It's a while since I posted anything here in the Gyre. There's a book review I've been working on (more off than on) which should see the light of day in the next week or so, but the real progress is in my fiction. I finished the first draft of a short story: the second … Continue reading #AmWriting – No, really, I am
It's been a while, but since I last posted about my own writing I've written loads (by my standards). Firstly, I made a few pages' progress on a folk horror novella that I really should have finished by now. Then, in a flash of inspiration, a potential recurring character came to me and I wrote … Continue reading #AmWriting – An awkward fit
Bob Fischer's The Haunted Generation - both his blog and monthly article for Fortean Times - is required reading for anyone interested in the whole arena of hauntology & creepily "wrong" nostalgia. One of his current strands is "Felt Trips", unearthing artworks created by kids in the 70s and 80s. Some of these are homages … Continue reading The Haunted Generation – “Felt Trips”
Hello! Anyone else finding it difficult to write during lockdown? I've sketched out a few scenes for ongoing projects, but haven't sat down and churned out a page for weeks and weeks. One silver lining is that I'm storing up lots of different ideas for stories. Jotting them down eases the (metaphorical) pressure in my … Continue reading #AmWriting – Opening Up while Locked Down
So, one twelfth of 2020 has passed, and have I written any fiction so far this year? I have not. But, I have continued to work on the Reeds story I've written about before. My protagonist has a new name, which alone makes him feel a bit more alive and less of a cardboard cut-out. … Continue reading #AmWriting – Fixing it in the Edit
So. A further update on my own fiction. As I wrote last month, I wasn't happy with the way that my first "reeds" story had turned out: lots of atmosphere at the expense of, well, anything else really. A sign that I'm likely to be happy with something - that it might even be good … Continue reading #AmWriting – Finding the story
Momentum is everything. It's a long time since I posted anything about my own writing. It's definitely taken a back seat since I started this blog, but this year I've written two short stories and most of a novella. How has it gone? *** Firstly, the two short stories. I grew up in a small … Continue reading #AmWriting
My copy of Landfill was supplied for review by Little Toller Books. Tim Dee's latest book may just be his most important. His 2008 work The Running Sky is justifiably recognised as a classic of modern nature writing. Through the months of a year Dee looks at a particular species, habitat, or aspect of our … Continue reading “Landfill” by Tim Dee
Benjamin Myers is a writer whose time has come. Recent winner of the Walter Scott Prize for his stunning The Gallows Pole, Myers has been a prolific voice of the English North for several years, and his wider renown is thoroughly deserved. It also comes at a fertile time for writing from the North of … Continue reading Lodestone – the work of Benjamin Myers
It isn't writer's block. Stephen King once wrote about a story "being dead even as the words continue to march across the page", and I hope it isn't that, either. I think all that's happened is a loss of momentum. I've stalled. The folk-horror work was going well, until I went on holiday. But the … Continue reading Where have all the words gone?
Into the Gyre 