Monday Motivation: Buttons and hypodermic needles
On Page 382 of Colm Toibin’s The Magician, a biographical novel which takes as its subject the life of one of the twentieth century’s most revered writers, the German Thomas […]
Monday Motivation: Devilishly convincing details
Creative writing is not, as some suppose, an arcane art over which only the select few are ever granted mastery, or to which there is access via a magic key, a secret skill available only to the [...]
Monday Motivation: Grow into your writing
I sometimes feel that I’m like Spronkie – one of our cats – who spends those portions of each day that he isn’t sleeping, circling our house. I’m not sure […]
Monday Motivation: The bigger the story, the larger your lens
It’s become a trope of popular philosophy: take care of the little things (pennies, broken windows, chores) and the big things will take care of themselves (pounds, violent crimes, your […]
Monday Motivation: You are your own props master
Scratch a science fiction fan and you’ll find someone inordinately ready to suspend his disbelief. We’re willing to throw ourselves into alternative universes in which intelligent gas clouds [...]
Monday Motivation: The devil’s in the detail
Today we crossed London from Paddington Basin in the heart of the West End to Limehouse Basin in the east. It’s a journey of nine miles, and descends through twelve […]
Monday Motivation: The fine art of the (very) long sentence
I’m falling in love – with long sentences. I have come across a number in a novel called The Nix by Nathan Hill. (The New York Times said of Hill […]
