My thoughts about books, writing, life and so many other things….Judy Leigh/ Elena Collins.
It is really like welcoming an old friend again, now the football season has returned. I always feel a little bit sad when the season ends in May, even though this year my team did really well and we went out on a high. Now the new season has started, there is a kind of …
Continue reading The new football season is here – an old friend is coming home
It is always sad to read that a longstanding heroine has passed away. For years, when asked ‘Who’s your favourite author?’ I’d answer ‘Toni Morrison’, seconds before I wondered if I should have said ‘Jeanette Winterson’ or ‘Cormac McCarthy’. But Toni Morrison was always the first name on my lips. So when I heard that …
Continue reading Huge thanks to Toni Morrison for my torchlight tremors
A few nights ago I was doing my Wuthering Heights impression, running around the garden in my pyjamas, shouting and waving my arms, screaming into the darkness as a storm blazed overhead. Cracks of thunder rumbled in the hills as lightning split the skies: everything was illuminated white and then swallowed in shadow again. I …
Authors read a lot – it’s part of our continued professional development, if you like. But it’s more than that – reading’s an obsession. I learned to read at three years old– my mum taught me and I was a receptive learner – I would read everything from cereal boxes and advertising hoardings to any …
Continue reading Novelists and Tour de France riders have something in common…
The sun’s out. It’s got me thinking. I’m spending too much time indoors at the computer. Isolation and summer sunshine don’t go together. I need to drag myself away from the next novel. But it’s a writer’s lot, hunched at the desk, eyes on the screen, typing just one more line, just one more chapter. …
Continue reading It’s so easy to slip into the antisocial writer stereotype …
I decided to have a couple of weeks away from writing. It was a simple idea - it was summer time, so I'd write nothing, just let the summer shine in through the mind’s window and the brain bask in the warmth. After all, I have three new novels more or less completed – maybe …
Continue reading Sometimes what’s outside affects what’s inside: on nature and inspiration
A while ago I wrote a scary story, Gone Away. This week, actor Julie Mullen read it on the radio. It is such a privilege to have my work featured on The Word Cafe, SoundArt Radio. Julie is a talent: actor, poet, singer, painter, she is the compere and organiser of workshops and Word Cafe …
Continue reading Gone Away: my scary story read by Julie on the radio
Here is a short story about telegraph poles, recently read so well on Dartington Arts Radio by my friend, talented actor Julie Mullen. I wrote it as a member of a writing group, where I've met so many other brilliant writers and artists. As a writer, I think it's a real privilege to belong to …
Continue reading Short story about telegraph poles, read by Julie on the radio
Before I wrote my first novel, I used to think that ninety thousand words was quite a lot. Many people tell me that it’s a horrendous amount of work – I often hear people gasp when I say ‘I’m about half way through – I’ve done fifty thousand words…’ It isn’t that bad at all. …
Continue reading When a novel is finished, the editing starts…
Perhaps I should start by saying that the only time I sit down conventionally is when I’m writing at the computer. And that is hardly conventional sitting – my cat, Colin, is behind me on my chair, occupying three quarters of the seat, so I am perched on the end, which isn’t a bad thing …
That quintessence of dust 