Writing

Transcript of my Interview

As I mentioned recently, I was interviewed on local radio. On Monday, I received the audio file, which I posted. Since then, I’ve used some online software to transcribe the interview. It did an OK-ish job, but I’ve just spent most of the day correcting its grammatical errors, and compensating for the fact that it’s not so hot at detecting various English accents…! So, if you’d prefer to read it than to listen to it, here it is. Fenland Radio Interview with Stephen Oliver and Rob Windal Rob Windal: And it’s time for…Read more

My Interview

You may remember that I mentioned being interviewed last month on Fenland Youth Radio. Their remit is encouraging commitment, determination, hard work, and, most importantly, having fun. Bringing the youth of today and the experienced together to work to provide a smooth and clear radio station for all the community to enjoy (quoting from their website). Well, I got the interview audio file this morning, so I'm posting it here for all to hear. BTW, I've removed the songs because of copyright.Read more

Writer’s Retreat

Two weeks ago, I arrived at a five-day writer’s retreat in Devon, England. My writing coach Annalisa Parent of The Writing Gym and Date With the Muse, organised everything. Eight of us took part in total: Annalisa, her assistant, and six writers, including me. I won’t go into too many details, but we were looked after by the owners of Knapp House, where we stayed, being fed and looked after in a way that made writing so much easier. We spent the mornings in exercises designed to improve our creativity and teach us…Read more

Creativity and Inspiration

I’ve been a creative person for much of my life, but it’s only recently that I’ve begun to think about what exactly that means. First of all, what is creativity? If you ask a hundred people, you’ll very probably get a hundred different answers, each of which is in complete contrast to the other ninety-nine. It’s not that everybody’s wrong, either. It’s just that, like beauty, creativity’s in the eye of the beholder. Having said that, here’s my take on the subject. First of all, we never create anything out of whole cloth.…Read more

Janus — Happy New Year

Those who know Roman mythology will remember that January is named for the god Janus, patron of beginnings and endings. Here’s a story I wrote some time ago about the shenanigans he might get up to today. Janus It’s essential to have the right one in charge. An earlier version of this story appeared on the Reedsy Prompts page. ————— “Hey, Janus, you got a minute?” The two-faced god didn’t bother turning around to regard the being who’d just tapped him on the shoulder. “Hi, Chronos,” he said with his back face, “isn’t…Read more

The Long and the Short of it

I complained to my mother the other day because I had just received another raft of rejections and was being ignored by a whole load of other agents and publishers. I’m “only” selling short stories, despite having sent out queries for my dark urban fantasy anthology 81 times this year and my Young Adult space opera novel 100 times. Not to mention the 135 submissions for 70 different short stories, for which I have recently received my ninth acceptance this year. Now, my mother is my greatest fan at the moment, despite telling…Read more

Anthologies & Genres

I’ve decided to talk about two different subjects this time, although they are connected. Anthologies Here’s a strange situation. I’ve written, revised and edited an episodic novel and three anthologies of dark urban fantasy, science fiction and horror, with more than one of the genres and sub-genres often blended into a single story. I have another five collections I’m still working on. The thing is, publishers and agents keep telling me that anthologies and story collections are on the way out; no one is interested in either publishing them or reading them, they…Read more

Originality

This is not one of my posts but something I am cross-posting from Edgeverse with their permission. It says something I've long suspected and have been saying for some time. I remember reading an interview with Frank Zappa in NME years ago. Despite its claims to the contrary, he said, the music industry was not looking for "the next great thing". Instead, they wanted the previous great thing. When the Beatles hit the scene, every label wanted a band with multiple guitar players. Boy bands were a non-starter until the first one became…Read more

Conditions: A Writer’s Perspective

Here are some thoughts I had during a writers' retreat in May, 2019, but it's still as true now. “I can’t write because…” Name your problem: space, time, people, inspiration, whatever. I have heard this, seen this, read this, more times than I care to remember, especially in the last year, since I became active in several FaceBook writing groups. Sorry, people, but that isn't a reason for not writing, it’s an excuse. And a lame one at that. Yesterday, I stood in the cottage where Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived for three years…Read more

Sharing Knowledge

Despite the horrors of Covid-19 and lockdowns, I hope this year brings you joy, good experiences and new knowledge. Apropos knowledge, I remember coming across a “law” of life some time ago, similar to Murphy’s Law: Roger Lincoln’s 2 Rules for Success:1. Never tell everything you know. It’s a good joke, but nowadays, hoarding knowledge is greedy, arrogant and, ultimately, insane. It’s greedy because knowledge doesn’t belong to anybody. Oh, I know that there is proprietary information, like the exact form and contents of a company’s databases or their communications protocols. Even their…Read more
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