I read in the paper that today is Towel Day – Douglas Adams’s birthday. He would have been 61. It’s called Towel Day because, as the Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy teaches us, all a man (specifically an interstellar freebooter and stowaway) needs is a towel. Douglas Adams has always meant a great deal to me. […]
Read more...Like many people, I tend to judge myself against those who have more than me. This practice – unfortunately but inevitably – means that I constantly feel like a failure, no matter how I am doing. When I decided to self-publish, I tried to avoid this trap by defining some milestones in advance. I decided […]
Read more...The one thing everyone agrees on, if you have a blog, is that you should be completely consistent with it. You shouldn’t, for example, suddenly stop posting for three months. Nevertheless, that is what I have done. I am a maverick, tearing up the rule book with laxity and inertia. Anyway, here’s what I’ve done since […]
Read more...I’ve just been to visit the Guardian’s offices again and see their training rooms. Now I’m really looking forward to my Self-Publishing Step by Step masterclass. I’ve chosen a smallish room, to make it as easy as possible for everyone to talk, with a big window and a view over the canal, because I think everyone […]
Read more...I haven’t posted here for ages because I’ve been running courses in America, and after that I was caught up in a tremendous whirl of activity, including Upstairs Downton (http://www.facebook.com/UpstairsDowntonTheImproVisedEpisode). Now I am in another (slower) whirl of activity, preparing for my Guardian Masterclass at the weekend. Anyway, I just wanted to say hello, as […]
Read more...This appeared today on Amazon: Really funny and pacy. Some of the writing is reminiscent of P G Wodehouse. Very witty and accurate descriptions of London mixed with complete fantasy. There’s very little I like more than hearing that people like my book, especially when they have no reason to be nice about it. This […]
Read more...The Guardian review got me thinking about these words. In a way I’m surprised they exist, since there is very little in Britain that isn’t quirky, absurd or whimsical. I was in Derbyshire last weekend, where I visited Chatsworth House, the ancestral home of the dukes of Devonshire (the earls of Derby, of course, live […]
Read more...Today I’m overjoyed by this review by the beautifully named Alfred Hickling in the Guardian: Anyone suspicious that the publishing industry may be run by a small group of corporate-minded killjoys will applaud the DIY-ethic of Shevlin, who has published this quirky comic novel himself. The perpetually astonished hero finds himself in a conspiracy involving murder […]
Read more...On Thursday evening I went to a pub called the Lamb, on Lamb’s Conduit Street. I was sitting in the low bit at the back, beside the door leading to the stairs (and thence to the lavatories and powder room). Kerry came back with our second drinks while I still had about an inch of […]
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