Neil Evans

I so wish I’d been there to hear you speak, Skylark. You may be tired of hearing it but you really do deserve your success. Not just for Home, which is a fantastic book, but for the years of contributions to everybody who knows you – the encouragement and the example and damn near 100% good nature and positivity.

@kazg Yes! I’ve found several aspects of the publishing industry quite daunting and such a relief to go to my agent and say ‘Help!’ and she’s brilliant every time!

All the colour disappeared from her world the day she moved in with him.

It’s minimalist, he told her. A blank canvas.

Surely, a blank canvas exists for the sole purpose of being filled, she wanted to say.

But didn’t, because it was all too new, too fresh, too…him. And more than anything else, she wanted him.

As time went on she still…[Read more]

I raised the same question earlier – Jules suggested putting it into the blogs like we used to, but do you mean the list of blogs we used to have on the side? It’d be lovely to have that, but I’d feel a bit funny about the Scribbles being quite so visible, because my blog certainly isn’t always about writing…

We’d also have to have some way of…[Read more]

Thanks, Daeds. It’s been an interesting exercise.

Bonjour

When we lived in La Rochelle, my governess tried to make me say ‘Bonjour,’ to people we met in the street. It was polite she said, I would never be a gentleman if I did not learn to be polite. But I was shy, and after our morning walk she would scold me, and shake me impatiently. Papa was away at the war and Maman was – distant. I knew s…[Read more]

Thanks Philippa – that does all make sense! Sounds like I need to now combine the stakes of the challenge with the overall feel…

The inciting incident isn’t actually that she can/can’t make an orb; it’s the fact that a little later, she decides to practise in secret, drains her Power and needs to refill… and at THAT point, discovers something…[Read more]

So great to read this! CONGRATULATIONS! You definitely still need an agent regardless of interest from publishers – they do all the tricky stuff like negotiating contracts and mine has been so brilliant anytime I’ve asked her about the bits of publishing I’m not so sure about. Plus she’s helped me stand my ground a couple of times on things I…[Read more]

Hooray!!

At the very least, it needs a trigger warning…