RichardB

I feel much the same way, Squidge. I never have been able to get on with charts, graphs, grids or any other kind of science-ish analysis. I’m not knocking it for those who find it useful, but my eyes start to glaze over when faced with such stuff, and it seems to place a barrier between me and my creativity (if any). I suppose I might conceivably…[Read more]

SloMo – definitely sounds like my kind of thing. I’d be up for it. Might encourage me to get a bit more editing done on the notorious ghost story.

Yes, there’s something to be said for leaving all the polishing until the editing, and I’m sure it works for some, but not for me. If something I’ve written doesn’t satisfy me, it niggles at me until I’ve put it right.

Can’t say I’ve ever felt tempted. I find rigid targets counter-productive, and I fear that if I were concerning myself with the number of my words rather than the quality I’d churn out crap. And I can’t bear to write crap, even temporarily. Quality over quantity for me, any day. Yes, I’m slow, but I usually get there in the end.

A Cuckoo in the Nest?

Hmm. Possibly a bit of a cliché, but the image seems apt.

One of those moments that tend to restore your faith in human nature. And yes, very moving.

I can understand how this man feels, but I also remember that the coxswain turned away some of those who did make it to the lifeboat station. Who’s to say he might not have been one of them?

If you want to experience the full admiration for the courage of those men, you need to watch that BBC film and listen to Russell Smith’s eyewitness account…[Read more]

The BBC documentary gives the false impression (without actually saying so) that the moment that transmission broke off was the end of the Solomon Browne. That makes for an emotional moment in the programme, but was not the case, since it was seen afterwards. For what it’s worth, I believe that it suffered another violent impact with the Union…[Read more]

Jane, you are welcome to read it. I’m in the throes of revising it after laying it aside for three years, so a fresh perspective will be useful.

Oops. Sorry!

By the way, you might like to know that Rosalind doesn’t lose the baby. She’s only a month or two into her pregnancy.

Okay, Jane, here is my violent passage. I’ve left in a bit on the front to put it in context. Two words in your ear:

1) Just to explain any weirdness, this is a ghost story.
2) In addition to the violence, contains sex and a little naughty language.

Okay, here we go.

Smiling down into his face, she began to pump her hips. Joey came to meet…[Read more]

I had a problem like this in my last effort, and it cost me more sweat than anything else in that story. It was all the harder because it was a husband beating up his wife. I really didn’t want to go there and tried everything to skate round it, but the plot demanded that I meet it head-on. In the end I did almost exactly what Jonathan suggests: I…[Read more]

I’m rather good at that too. Though how would I Know? In concrete terms I haven’t actually had any writing successes.