People don’t ask me many questions. In my current incarnation as a grumpy old man I must turn people off, and they wince when they see me coming. Sure, my kids ask me questions – especially my son – but not many others do. Maybe it has something to do with me being a smart-arse […]
dialogue, dictionary, help, helpful, ideas, image, mental, organise, picture, pictures, question, random, shakin' stevens, song, words, writers block, writing tips, zombie
Well, here we are, another week, another list. Now, I’ve been pretty positive in my ramblings here up until now. But recently some stuff I’ve come across has made me enter grumpy old man mode, a mode I am all too well-versed in, being grumpy, old and a man. I have been a member of […]
abuse, aninal hunting, annoy, anthropomorphisation, apostrophes, cell phone, CM Punk, conflict, critique, David Mitchell, double facepalm, edit, facepalm, fact checking, girl with phone, grammar, grumpy cat, grumpy old man, high five, lack of fact checking, library, mobile phone, parent surrogate, plurals, resolution, robot, school, spleen, stories, talking animal, teach, textspeak, things I fidlike in writing, things I hate in writing, tiger kill, videos, wikipedia, writer, writing, writing dot com
You won’t find me doing this very often, but I am actually going to give a list of my favourites of something. The reason I don’t do this very often is that tastes change and as soon as I write my favourite down I’m sure another is going to come along and replace it. I […]
A Sound Of Thunder, anthology, bram stoker, By This Axe I Rule, clean sweep ignatius, Conan, Ed Gerrera, Edgar Allan Poe, Excalibur, favourite, Gig Marks, Graveyard Shift, H.P. Lovecraft, Harry Harrison, how it happened, Isaac Asimov, Jeffrey Archer, Kull, L. Sprague de Camp, Life Of Brian, Lin Carter, list, movie, mr big, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, Rollerball, short stories, short story, Solomon Kane, Stephen King, Steven Gepp, Streets Of Ashkelon, Survivor Type, The Facts In The Case Of M Valdemar, The Hills Of The Dead, The Judge's House, the last question, The Masque Of The Red Death, the model, The Rats In The Walls, The Skull Of The Marquis De Sade, The Thing In The Crypt, The Thing On The Roof, troll, woody allen, Word Processor Of the Gods, You Know They Got A Hell Of A Band
When you claim to be a writer, amongst the many questions you get – normally right after “Do you write all day long?!” – is “Where do you get your ideas from?” I’ve discussed this before, but sometimes a person will then follow this up with, “Do you have any ideas that didn’t work?” Curse […]
ask, bad idea, computer, Conan, failure, fantasy, ghost, horror, ideas, intelligent, question, rejected idea, story, werewolf, writer, writing
Ahh, the joys of reading… I’ve been reading a bit over on a site called writing.com where I occasionally go. I do reviews, have a few pieces there for people to read, that sort of thing. Generally, it’s a place I go online to read some short pieces of fiction (and occasional essays and the […]
accent, cassette recorder, formal, online, PC, politically correct, professional writing, quick read, reader, reading, recording, robot, slang, stilted, stories, teenagers, transcribe, vernacular, Victorian England, voice, writing.com
Something odd’s happened to my writing of late. You see, for the past 20 years (or so… I’m old, numbers now mean less and less to me) I’ve generally written on some sort of electronic typing device. Starting with the good ol’ Commodore 64 in the 1980s, through various incarnations of the Pentium through to […]
Australopithecus, BBC, blood, coffee shop, Commodore 64, computer, David Mitchell, freedom, heiroglyphs, hot chocolate, internet, joy, laptop, maths, nerd, notebooks, odd, pads, panel show, paper, pencils, pens, pentium, poor handwriting, pub, quill, swimming, threes, typing, wrestling, writing, youtube
Quick one! I forgot to post this when it first came out (I think) – a review of Long Pig, written by Arthur Sanchez, and in which he likes my story. It’s on the Whortleberry Press site, about here somewhere. A new book has been released, and it’s an interesting one. Short (very short), only […]
Arthur Sanchez, Come To My Window, Dorothy Davies, Long Pig, rejection, review, song stories, valentine's day, Wakefield Mahon, Whortleberry Press
Written works – much like movies – are made up of scenes. Some are short, some are long, but it requires all of these scenes put together as a whole to make a full coherent story, and a story that works. In that regard, it is often hard for people to pinpoint a certain scene as […]
Arnold Schwarzenegger, book, creepy, description, eerie, great writing, horror, novel, Pet Sematary, scene, scene-setting, Stephen King
When people talk about the “best” books, or their favourites, often they are guided by peer pressure or by what they think should be the best books. Or if an author is the topic of discussion, the same old books are trotted out as supreme examples. This means that a lot of books are overlooked […]
Archer, Australia, Australian, Benjamin Iscariot, best books, Bible, Colin Thiele, comedy, dinosaur, Eric Idle, fantasy, Gospel According To Judas, Harry Harrison, Jeffrey Archer, Kenneth Cook, Monty Python, Monty Python's Flying Circus, novel, outback, overlooked book, overrated book, Pig, religion, Road To Mars, science, science fiction, Uncle Gustav's Ghosts, West Of Eden
In general, in my opinion, books are better than movies. There are numerous reasons for this, but the main one is that what I see in my mind’s eye is generally better than what I am presented with on the screen. I guess that the vision of the film-maker is what we’re given, and that […]
adaptation, atmosphere, Blade Runner, book, Carrie, de Palma, dinosaurs, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, Excalibur, film, Frankenstein, horror, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jaws, Jurassic Park, King Arthur, Kubrick, Le Morte d'Arthur, Lord of the Rings, Mary Shelley, Michael Crichton, movie, oscars, Peggy Webling, Philip K. Dick, Return Of The king, Shining, Sissy Spacek, Stephen King, story, Sword In The Stone, The Hobbit, Thomas Malory
