"Although it's likely Walpole will have cleared it up" Madigan, one of my characters says, speaking of possible blood and gore.…

A propos of yesterday’s post, and coincidence rather than serendipity, today’s Telegraph reports the death of a woman known only for the fact of having written a book.  Entitled ‘Misadventures’ it was the story of an entirely unremarkable life, badly written in stultifying detail simply because she wanted to; once (and eventually) published, the cognoscenti apparently could not decide  whether or not it was…

Five words:  I wouldn’t have recognised them so can’t blame those who were there if they don’t either.

From these were spun tales such as the lady’s maid who turned poisoner…

One of the problems with putting into words a succinct little tale, and posting it here, is that more than intended import is thereby added.   So I’ll say that this is intended as reassurance, is not a cry for help, nor a boasting of any sort;  it is here and now merely because, a) one of 2013’s resolutions was to contribute more regularly (at least once a week) to 6S, and b) I was musing on writing distance…

By which I mean what are their core responsibilities?

I ask because I assumed that ensuring correct use of English (inconsistencies of spelling and matching tenses for example) was a given.

And although I would hesitate to claim that they ‘ought’ to impose a minimum level of ‘good’ writing – for example, by suggesting that…

The idea of a winding sheet has always brought unfortunately humorous images to mind – something like a bandaged thumb, wrapped over and over in narrow white sheeting –  except that for it to work, visually, with a thumb said sheet would have to be not much more than a quarter of an inch wide, so that sufficient herringbone overlaps could be made.   Clearly impractical.…

I’ve just written myself a note which begins ‘say more about the reasons why’ and although this is early stages and these meanderings are far from finalised, I’m getting cold feet.

The heroine married, a dozen years previously, the ‘wrong’ man.

Probably because a) she was pregnant and b) the father refused to admit it was his.

Husband is now a mess – possibly as a result of discovering child not…

Right, mes amis, your thoughts on this (and I ask out of interest really, not so much looking for reassurance)

This latest story-might-well-become-a-novel of mine began, as others have, as a written-to-a-photo-prompt blurb for a book, which gave me one heroine’s name and the opening paragraph.…

‘Angle-poised fingers ... mouth an acid sine wave.’

An example:   used once, it is part of a response to a prompt for the regrettably and undeservedly under-read MuDSpots 

I liked it when the words came to me - such…

Woke at five thirty  remembering tomorrow would be Friday.   The photo prompt for 

Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday, the forty-ninth, was memorable – a dead-vine covered and deserted house.

A name  – “Susannah…

It being too black-icy to tempt me out before breakfast to buy the paper this morning I read The Spectator with my breakfast.   A review of Edmund Wright’s recent novel, by Cressida Connolly, claimed that in addition to White’s exceptional ability to describe pubic hair he was ‘also a marvellous writer’ as evidenced by the fact that…

I’ve recently discovered that highlight plus cursor arrow dragging thing so it is even easier to rearrange words and phrases.    Shortcuts for ‘cut’ and ‘paste’ were amongst the first I learnt, but the years – truly – before I found Ctrl Z were painful.    Ctrl Y followed soon after.  

Nowadays I start to write without knowing what I want to say sometimes;  I have the time and therefore ‘waste’ it (though I disagree with that oft-repeated youngest offspring criticism,…

The blue and white check shirted man returned again last night.

We sat opposite each other, this time at an outside, weathered wooden, sturdy-slatted table.   The sun was on my back and I had before me a pad of foolscap wide-lined and margined paper, alongside which was an untidy pile of a dozen or so already-written sheets.   The writing was mine, almost:   I’d used a fine-line smoothly-functioning black felt tip pen and he congratulated me on “writing” but I was unsure whether he…

I began with lots of brand new, brightly patterned and totally separate oddments of characters, and gaily stitched them all together.   Quite soon I found that they were mis-matched for size, while some paired into a nice tidy square and were complete, others needed a whole new piece or two before they were a section.



And then I found that although…