Say Books

It has occurred to me that writing is a laborious way of collecting rejection slips. I got my first one in 1979 and publishers turning down my manuscripts still outnumber the times they have agreed to publish my work by a factor of ten or so.

Getting a rejection slip is a disappointment for any author. Here you are, pouring your soul or at least many hours into a project and some stranger says it’s not worth publishing. Feeling hurt, wronged or angry is normal.

But it would be wrong to assume that this has to be the author’s response. » Read the rest of this entry «

Writers, especially those early in their writing career, can improve their books with a straightforward self-check. The best books tend to have a high density of significance. By this rather fancy sounding term I mean the numerical ratio of sentences to significant realisations. Let me explain.

On the least dense end of the scale you might find » Read the rest of this entry «

Reading habits are formed by repeated acts of disposal. Read a book you don’t particularly enjoy and the writer will probably be discarded from your reading list. As you read more books, more authors get a figurative black mark next to their name. The survivors are what we refer to as our favourite writers.

Even these favourites may lose their place on the reading list as the years go by. Either our tastes change or we simply finish reading all their books or at least all the best ones.

Looking back over more than 30 years of serious reading, there is only one author from those very early years whose books I still read. » Read the rest of this entry «

I can’t play tennis for shit. Or money. But I am a committed fan, perhaps one that should be committed. Mornings when I trade the world of dreams where I spend my nights for the world wide web where I spend my days, it’s a toss up between first checking my email, bank balance or the ATP tennis results.

I write for love. And money. Over the years, » Read the rest of this entry «

The police procedural, the sub-genre of the crime novel that focuses on the police investigation of crime, has never been high on my agenda. However, on the evidence of Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s excellent Martin Beck books (discussed here), I was compelled to investigate. » Read the rest of this entry «