words ‘n stuff

Where does conflict come from?

July 2, 2010

I had a really great conversation with Syd the other day about conflict in storytelling. She brought up a very important point: Where does the conflict in your story come from? We were watching, sort of, Short Circuit 2, and getting very annoyed at the bad guys and their petty bickering.? Shallow conflict based on minor disagreements […]

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Argleton on Un:Bound

June 29, 2010

My frequent co-conspirator, Vince, recently invited me to write a post for Un:Bound, a blog he contributes to, on the Argleton project. I couldn’t possibly say no, so I said yes! And here is it: Guest Post | Crowdfunding… I go into a bit more detail as to my motivations, my emotional journey, and chew […]

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A Show and Tell show and tell

June 29, 2010

“Show, don’t tell” is one of the most common axioms in writing these days. Whilst it’s useful to question whether you are engaging in ‘telling’ when you could more effectively ‘show’, it’s also important not to end up tying yourself into knots trying to show what would be better told. Rather than elaborate on the […]

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Argleton: Help spread the word

June 18, 2010

My Argleton Kickstarter project is now 52% funded, which is very exciting indeed! If you’re interested in supporting it financially, that would be wonderful, but if you’re feeling a bit skint right now, you can still help by spreading the word for me. If you had over to the Kickstarter page, you will see a […]

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Walpurgisnacht, the handbook

June 10, 2010

This hand-made tome is the kind of book I can only aspire to make! Created by Ross MacDonald as a prop for The House at the End of the Lane, a film by Steve Smith, this is a gloriously OTT book. The interior is filled with collages of images and text from period books. Most […]

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Argleton video

June 8, 2010

Over on Kickstarter, they say that projects with an introductory video end up raising “way more money” than those without. Well, it has taken me a while but I’ve finally managed to get this all important video together for Argleton. I have no real experience with making videos, but luckily I had my lovely husband […]

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Argleton: A story of maps, maths and motorways

May 31, 2010

It’s a wee bit nerve-wrecking, but I have finally set up and launched my first Kickstarter project, Argleton: A story of maps, maths and motorways. Argleton: A story of maps, maths and motorways Matt is fascinated by the story of Argleton, the unreal town that appeared on GeeMaps but which doesn’t actually exist. No one […]

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From end to end

March 13, 2010

A few weeks ago I went to The Story and listened to Cory Doctorow read aloud his The Story So Far, about stories, books, publishing and bookbinding: She’d clearly bound them herself. Someone had taught her to really sew, her gran, maybe. You could see it in the neat stitching that ran along the binding […]

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The Story: Cory Doctorow (Neil Gaiman) and Sydney Padua

February 20, 2010

Although I really enjoyed many of the talks at yesterday’s The Story event, it wasn’t really possible to take notes. One highlight was Sam Conniff from Livity talking about Jody McIntyre, a young man with cerebral palsy, a wicked sense of humuor and a desire to do stuff that is truly inspirational. I also loved […]

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The Story

February 20, 2010

Yesterday I went to Matt Lock‘s event, The Story, at The Conway Hall. The day was billed thusly: The Story is a one-day conference about stories and story-telling, to be held at The Conway Hall, London, on Friday, February 19th, 2010 The Story will be a celebration of everything that is wonderful, inspiring and awesome […]

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Changing reality

November 19, 2009

Everyone with more than a passing familiarity with the publishing industry knows that writing is a tough gig. For most authors, it’s almost impossible to make writing books your primary job because the income just isn’t enough to live on. “No one writes for the money,” we are told, but there is a dream that […]

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A self-publishing project to inspire

October 29, 2009

I’m still trying to figure out exactly how to do my self-publishing project for Revenge of the Book of Hay. I’m constantly riddled with doubt: Is it going to be good enough? Will enough people be interested? How will I convince people to support me given I have no track record? What exciting things could […]

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Reading aloud

September 23, 2009

I have always loved to read aloud. (I think it’s something to do with loving the sound of my own voice. Arf.) When I met Kevin, I was delighted to find out that he likes reading aloud too, so we frequently read to each other before we go to sleep. I love it. It’s a […]

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Finally spotting the blindingly obvious

September 22, 2009

Sometimes, I get stuck on projects and have no idea why. Then, like a log jam suddenly freeing up, I have an idea that sets everything flowing again. I’ve been stuck fast on Revenge of the Books of Hay for longer than makes me happy, mainly because I hit a structural problem that my brain […]

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Book Oven update

September 18, 2009

It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned Book Oven, the publishing start-up that I have been working with, but great progress has been made behind the scenes. We have removed the need for an invitation, for one, so you can now just pop along to BookOven.com and sign up without any sort of code or […]

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