Archive For: writing and story telling
When I was a social worker listening closely was a big part of my job and I’m sure that has helped me to write believable dialogue. What one deduces from what other people say is another matter, I think. Some of my musings on this have informed my novel ‘Timed Out’. In the passage quoted ... Read More
Like ‘Brief Encounter 2012’, this story concerns internet dating but has nothing whatsoever to do with my protagonist in ‘Timed Out’. It was first published in ‘Click to Click: Tales of Internet Dating‘, also edited by me. And it was greeted with enthusiasm by a small company planning to produce a short film … but ... Read More
Jane Lambert in Timed Out , my first novel, does internet dating. But there the resemblance ends. Brief Encounter 2012 From Click to Click: Tales of Internet Dating, ed Barbara Lorna Hudson, Kindle e-book, 2012. A railway station isn’t like an airport. A few meeters and greeters, but not so much exuberance, fewer demonstrations of ... Read More
I’ve just read a news story about a personal shopper who, in a fit of jealousy, destroyed her boyfriend’s (ex-boyfriend’s, surely?) expensive clothes. The female protagonist in my second novel is a personal shopper and I know better than to have her behave like that – personal shoppers have too much respect for expensive clothes ... Read More
With my DeQuervain’s tenosynovitis (posh person’s repetitive strain injury), I’ve been writing less and reading more. And Going to Things. Less of a home body and more of a woman about town on the cultural scene in Oxford. Blackwell’s Bookshop hosted an author event with Roma Tearne on her latest novel ‘The Last Pier’. I ... Read More
Advice and sympathy are pouring – or rather, trickling – in. When I last blogged I was waiting for inspiration for my third novel while waiting for the verdict of The Oxford Editors on my second. The verdict was very encouraging and I have done a little revising and now wonder where to send it. ... Read More
I’ve just dug up this little report, written in 2013 as part of my final submission after the Guardian/University of East Anglia Certificate course on the Novel. I thought that rather than deleting it I would share it, since it may be of interest or use to others. My novel ‘Timed Out’ has been accepted ... Read More
Special event at Blackwell’s: a workshop by that excellent writer and teacher Richard Skinner, Head of Fiction at the Faber Academy. We began with a mini story-telling task relating the events of our Sunday. (Mine was singularly event-free.) He had us cut our words and twist our paragraphs around and for most of us that ... Read More
‘Timed Out’, my first novel, now has a publisher, Driven Press. And ‘Makeover‘, my second, has gone for a manuscript assessment with The Oxford Editors along with a list of issues that are bothering me. For example: Are the two alternating points of view/’voices’ clearly differentiated or will I be accused of head-hopping? I have ... Read More
Imagine a beautiful woman on killer heels standing unsteadily under a lamp post in a dark street. She’s got lost on the way to what may be the most important engagement of her life. It is six fifteen on a July evening in Oxford, England. See what I mean about a really nice bit of ... Read More