Bread and Fiction

I’ve always enjoyed baking. I’ve had some epic fails, the most notable being an inadvertent attempt at creating dwarf bread (nobody broke a tooth, thankfully) and my only try at croissants when I somehow misread “freezer” as “fridge”. The result was horrible to look at but quite tasty. Then last year I got determined to make rye bread. Danish rye bread. Rugbrød. The most delicious bread ever. As delicious as an 800-page insert-your-favourite-genre novel.

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19 Resolutions for 2019: Pyjamas

I’m not sure if I’ve said it already but when I was making 2019 resolutions last year I made an executive decision to keep them as real as possible. None of that “Eat more healthy food”, “Stop smoking”, “Win a Pulitzer” stuff. Only things I am actually capable of doing, I told myself. Just the stuff I know how to do without needing supernatural help.

The Woes and Perils of Writing a Sex Scene

The short list for the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Awards by the Literary Review is out and it’s hilarious though I think last year’s was funnier. But this time I feel a certain empathy with the authors selected. Because, honestly, it’s bloody hard to write a good sex scene that is at the same time believable and beautiful, or at any rate memorable. I know because I’ve been there.

The Bullet Part 2

Gareth was tall and lanky and blond, with deep-set green eyes, and he looked my age, early twenties. He also looked like the last person to know anything about gunshot or any other wounds. And he seemed to have a case of the sniffles, which, I was sure, was not caused by a virus.

The Bullet Part 1

This is perhaps the longest short story I’ve written so far, which is why I’ve divided it into two parts. Like most of my stories, it grew from a dream kernel. I’ve only ever submitted it once and I got detailed feedback on it that reminded me yet again how subjective the perception of fiction could be. This story spawned another one I’ll be publishing later and I liked the two main characters so much they’re in Eleven Doors.

That One Book

You know how we all have some questions we’d rather never be asked? Not because the answer is embarrassing or anything but because it is impossible. Or is it just me? There is one question I really, really dread and I was recently faced with it. What is my favorite book of all time? 

Writing: Lessons Learned

I had a client once who, poor guy, had to rework a whole bunch of MOOC scripts because some writers had really screwed them up well and good. “Lessons learned”, he said, as he had said on other occasions when somebody had dropped the ball with easy to guess consequences.