For many years, I have collected the thoughts and observations of writers about the process and the profession of writing. The authors can be dead or alive, famous or obscure, literary titans or contemporary crowd-pleasers. If they have something interesting, funny or perceptive to say about the strange business of creating in words, then I… Continue reading The Top Nine Writer’s Rules (the tenth is yours) #1. STARTING
Read moreThe general consensus around here was that an image re-think was in order. The brand needed to be refreshed. And because a website can sometimes seem like a visible, external version of your professional life, the best place to start was here, online. I have a new website and with it (the master-plan) a new… Continue reading Clean, lean, terrifically digital – welcome to the new me
Read moreI should probably feel a twinge of sympathy for Andy Gray and Richard Keys, the two presenters of Sky football who have been heard making stupid, sexist comments about a woman linesman – after all, I used to play football against them. Try as I might, though, I can’t think of two people I’m happier… Continue reading The sexists of Sky TV: how the memories come flooding back
Read moreIt is now almost four years since the life in our village changed. A farmer who owns 5000 acres in this area decided, in the way of farmers, to maximise his profits. There was a stretch of land between four villages. Although there was public footpath there, it was not designated as a site of… Continue reading In a battle between big business and a village, back the village
Read moreDo you know the feeling when you are so absorbed in what you are writing that you lose all sense of time? Food, sex, sleep cease to be anything more than irritants which briefly divert you from the onward rush of your prose… [In my latest ‘Endpaper’ column for The Author, I provide some useful… Continue reading The art of creative non-writing
Read moreIt is summer in the southern hemisphere, where I am seeing in the New Year, but now and then a cold, sour blast from the north reminds me of home. One of the on-line messages, left in response to an article I had written in the Independent about the limitations of Twitter, expressed sarcastic amusement… Continue reading Oh, yuk, he writes for children…
Read moreIt will either be a very good time to be a Pom visiting Australia over the next few days, or it could be something of a trial. On Boxing Day, the most important cricket match in the country’s history will take place in Melbourne – that is, if you believe the Australian press. After one… Continue reading Pom-bashing faces the ultimate Test
Read moreFor an Englishman interested in taking a side-step out of his regular life, there is no place quite like Australia. After all, a couple of centuries ago, the ancestors of today’s Australians took a side-step out of their regular lives (or, to be more accurate, were booted out of their irregular lives) and took the road… Continue reading Getting in touch with my inner Australian
Read moreThere was a time when I took a swaggering, what-the-hell atittude towards a writer’s responsibility to those close to him. Few authors speak up for decorousness or kindness, in fact, preferring to trot out the hoary old cliché, said by Czeslaw Milosz and quoted by Philip Roth, “When a writer is born into a family, the… Continue reading Prim? Moi? A radio debate about the writer as good (or bad) citizen
Read moreThe great 5 x 15 Stories asked me to write a Christmas song for them. I’m not sure this is quite what they were expecting. Christmas in Bed by TerenceBlacker And here’s its launch, with two other songs, when I appeared at the 5 x 15 event at the Tabernacle, Notting Hills Gate on 15th… Continue reading Song of the week (Yuletide Special): Christmas in Bed
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