National Novel Writing Month – or NaNoWriMo for short – is a time of year when upwards of 300,000 people across the globe attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, over the calendar month of November. Like all the best love stories, it’s an insane idea, simultaneously riddled with genius. Why’s that, I…
Category: Unscientific Generalisations
Unbelievable New Tax Reforms For Writers in Ireland
Yup. That’s what I said, folks. Unbelievable. The Irish government issued its annual budget on Tuesday. In it, there were plenty of teeny-tiny measures to please almost everybody just a teeny-tiny bit, but nothing targeted at the artistic community, or at writers in particular. I reckon the government missed a trick here (particularly if, as I suspect, every second…
I WON AT THE BLOG AWARDS! And, um, this outfit happened
So I wasn’t expecting that! (Obviously, or I never would have promised you a photograph.) But I won the award for Best Newcomer at the Blog Awards last night. And I’m so delighted I don’t even mind jeopardising everything I hold dear now, by showing you just how seriously I took the 1980s fancy dress theme. It was marginally funny…
The 2014 1980’s Blog Awards Are Here! Wait. That’s not right
The 1980s Blog Awards 2014 are here! Hang on, that still doesn’t sound… Oh yes. It’s the Blog Awards Ireland 2014, and on Saturday night, it’s the 1980s! This Supreme Do takes place this Saturday night, and the theme this year is the 1980s. In two day’s time, I will be dressed in what I thought was the…
Is Funny A Gender Thing?
I found myself saying something utterly woeful the other day. I was describing a book I’d read to a friend. “I think it’s for men,” I said to her. “I mean, it was good. But it didn’t grab me. So I think it was probably written for men.” To my credit, I whacked myself in…
5 People From Real Life Who Really Should Be Fictional Characters
Continuing on in an apparent series of Lists of 5 Random Things In My Head in a shoddy Blogging 101 exercise I didn’t know I was doing, and certainly wasn’t doing on purpose, here is a list of 5 people who exist in real life, who perhaps would be better off existing only in fiction (either for their benefit, or…
5 Terrifyingly Awful Books I Might Have Written In My 20s
There are very few writers who make it in their 20s. The few who do are endangered creatures; to be lauded, protected, and possibly locked up in a laboratory for serious scientific inquiry. Many people believe that nobody should be writing about life until they’ve at least lived some. And indeed, many writers in their…
5 Vaguely Booky Things I Learned On My Holidays
Now that it’s September, and the schools are back, I want to tell you what I learned on my holidays this year. Not least that having a holiday from the Internet was harder than I thought it would be. I had some fish in the sun, then some steak in the rain, and then some music in a…
This Summer I’ll Be Reading My Ego: The Farce of Holiday Reading Lists
All the newspapers are doing their “Recommended Holiday Reads” for 2014. Of the ones I’ve seen, only the one in the Sunday Times wasn’t hilarious. The Sunday Times listed books by genre, giving their picks of the best romance, crime, thrillers, non-fiction etc this year. So far, so sensible. However, every other paper I read…
The Cynic’s Guide To Blogging
Tomorrow is my 1st bloggerversary bloggaversary Blogiversary! (Pause. Wait for silence). It is, though. On 9 July 2013 I started blogging about book sales, writing for money in an environment where there is no pay for writing, and other things generally in the book and writing worlds I felt like poking fun at. Anyway, I thought I’d celebrate…
Tara Sparling writes 