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Category Archives: Philosophy
Simple pleasures, or Why I’m no ereader
There are many reasons why I haven’t joined the digital revolution and gone the ebook route, but the primary ones are sensory-based and so I thought I’d take a few moments to reflect on them here on a late winter’s day. It should be remembered that the modern codex book isn’t all that old, and [...]
myTunes 1:0
I never write with music on. I can’t do it. I’ve even experimented with different genres, but for me the two things just don’t mesh. Before I begin each new session I do, however, top up the old caffeine and nicotine with a blast of whatever happens to be on my phone (followed by subsequent blasts [...]
Recurring Themes
It’s been fun to write something on a predetermined theme for the forthcoming Drugstore Books essay and short story showcase, By Prescription Only. The idea for ‘privacy’ was suggested to me while knocking back a few dandelion and burdocks. It’s not something I’d have thought of and I had nothing in mind, let alone already [...]
Dogma 2
The last time I posted, I wrote about a writing aphorism, an adage—a woof woof dogma—that I’d been following over the last few years. This time I’ll write about the other one, which goes a little something like this: Don’t read fiction while you’re writing it I picked that one up from an editor’s blog, [...]
Dogma 1
Up until recently, two dogmas were entrenched as part of my writing routine. The first was the well known adage ‘Write every day’, and the other, a lesser known dictum, ‘Don’t read fiction while you’re writing it’. ‘Write every day’. Over the years, many successful writers, editors and publishers have reiterated the need to write [...]
Guest Post: Hamish Spiers
Hi everyone. I’m Hamish Spiers and as some of you may know, I’m an indie author. Presently my work is available through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing and it is mostly, but not entirely, science fiction. It therefore doesn’t quite fit the style of what you’ll see here at Drugstore Books but nonetheless, Paul and Andrew [...]
In The Studio
Since deciding that we’d do By Prescription Only, the Drugstore shorts and essay showcase, I’ve been wondering how I’ll manage to break from editing this novel, which I’ve been working on since globular clusters formed the Milky Way, to take time out to produce a short story, bearing in mind all the other stuff that’s [...]
The Writing Game: Part 3
You’ve spent months, nay years, on your book, and you can’t polish it further for fear of going completely insane, yet now you’re unsure about which direction in which to head for publication. After reading part 1 and part 2, let’s assume that you believe your book has commercial potential (although for sure it’s not [...]
Writing with a purpose
After reading and thinking a lot about Paul’s last couple of posts on the writing game (part 1 and part 2), I find myself returning to the question of what motivates us to write. As you probably all know from the trad-pubbed anonymous mid-list author’s piece, the tale that she told was one that started [...]
myTunes 2:0