Jackie Wesley

Libby said:

Thank you for the blog, Richard.
A school friend was a fan of Fairport and Denny. I enjoyed listening but not enough to keep up an interest after school. Was the house in Hampshire Headley ?Grange. Led Zep recorded there. I still listen to them occasionally but after I left school I switched to classical and have stayed there ever…[Read more]

I don’t think that parallel had occurred to me until I heard it pointed out by Ashley Hutchings himself. I recently found a video on YouTube of the song being performed at Cropredy, I think about five years ago, and before they begin Hutchings chats about how they discovered and recorded the song, ending with, ‘It was to take on a new meaning…[Read more]

Stunning, Raine.

Well done, Janette!

Just Another Night at the Theatre.

Suspenders. Check.
Stockings. Check.
Corset and lacy panties. Check.
Stilettos.Check.
Pearl necklace. Make up to die for. Check.
Lab coat. Check.
Rubber gloves. Check.
Rice, torch, water pistol, newspaper, confetti, party hat, rubber gloves. Check.
Sense of humour. Check.
Willingness to participate.…[Read more]

As per Neil Gaiman’s fifth rule of writing:

‘Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.’

Oh – and contractions? Bunkum! If you have a distinctly voiced character, they will ‘think’ and describe in contractions just as much as they use them in dialogue. I’d have no luck with this editor cos I often write voice with contractions…makes it more real to me as the writer, and immerses the reader in the story, in my experience.

Is it worth having a look at how you’ve used ‘I’, Doug? If you’re using it frequently, then yes, definitely worth looking up psychic distance. There’s a big difference between ‘I sit at the table near the window. Outside, I see a man fighting to keep his brolly up in the wind and rain’, and ‘I sit at the table near the window and watch the man…[Read more]

Having written an entire novel in colloquial first person a la Catcher in the Rye, having made a conscious effort to break through my inhibitions about departing from Oxford (or Queen’s, or formal – call it what you will) English to do so, and having found the process liberating and rather fun, I’ll give a heartfelt ‘Hear, hear!’ to that. Okay,…[Read more]

Well bugger me. Apparently, if you just copy and paste a URL into here, without bothering with that ‘link’ button, it links automatically. You live and learn.

It occurs to me that one reason for over-use of ‘I’, or any other pronoun come to that, is filtering. This is another cause of the ‘frustrating distance’ Libby mentions, and Emma Darwin (Who else?) explains it far better than I could.

My immediate and visceral reaction to both criticisms was ‘Bollocks!’ If writing in first person, what other pronoun is there for you to use? How are you going to avoid the pronoun? If writing in third person, does the same criticism apply to ‘he, ‘she’ or ‘they?’ I suspect the real problem is not with the pronoun itself but with the style. As for…[Read more]

Congratulations! Fab news!

Well done Libby. Excellent entries from all.
Happy New Year!

‘Instant hit of relateable truth’: yes, that a good way of putting it.

Jane, if you got a result you haven’t been wasting your time, have You?