Nothing Much This Week

Over the last couple of evenings, I’ve just three book reviews for my Dear Reader blog.  I know some of my followers aren’t too bothered by book reviews, but I’d really appreciate it if you would take a look.  Just this once.   The books I reviewed are:

‘Katharina Luther Nun Rebel Wife’ by Anne Boileau.  As you’ve probably worked out from the name and the title, this is a biography of Martin Luther’s wife, but she was quite a girl.

‘American Notes for General Circulation’ by Charles Dickens (his research for Martin Chuzzlewit, btw, and… revealing the identity of the real Eden swamp.)

‘Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death’ by James Runcie.  The first of a series in cosy crime, and, apparently, appearing in a series on ITV.  (How do I miss this sort of thing?  Too busy writing (no, working) to watch telly, that’s what.)  Five more to read.  Bliss.  Plenty of dark winter evenings left.

What I’m saying is that, having written three book reviews, I think I’ve done my duty, and so I’m not posting on this – writing – blog this week.

Enjoy half-term week.

 

 

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Writing a Novel: Cutting Out The B.S

If you’re writing a novel, this is all very good stuff.

Sorry nothing from me this week. Am awaiting learning observation in… 40 minutes. Very scary! Ask any teacher.

Blog About Writing

The more I try to write a novel, the more I feel like I’m learning to write all over again.

I’ve got until the end of January to get the second draft done and sent off for a critique, so now I’m going through the first draft (which is as rough as a bear’s bum) and:

1. making a list of all the scenes (so many mad ideas! Some to be jettisoned, some to be expanded).
2. sorting out the ‘backstory’ and putting those pages into a pile of their own, clearly (and rather appropriately), labelled ‘BS’.

When I went on a novel-writing weekend last October, I was told in no uncertain terms, that my first 5000 words were (pah!) ‘backstory’ (ie: stuff that comes before the ‘narrative frame’ of the novel) and, it seems, that’s a typical rookie mistake.

Another delegate on the course confided that she’d had to…

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Help Me Raise £250 For The Dogs Trust By Leaving Me A Link To Your Blog

Even this cat-lover says… The Dog’s Trust is a good cause.

Hugh's Views & News

The Christmas tree is up, but something is missing. There are no gifts under it, and I need your help to put that right.

For this year’s Christmas charity appeal, I’m asking you to help me raise up to £365 for The Dogs Trust.

The Dogs Trust, formerly known as the National Canine Defence League, is an animal welfare charity and humane society in the United Kingdom which specialises in the well-being of dogs. Click here to go to their website.

Want to get involved? Here’s what you need to do.

1. In the comments section of this post, leave the name of your blog and a link to it. This can be a link to your ‘about me’ page, a favourite blog post you’ve published, or the home page of your blog.
2. If you’re an author, you’re also welcome to leave me a link to any books you have published. So, for…

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Bad Blogger/ Bad Writer Has No Time

Those that think they know say that a writer should always find time to write, and that no excuses are acceptable.  Really?

At the beginning of this month I was on a roll, writing novel chapters on trains, but I’m ashamed to say, Dear Reader, that I haven’t written a word since.  Not even a comma.  And, keen watchers of this blog – like you, DR – will have noted that I didn’t post last week on this blog, although I did take part in the Katherine Blessan blog tour on the Dear Reader blog.

So what major tragedies have occurred in the Johnson household, so as to prevent me writing?  Er, none, DR. It’s just that life and work has got in the way, finishing off the last few courses I was teaching, visiting friends and family, and looking after grandchildren last week, and tomorrow.  I’m typing this post on my iPad on the bed settee in my daughter’s living room, at 11.30pm.  Next week we’re off on hols in Ireland.

I can provide a list of things I should’ve done and have not done, including not writing story for my writing group on Tuesday, not taking part in Wendy H Jones’s webinar this evening, not making curtains for spare bedroom and not deadheading roses in garden.  Are proper writers a different breed?  Do they not have roses or families?  Do they not have to work?  Do they not have husbands they like to spend time with occasionally?  (He and I went to Anglesey Abbey today – see photo below of the tiger lilies in the Anglesey Abbey formal garden, which we would like to havin our garden.) 

Am I missing something?

Review on Dear Reader

There’s a review of ‘Rooks at Dusk’ by Chick Yuill on The Other Site.  Do take a look.

Yet Another Review on Dear Reader Blog

There’s a new review on the Dear Reader blog – of  An Insubstantial Death by Hilary Creed.  Do take a look.

