Sylvia

Oh wow! That brings back memories. I heard Pete Atkin (without Clive James) at a soaking wet Bristol Folk Festival sometime in the early 70s, and again in Cardiff Student Union. And I loved his music. I had a Clive James/Pete Atkin LP from that time, but it is one of the many that I sold when I moved to a single room in Scotland in 1980.

As for…[Read more]

Hi @johnalty it’s good to be back, though it would help if I came back and then didn’t disappear again for months! Sigh. I have good intentions and then life happens…

@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]

@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]

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]

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

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]

Haha, a dead body will certainly shake things up. I’m sorting out all the obvious problems and then I need to pass it on to fresh eyes so that they can tell me all the problems I can’t see. And hopefully they will tell me the story is strong enough…

You’re tempting me with Little Women… Should I go and see 1917 too?

Jane, I’m the opposite as my first draft is very sparse and I need to work out what needs more and what’s fine as it is, plus working out if the story is strong enough which is probably my biggest worry. It’s gloomy here too. Hibernation weather! I’ve not seen Little Women. In two minds about watching yet another remake but it seems to be getting…[Read more]