I believe there are two types of fiction readers. Those that prefer gritty, realistic characters and/or situations, and those that prefer made up fantasies. Stephen King is at one end of the spectrum here. King’s characters – even his supernatural ones – are very, very human. They are ordinary human beings put in extraordinary situations. …
At the time of writing, I have published exactly three books: a photographic manual, a work of fiction, and a very ill-fated memoir*. Yay, go me. I am by no means an expert. Not in the slightest. I’m so green and wet behind the ears I’m ‘precious’. Yet, people ask me all the time “Hey,…
On Chuck Close and Finding Inspiration. We all know (of) the greatest fear of the writer: the blank page. And my blank page was beating the crap out of me the last few days. Two weeks ago Defining Giulia went out to Beta-readers, and the ball is out of my court. And while I actually…
Yes, she smokes. I was at a book fair late 2018, a beautiful spring-bordering-on-summer day. I put up my banner; I made my table all nice and pretty, put up an umbrella for shade, put some scatter cushions down for comfortable seating, arranged my books in what I hoped was an attractive manner, and got…
The fear of 400 blank pages. Every creative knows the phrase ‘The fear of the blank page’. Whether you’re a writer, a painter, a sketch artist, a composer, or anyone of the countless ones I cannot name, you will know how intimidating a blank canvas can be. I know this fear very well—when there is…
The pleasure of writing wrongly. English is not my first language. While I have completely anglicised, my mother tongue is Afrikaans. Out of my three serious relationships, my first two were with Afrikaans girls. I only changed my home language to English once I met Andrea, and we moved in together. Having said that, I…
The Myth of the Alpha Male Disclaimer: The blog which follows is an exploration of fictional characters and is not to be interpreted as a psychological analysis of real life. (But, if the shoe fits…) To begin, I would like to introduce the concept of “opposites”. The opposite of “north pole” is “south pole”, but…