According to Groucho Marx, “Time flies like the wind, but fruit flies like bananas.” Marx was a master of paraprosdokian;[…]
Read more
Latest Posts
How to Beat “Synopsis Horror” and Quickly Summarise Your Book
How do you summarise your book in a couple of sentences? Impossible, right? You’ve written sixty-, seventy-, eighty-thousand words or[…]
Read more
A Short List of Short Novels
According to Dean Wesley Smith, the 80,000 word (or longer) novel was an invention of Big Publishing. A typical novel[…]
Read more
Quote: Isaac Asimov
Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers. Isaac Asimov As a kid, Asimov got his start reading science[…]
Read more
Asimov: On hard work and writing
Isaac Asimov, author of more than 500 books, and not just fiction – his non-fiction books appear in nine of[…]
Read more
Laser-hacking voice-assistants
Who knew? Microphones respond to light waves as well as sound waves. This allows hackers to attack voice-assistant technologies such as Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant, sometimes from a considerable distance.
Read more
Dolly Parton’s indie deal
Despite her public persona, Dolly Parton is a savvy business-person, which probably explains a music career that’s now well into its sixth decade.
Read more
Cross-eyed bears and friendly ants
My late mother thought Gladly was rather a nice name for a bear, but as a child she could never[…]
Read more
Quote: Mickey Spillane
The first page sells this book. The last page sells your next book. Mickey Spillane Frank Morrison Spillane, (1918-2006), better[…]
Read more
Another publishing scam
A few days ago, I received an enthusiastic email from a publisher I’d never heard of before. The phrasing is[…]
Read more