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What’s behind those overambitious targets and self-imposed deadlines?

11/8/2018

The happier my life’s become, the less inclined I feel to take a holiday. Why go to the trouble of packing a suitcase – or worse, boarding a plane – when you’ve got (almost) all you want at home? Five nights’ in Cumbria seeing friends and family, and researching my possibly third novel, back in April, have furnished a perfectly adequate change of scene for this year, along with a three-day non-residential music course next week.

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The toddler in my laptop

3/8/2018

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Imagine a virus has attacked your vocal chords, when your livelihood – not to mention your sanity – depends on clear communication. You can create sounds, but they are incomprehensible to others – a jumbled babble. Then, one day, as you jabber in frustration while preparing your children’s tea, your toddler’s voice rings out, perfectly articulating what you were trying to say.

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Shiny new novel versus shiny new car: no contest!

23/7/2018

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Three years ago today, we got a new car, all shiny and factory fresh. My husband went along to collect it without me as I had far more exciting things to do. It was publication day for my debut novel and I was basking in the early reviews and congratulatory tweets.

My husband was a little embarrassed to arrive at the dealership to be greeted with a large sign welcoming us both. And although you can’t giftwrap a car, they’d done the next best thing and perched a huge bow on the roof. I think the sales staff were disappointed when he declined their offer to take his photograph to commemorate the occasion.

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As the colonisers depart: Dance of the Jakaranda & Miss Burma

13/6/2018

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Hot on the heels of two novels about the messy aftermath Zimbabwean independence, come a couple more set in erstwhile outposts of the British Empire as the colonisers depart. Both focus on the experience of minorities favoured by the British who find themselves relegated in the new regimes: Indians in Kenya in Dance of the Jakaranda; the Karen in Burma in Miss Burma. Along with the politics, both explore the impact on identity of religion and race.

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A pilgrim’s progress through the dark side of digital: Broadcast by Liam Brown

18/9/2017

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Take our deepest fears about our dependence on digital and stretch them. Likewise our suspicions of the social media and tech companies for which we work as willing slaves. Add a taste of accessible philosophy (what’s reality anyway?) and neuropsychology (how can we trust our memories when they are subject to distortion?). Now send a naive and narcissistic vacuous life-style vlogger on a pilgrim’s progress through the landscape and you’ve got a sense of Liam Brown’s highly entertaining third novel.

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Sounding out the body in fiction

7/8/2016

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I spent what seemed to me a considerable amount of time flushing out what I thought was a bit of leek stuck between my upper right incisor and its neighbouring canine – first with my fingernail, then with the corner of a business card, and finally with a sharpened matchstick. But there was no piece of leek. It was an erroneous message that my gums were sending me, themselves misled by some previous irritation.

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Voice recognition software

11/1/2013

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I've recently bought a new laptop. Presumably the updated technology will make my writing life easier in the long term but, in the short term, I find the whole thing a pain. Even with my husband taking on most of the donkey work, time spent weighing up the virtues of different models followed by
learning the quirks of a new operating system is time away from writing, as far as I'm concerned, and that's before I get started on the guilt at what the rich world's lust for progress does to the impoverished south.

I wonder if creative writing would be so popular these days if we didn't have
such easy access to word processing technology. I doubt I could've managed several drafts of a 100,000 word novel on my mother's old Olivetti portable where, if I got overexcited and typed too fast, the keys clumped together in the middle. I suppose if you were to develop RSI in those days, you'd either have to hire a secretary or fall by the wayside. One way of weeding out the competition.

Due to RSI, which crept up on me in the middle of an MA course (not a writing MA) over ten years ago, I'm dependent upon voice recognition software for all my writing.

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