Tales of Dusty Death, a new collection of short stories, takes you travelling: France, Norway, Greece, Russia; as far away as South America and back at home. They illustrate the dilemmas of contemporary death and lead you into the realms of murder and magic realism. The new arrival ‘Jane Hayward's distinctive stories step unafraid into … Continue reading A New Publication
I’m aware that many writers balance their writing commitments with an energy and enthusiasm which I have temporarily mislaid. For me, any productive writing only takes place 9.30am-1pm with one break for coffee. I prefer to work on one piece of writing at a time. My current on-going work is the third draft of a … Continue reading Managing Three Writing Projects
Sunday is no longer a universal day of rest. Back in 1994, John Major, the Prime Minister, brought in legislation to allow shopping and going to the cinema on a Sunday as well as following the normal weekend activities such as walking in the park or having tea with Granny. Which is one pleasure we … Continue reading A Day of Rest
Still on holiday in Italy where, right now, it’s pouring with rain and the lavender is dancing. Since some of you will also soon be on holiday, if you are not already, you will be taking photos or videos of your happenings. In the dim and distance past, photos were called snaps. Black and white … Continue reading Places not People.
We have jumped the gun a bit and have escaped to a warm and sunny place in Italy. I’m not saying how we did it but we have. No longer physically in lock-down seems to have unlocked my brain too so here I am writing a new post for my blog. Before we left London, … Continue reading Style Proofs
For most of us the thing which keeps us going at whatever we do is the day-to-day stimulation of real life. Not a fake imitation of living, as this lock-down is. I understand that some kind of regulation which hopes to limit the damage and the death is essential. However, we must not forget that … Continue reading This Petty Pace
For now, at least! Here is the situation. I published The Baby Box through Matador Publishing Co. Enjoyed the experience; learnt a great deal. First on the learning curve is that I probably ordered too many copies, asking for 500. For sure the books are still selling and opportunities are still presenting themselves to me, … Continue reading Last Thoughts on Self-Publishing
I have been invited to design and give a 2-morning workshop on writing memoir. Brilliant. I've been wanted to workshop writing memoir for a while now. Easy, I thought. After all I've written my own memoir. Then I read someone else's memoir and then another and then a book which was really bio-fiction, which took … Continue reading Memoir – What Exactly Is It? (1)
By now your New Year resolutions have been made and broken. It is the time for writers of all kinds to think about those wonderful weeks or weekends away at special places called writers’ summer schools, festivals or just plain tuition centres. I’ve had experience of 2 different residential writing courses but not the third … Continue reading Writing Away
My New Year’s Resolution is to achieve more with my writing, ie put more writing out there. Remember school timetables? We produced work on English grammar, English Literature, History, Geography, Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Religion. That’s 8 academic subjects. In a five day week of 6 hours a day. My writing life takes place over … Continue reading New Year, New Resolutions, New Puzzle
