1. Both the people at the level below you and the people at the level above you suspect there is no need for you at all. 2. You’d rather not be at your desk most days, but if you didn’t have a desk to go to, you’d probably die. 3. You do all the work,…
Category: Unscientific Generalisations
Writing Weather
It’s been a sunny week in Ireland. This is more important than you know. Summer in Ireland usually lasts about a week. Think about what that does to the average human psychology. You trudge through a grey world for 355 or so days a year, knowing that actual colour will only be available for…
Probably The Best Flash Fiction In The World
Because….. we have a WINNER! Amid much anguish, hand-wringing, and a few stomach ulcers, the results are in. The winner sprang straight out of the Literary Fiction Title Generator. There were more than several reasons for the entry published below being the winner, but fewer reasons separating it from the very close runners-up, making it a…
5 Book Review Rules Which Could Make Writers Hate You Less
Book reviews are the cod liver oil of the writing world. Writers need them, and they can do an awful lot of good, but they can also leave an incredibly nasty taste in the mouth. You can’t switch on the Internet these days without seeing an author giving out about book reviews and how unfair/mean/reprehensible/soul-destroying they are. There…
Book Prizes? In The Olden Days, We Were Lucky To Get Slapped
Following on from Tuesday’s rant on writerly whinging, I now want to expand on prizes. Writers’ earnings have always been as cyclical as weather. Yet to hear the Literati today, you’d swear that art would die if it weren’t for bursaries and awards and prizes and residencies and general state-level support for the gargantuan brains of…
OH YES! … It’s The BRAINY Book Title Generator!
I want you to be honest. Go on. You can tell your Auntie Tara. Were you too embarrassed to try the Chick-Lit Book Title Generator? Was it just too darned demeaning, even in the name of fun, to attach your name to book titles for such an apparently fluffy, commercial genre? The sort you would never write? (If you ever were…
Are You Stock-Piling Books You Never Read?
My Shelf of Shame We’ve all heard of Shelfies at this point. A better sort of Instagram pic for book lovers. But I have a distasteful Shelfie to share. It’s my Shelf of Shame. It’s because of the stack of books on this shelf in my hallway which I liked enough to buy, but not enough to start reading. How…
5 Extremely Annoying Book Reviews
Those of us shopping for self-published e-books have very little to go on. Short synopses and sample chapters lie all too often. There isn’t even a proper book jacket to tempt you. So how do you make the decision to buy? We’ve come to rely on reviews. And reviews make bestsellers. 2 websites seem to have…
Print Vs E-Books…. FIGHT!!!! Part 2
In Part 1 we covered the smell of fiction; book exchanges in Asia; finding that important passage you didn’t notice was important at the time, and reading whilst asleep. But that only covers the obvious stuff. The fiction fracas continues. 5. Sun Factor Paper doesn’t care if that really annoying kid dive-bombing the swimming pool…
Print Vs E-Books… FIGHT!!
It’s the Smackdown we’ve all been waiting for! But who will win the battle of the fiction ferriers? Part 1 today. Part 2 later. Part 3 if the comments get nasty. 1. Smell Everyone always goes on about the smell of bookshops, or of new books. I’m not so sure it applies – to fiction, at least. The only…
Tara Sparling writes 