Characters can come from anywhere. They can be earthlings or moon people, half-man half-beast, they can be folks the writer knows well, or slightly, or perhaps someone glimpsed briefly on a crowded subway platform never to be seen again.

Characters can also come out of pure imagination, as a compilation of people and events that create a fire in the writer’s mind, something that can’t be put out with a hose or by beating it down with a rug. It can be a seed that irritates the writer’s brain, a type of fantasy, much like the fantasy of sand that irritates the oyster to form a pearl. Then over time this seed (pearl) connects to an egg that makes an embryo into a fully formed character. A birth!

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In putting together the list of Books for Writers, over there in Resources on the right-hand sidebar (which I keep adding to, and welcome more of your favourites in the comments), I realised that there's one kind of book I really, really wish someone would compile. There's nothing I enjoy more than a happy ten minutes (half hour... hour... Remind me what I was looking up?) pootling about in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, for example. But if I'm really in full, writerly cry, what I want is reverse dictionaries and encyclopaedias.

For example, as a word-nerd I might be idly curious about a piece of slang, either its origin or its meaning, but when I'm writing what I really, really want is something which where I can look up the polite word, and be offered a whole slew of rude ones, some of which I'll have thought of, some of which I'll be reminded of, and some of which will be new and delicious.There is such a book, for slang at least: Jonathon Green's Slang Thesaurus, but it's not in print and, compared to his magisterial Dictionary of Slang for Cassell, it's a slimmish volume, without dates, which are essential not just for hist-fickers, but for anyone tangling with anything as shifting in time and place as slang.

But where are all the other reverse reference books?

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In no-choice economy class at the Arcola an empty adjacent seat is almost a necessity, so being told to close gaps for a full house wasn’t good news. It’s a tribute to Thomas Bernhard’s prose that the first half, despite its 85 minute length, keeps the audience spellbound.


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I had a bit of a mad week last week, but Friday topped the bill. I spent the day working with a guy called Mark Hayes, who came to our school through Konflux Theatre to do a drama workshop during the half term break. I quite liked drama as a kid so I volunteered to take part – besides, I was told it would be an easy ride, just sitting in the background, watching it all come together.

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The first bit of advice new writers get is usually 'read a lot'. Like we weren't already.

But when I first started writing, I often read or heard advice that urged me to only read 'quality' fiction. By which the adviser usually meant 'literary' or 'classic' fiction.

I'm sure I can't be the only writer whose heart sinks when a question on Great Literature comes up in the office Christmas quiz. 'Oh, Claire'll know this one,' everyone on my team says excitedly. 'She's a writer,'. Only I usually don't.

I didn't do English at university – didn't even do English 'A'-level. I've never read Thomas Hardy. I've never read Iris Murdoch or Martin Amis. I've never even read Lord of the Flies.

I am neither proud nor ashamed of this. I don't think it makes me a better or a worse writer. But I do think it makes me the writer I am – a writer who reads the same sort of books as her readers do, i.e. popular, commercial fiction. And when I'm reading a book – whether it be a thriller, romance or Harry Potter – that I can't put down, I'm always struck by the immense skill involved in creating something so grippingly easy to read. Because 'easy to read' does not necessarily (or, probably, ever) equal 'easy to write'

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Even if the prospect of a free Literary Festival in London, followed by a drinks reception at the inaugural talk, hadn’t been enough, how could I resist the title? Might it signal the end of reading, like an expansion ad infinitum of The Readers’ Digest?

LSE Alumni clearly don’t swell the noble (i.e. poorly paying) professions. The New Academic Building in Kingsway is a palace of blond-wood and steel. Surely the Champagne quality would match it.

‘Don’t leave any gaps! We’re expecting a full house!’ Marshalled by redshirts with military haircuts into the Sheikh Zayed Theatre, the docile booklovers fill up rows from the front, like Saturday morning picturegoers.



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I try very hard not to wade into healthcare/environment debates out here in AmericaLand. As a tree-hugging lefty who cares about how chickens/cows are kept this means I practically have to staple my mouth shut sometimes (I would consider my own views quite mainstream at home but here I think they may verge on communist...)

So I never thought I'd spout my opinions on this blog but I saw something posted today that made me think about the difference in being a poet starving in your garret in the UK, as opposed to the USA.

Tania Hershman pointed this out: the average earnings of writers in the UK.
The 'average' writer in my age group earns £14,564, although the median, i.e. typical, earning is £5000. That's not a lot. Generally, you'd have to do something else to keep the wolf from the door. However, I could very easily live on £14,564.

And that's because of something called the National Health Service.
Now, like most people I hadn't given the NHS a lot of thought until I became too ill to work for nearly three years.

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For a few weeks now, I’ve been raising the issue of the slush pile in our agency meetings on Monday mornings (when we discuss new authors, deals and Other Business). SAE’s seem so last decade and isn’t it time we geared ourselves up towards the digital decade? And just how many people have we found in the slush pile anyway? For the past few years, many of our clients have come to us through the ‘back door routes’ – those routes that ensure a manuscript lands firmly with a loud plop and a bit of glitter on the desk instead of the floor. Those authors haven’t asked for their work to be returned – either they are too cool for that or they assume – quite rightly – that we will agree to represent them.

So what are these ‘back door routes’? Let me name a few:


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After eight months of living and travelling in a motorhome, I’m back in good old England and living in Devon.

As someone who’s never even camped in a tent before, the whole notion was a bit scary, but I coped surprisingly well.

With my husband, I toured France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, as well as parts of Britain that I hadn’t seen before – right from Land’s End , all the way up to John o Groats, and Dunnets head.

It was the most interesting eight months of my life. We saw some amazing scenery: the snow capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada; the world’s biggest and longest sand dune, where I climbed over 200 feet up, even though I’m terrified of heights; the endless vineyards of the Mosel Valley in Germany. I gained plenty of inspiration for stories and travel articles. We visited some places that had great names I can use for characters – I’ve made a list for my next book!

I kept a journal for the whole eight months and wrote it up daily – well almost. I sometimes left it for a few days, but caught up when I had some free time, usually sitting in the sun with a glass of chilled white wine!



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