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Night Boat
If you are interested in 'meeting the Buddha' and following his example, then you should realize that the path the Buddha taught is primarily a study of your own mind and a system for training your...
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How long should it take to write a novel?
I don't give a damn what other people think. It's entirely their own business. I'm not writing for other people. – Harold Pinter, interview, Dec. 1971I loved maths at school. I was in the top maths...
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Isabel's Skin
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. – Anatole France This is an...
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The Novel Cure: An A to Z of Literary Remedies
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. –Mark TwainThe Novel Cure: An A to Z of Literary Remedies, to give it its full title in the UK—its full US title is The Novel Cure:...
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The Quarry
I know Guy’s cancer is not contagious. You can’t catch it off him. That’s the thing about cancer. It’s all yours—it’s entirely, perfectly personalised. – Iain Banks,The QuarryIt’s said you shouldn’t...
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Internet addiction and you
It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction. – Jonathan FranzenSelf control is something most of us struggle with from time to time. I’m struggling...
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The Skinning Tree
School days, school daysDear old Golden Rule days'Reading and 'riting and 'rithmeticTaught to the tune of the hick'ry stick— Will Cobb and Gus EdwardsI don’t like blurbs. I understand why we have them...
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The Cavafy Variations
Poetry is what gets lost in translation. – Robert Frost Recently I was asked to review The Cavafy Variations by Ian Parks for Elsewhere. As I knew nothing of Cavafy I decided to do my customary...
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Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
The limited circle is pure. – Franz KafkaMy name is Jim and I’m an introvert. If there was such an organisation as Introverts Anonymous I’d have no problems standing up in front of the group and making...
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Silence in the writings of Guillevic and Beckett
Silence, yes, but what silence! For it is all very fine to keep silence, but one has also to consider the kind of silence one keeps. – Samuel BeckettI discovered the French poet Eugène Guillevic a...
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The value of privacy (part one)
Writing is a private thing. It's boring to watch, and its pleasures tend to be most intense for the person who's actually doing the writing. - Audrey NiffeneggerEtymology is a fascinating subject....
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The value of privacy (part two)
Computers didn't kill privacy.Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't kill privacy.So who killed privacy? We all did, of course. Accidentally, perhaps.Or maybe, like the fairies in Peter Pan, privacy only...
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Let the Games Begin
There was no plan B. And plan A leaked water all over the place. – Niccolò Ammaniti,Let the Games BeginFor a very Italian novel—l'Unità said that “Let the Games Begin may well be the print version of...
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Trans-Siberian Prose and Little Jeanne from France
There is no truth. There is only action. – Blaise Cendrars, MoravagineBefore writing anything about the writer Blaise Cendrars the first thing you want to do is check your facts with as many sources as...
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Carnaby Street’s Great Uninvited – Around the World in 80 Years
Words are all we have – Samuel Beckett There are too many words in the English language. And yet more and more are being coined every day. Why? You’d honestly think by now there would be a word for...
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Poetic energy
Poetry is energy, it is an energy-storing and an energy-releasing device. – Miroslav Holub, Poetry Ireland Review, Autumn-Winter 1990What’s the point to a poem? I’m somewhat in agreement with William...
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The Song of King Gesar
And on this bridge of longing, as we sing of him,Gesar himself, the ever-youthful Lion King descendsSurrounded by flags and pennants snapping in the windTo forge the weapons that cut the life force of...
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The Pure Gold Baby
I think Jess is looking for meaning where there isn’t any. She’s just a bit too inventive about causation. I’m more resigned to the random and the pointless than Jess. – Margaret Drabble, The Pure Gold...
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Docherty and The Kiln
No trains stopped here. Yet they went on waiting. […] It couldn’t go on. But it went on. – William McIlvanney, DochertyWe’ve known since 2012 that Canongate were planning to republish William...
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Why I write (after Orwell)
The summer 1946 edition of the short-lived magazine Gangrel included an essay by George Orwell entitled, ‘Why I Write’. It opens with the following short sentence: From a very early age, perhaps the...
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