Another one, book-lovers.  Previously, before I created the Dear Reader blog, I was aware that all I was doing on Write On was writing book reviews.  Now I have my dedicated book review site, and there are some really good books on there.  What I don’t like, I don’t review.   Maybe those of you who are readers might like to follow Dear Reader.

Also, writers out there, I’m happy to review your book.

Another Review on ‘Dear Reader’ Blog

There’s a new review on the Dear Reader blog – of  Trying to Fly by Annie Try.  Do take a look.  It’s too late, and I’m too tired, to write anything more.   Sorry.

There’s a Review on Dear Reader…

I have just reviewed K A Hitchins’ excellent book about an autistic girl, ‘The Girl at the End of the Road’ on my other blog, Dear Reader.  Please take a look.  Those of you who might have tried the Facebook or Twitter link this morning may have been disappointed, as the post managed to delete itself overnight.  Many apologies.  Fortunately, I managed to get it back, by clicking on revisions and copying and pasting pages of html.  Ho-hum.

Will write a proper post on this blog soon.  At the moment, I’m trying to write-write and build the church website, and do three part-time jobs, and do family stuff.

“Hey! That Was My Idea!”

A lot of useful information here. In my real life, I used to teach copyright, and my students surprised by two things:
1. Copyright is presumed.
Putting (c) on a piece of work is for information only.
2. Titles are not copyright. One of my published stories has the title ‘Us and Them’ (and I didn’t get sued by Pink Floyd).
3. As Helen says in the article below, ideas are not copyright.

Blog About Writing

Did you hear the story of the newcomer to a writers’ group who refused to share his work in a meeting, in case someone ‘stole’ his ideas?

It’s only natural to be protective of our ideas – after all, they’re the lifeblood of writers – but was that an over-reaction or was he right to be worried? And if our ideas are used by someone else, is there anything we can do about it, or even learn from the experience?

Firstly, remember, there’s no copyright on ideas, so even if yours is ‘stolen’ and you may consider it a moral theft, there’s no legal redress. Copying an idea is not the same as plagiarism – which means to directly copy someone’s written work and pass it off as your own.

An idea, until it’s expressed in some tangible form, doesn’t actually exist. The only way to protect an idea is…

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History About to Be Lost: Hard Times (After World War 2)

Your bad blogger is trying to get into gear again.   When was my last post, Dear Reader?  5 January.  5 January?  Some bloggers are at it every day… posting, that is.  I’d like to share with you some more ‘History About to Be Lost’.

Everybody is aware that life in the Lancashire cotton mills was tough during the mid-nineteenth century, when Charles Dickens was writing ‘Hard Times’ and Elizabeth Gaskell ‘North and South’.  Maybe you ‘did’ the Industrial Revolution at school, but I try to find the little things that won’t appear in the history books, the sorts of details you would definitely need if you were writing a historical novel.   Last week I was talking to my friend a week or so ago about life in Lancashire immediately after World War 2.

A mother of three daughters – aged eight, five and eighteen months – loses her husband in the late 1940s.   She lived in a terraced house, on a street of terraced houses, cheek by jowl with her neighbours – this is important.   With a widow’s pension of only 15 shillings per week, she had no alternative but to go out to work at the local mill; this involves leaving the house at 7am and returning early evening.  In the mornings, a neighbour helped the daughters get up and make breakfast, then the girls walked to school together, dropping the youngest off at the childminder’s on their way.  At going-home time, they let themselves into their house and looked after themselves until their mother returns.  No harm came to them, because the neighbours always kept a watchful eye on them.   My friend refers to her neighbours as ‘aunties’, but they were more than that to her and her family.

Occasionally, the mill put the mother on short-time working, reducing her tight income further.  The neighbours got together to make large hot pots, some families contributing the meat, some the vegetables, some even less.  They all ate together.

There are no working cotton mills in Lancashire now.  If you want to see what one was like, visit National Trust Quarry Bank.  We did last autumn – it was fascinating, especially the deafening mechanical looms – but, when I suggested that my friend might like to go when she next visited Lancashire, she shuddered.    Maybe you have some memories of the Lancashire cotton mills, or factories elsewhere?  Dear Reader and I would love to hear from you.

You may not hear from me again for a while.  I’m going to the Association of Christian Writers Retreat over the weekend, then I’m off to India for a fortnight.  I may however use the time I’m sitting in the aeroplane to write up some book reviews for Dear Reader blog.