Ignoring the music

Even when he has one big, must-be-done thing to concentrate on, the writer’s brain always seems to find time work away quietly at any number of various other ideas. Which is fine until it has an unexpected and ill-timed eureka moment. Mine happened at 5.31 this morning, and concerns my Musical stories. Long term readers (are […]

Small Cabaret

I’ve been remiss here in not blaring out in dazzling fanfare that the 2012 Glasgow Cabaret Festival is upon us. I’ve been busy, but no excuses, and I apologise. Hopefully those who follow us on Twitter and Facebook will have heard about the Glasgow showing of Israphel’s Book, the de Saw-Finkle show we performed to […]

Silvergold bright and edgechill

My favourite season has always been autumn. On a bright September or October morning, I love the balance between sun warmth and air chill, an excuse to pull on a jumper and enjoy the caress of wool. And I love the clarity of the light, not slow and honeyed like a summer morning, but gimlet […]

September reading

Decent haul on the reading front this month. The novel for September was one Ian R McLeod’s Wake Up And Dream, a book I’d bought almost a year ago, read (and loved) part of and then had to put down for non-reading reasons. I then waited for a suitable period of quietness that’d allow me […]

Israphel’s Book: Second Chance To See

If you’ve been paying attention you might remember that we premiered our first long de Saw/Finkle show at the Edinburgh Fringe. It was called Israphel’s Book, and it involves everything you expect from those two: singing, sawing and stitched together stories. Well, thanks to the 2012 Glasgow Cabaret Festival and Glasgay, we’re bringing the show […]

The Fcon Cometh

All of a sudden it’s Fantasycon time. I’m looking forward as always to flying down to Rio Brighton (which will be nowhere near as sunny as Rio, or even as Brighton was this time last year, ah well). I have one piece of official involvement this year. If anyone fancies popping along to hear some […]

Cooking equipment meme

Leading light and evangelist for the International League of Science Fiction Writing Cooks, Aliette de Bodard, posted her response to the following blog meme about all the cookery gadgets people tend to accumulate these days. Given the amount of cooking Aliette does (check out the cooking section of her site) I was impressed by her restraint. […]

Writer’s Holiday

Everyone knows that writers don’t take holidays. Their brains just aren’t wired that way. They’re always switched on, receptive to ideas and chewing them into the building blocks of stories. The problem for many writers, in fact, is having enough time in their lives to get those stories written down, in words, on screens, and […]

Utter sweetness

In my last reading report I was talking about how much I loved Amal El-Mohtar’s “The Honey Month” (it really was the most imaginatively conceived and beautifully written book I’d read in ages). The version I read was the e-book edition (from Cheeky Frawg), but I loved it enough that when I discovered it was also […]

Narrative junky

My name is Neil. I’m a recovered narrative junky, but occasionally I fall off the wagon. You know how it is with a story. Once you’ve started you just have to follow it to the end. No matter what. But sometimes that no matter what, you know? It’s…testing. I used to consume entire fantasy trilogies on […]