Names are important. They shouldn’t be but they are. In their brilliant book, Freakonomics, US authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner compile top ten lists of children’s names that are most likely to indicate low income backgrounds and…
Blog Archives
Judging a book by its cover: The title
Posted in 2012, Books, Reflections Tagged with: creativity, hymns, index cards, inspiration, judging a book by its cover, Milton, selling your work, Titles, William Blake
The Devil and the W.I.
What links the devil with the Women’s Institute? Or, more precisely, who? Go on. I’ll give you ten seconds to work it out. I got thinking about this person whilst doing a spot of research for a chapter of our…
Posted in 2011, Reflections Tagged with: Heaven, Hell, hymns, inspiration, Milton, satan, William Blake, Women's Institute, writing heroes
When real people turn fictional
Inspiration comes from all manner of sources. This is an almost verbatim transcript of an e-mail conversation Heide and I have been having over the past week or so. Heide: I realised last night that for a couple of weeks…
Posted in 2011, Books Tagged with: archangels, Birmingham Writers Group, inspiration, nothing wasted for writers, St Michael
I could draw you a Venn diagram of our likes and dislikes
The first thing, Heide and I had to decide was what could we possibly write that would play to both our strengths. I had recently read Heide’s novel, ‘The Million Dollar Dress’ and, whilst I loved it, it was a…
Posted in 2011, Writing Tagged with: Collaborative writing, comic fantasy, Good Omens, inspiration, Neil Gaiman, satan, writing heroes
