases. It was always going to be hard to build something up from scratch after the Cloud.

I empathise with where you are writing-wise. I got like that in 2012 when my children’s novel just wasn’t getting any interest and…[Read more]

I haven’t seen 1917, Jane, but the review on either Front Row or Saturday Review concluded that it was a rather unengaging film. I think they ascribed this partly to the camera technique.

Still here also (and elsewhere!) and glad to say one 2019 resolution was fulfilled by my self-pubbing the first three of my ‘Love triangles with murder’ series, so now I’ve got book 4 to a near-beta read stage and begun book 6.