What makes a story good? I see this question asked by many people, of many people. An author is perhaps the worst person to ask for an answer. If they are any good, they aren't working to a formula. They…
Category: reading
OK never
A Twitter friend of mine - a very talented writer by the name of Jacinta Horgan - put me on to a book called The Exact Opposite of Okay by Laura Steven. This Young Adult novel is as powerful and…
My words!
For research, I have been reading rather a lot of erotica. For research purposes. I don't do it to enjoy myself.Here's my take on a good erotic short:1. Reasonably credible plot and characters. The characters have to have reasons to…
For all love
There are writers, and there is Patrick O'Brian. In the wake of C S Forester and his popular Hornblower series of Napoleonic naval fiction, there were several who explored this area. Battles against the French, the weather, the times, and…
Crash test smarties
Yesterday I spoke about finding and hopefully fixing a major problem in my writing strategy, I think I've got it covered, but that just came out of the blue at me.I don't know yet what I'm doing wrong. Only yesterday…
A library in my pocket
I am allowed ten books at any one time on my Kindle Unlimited shelf. Perhaps my appetites were bigger than my eyes, because I found that I reached that limit very quickly, and if I saw another book that looked…
Goodreads, good writes
Yesterday I talked about reading Katrina England's book "Writing and Publishing Erotica" and how I'd written down some of the things she advised for new authors. I'd already joined Goodreads, which is a site I heartily recommend to anyone interested…
Reading allowed
I'm now well into expanding Coding by Candlelight beyond The Hot Bits - though rest assured are some very steamy scenes to be added - and I wanted to see how it would read aloud. That's a handy trick to…