We know that books can really suck, don't we? And not just collectively, when they're out with their mates. Sometimes particular books can suck, all on their own, in their own special way...


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If you follow Strictly regularly, you'll have noticed that we occasionally ask writers a series of Quick-Fire Questions, designed to get in amongst the nitty-gritty details of their writing lives.

This morning I decided to choose five questions to ask myself, with the idea of asking you, should you choose this mission, to do the same. Here are the questions and my answers:


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If you follow Strictly regularly, you'll have noticed that we occasionally ask writers a series of Quick-Fire Questions, designed to get in amongst the nitty-gritty details of their writing lives.

This morning I decided to choose five questions to ask myself, with the idea of asking you, should you choose this mission, to do the same. Here are the questions and my answers:


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If you follow Strictly regularly, you'll have noticed that we occasionally ask writers a series of Quick-Fire Questions, designed to get in amongst the nitty-gritty details of their writing lives.

This morning I decided to choose five questions to ask myself, with the idea of asking you, should you choose this mission, to do the same. Here are the questions and my answers:


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So I'm not really blogging, because I'm buried in Devon at the entirely wonderful Retreats for You. So here, instead, is a little taste of my walk this afternoon (after 2000 words, in front of log fire, before delicious supper NOT cooked by me).

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Angie began as an illustrator of children’s books and slowly moved into writing books for toddlers. Then she allowed herself to write what had been in her head for years: Septimus Heap. She is now on the last book of the series and has a film in the offing with Warner Brothers.


Writing the Septimus Heap books has changed my life by...
... allowing me to write full time, which I had wanted to do for quite a while. Also it has been great to find that I can create something that people feel an emotional attachment to. In my previous working life as an illustrator I felt I never quite managed to do that. And of course feeling financially secure has made a big difference!



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In my quest to find fringe theatres within half an hour of Lewisham, this was a real find. First a train to Waterloo East, then a walk to the other end of The Cut - a walk full of interest, too, passing The Old and Young Vic, popular pubs and lively pavement life.



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I've blogged about procrastination before in terms of the immediate moment, but what's causing it? Why do we fail to get on with the thing we love doing: writing? We've got a lot of our lives arranged around it, and our hopes and self esteem built on it? And if you earn your living as a writer that book you're trying to write underpins everything that pays the rest of the rent. So why is Write so often, actually, Not Write?

At least commissioned work has disaster looming if you don't do it, and short work is visibly finite. But when it's book-length and not under contract... You've made space and time, you've convinced the world it's a Proper Job, you've been thinking about the new novel all weekend and now it's Monday morning. Time for work. And like riding a horse at a jump, you push yourself on towards it... and somehow the horse always manages to run out, avoid the jump, start-in-a-minute... over and over again. It's possible to spend the whole day Not-Really-Working. You end up feeling thoroughly jaded and fretful: no writing done, but nothing else worth doing done either. Then when you could take the evening/the next day/the weekend off, you don't let yourself: it's "your fault" that you've got so little done, says your Inner Calvinist, so you punish yourself by going on "working". Which most of the time is still Not-Really-Working.

So what's going on? It's obvious what one gets out of writing the next novel: I/you/we are writers heart and soul. The interesting and difficult question is what each of us gets out of Not-Writing.

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When a failing operatic troupe in the American mid-West decide to stage a performance of Verdi's Otello they hire a real Italian tenor, hearthrob Tito Merelli.(Michael Matus)

The skirt-chasing star arrives late, and quarrels with his jealous wife,(Joanna Riding) who leaves him, prompting his apparent suicide. Self-doubting but talented Max,(Damien Humley) a member of the troupe, is persuaded to take his place. Problem solved ....or is it? In the best traditon of farce, things can only become more complicated.



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I nearly didn't get to see this interesting play, which would have been a pity because I gave it four stars when I reviewed it for Remotegoat. The young man at the box office hadn't been notified that I'd be there and seemed to think I was trying out some get-into-theatres-free ruse.



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