Tag Archives: Terry Pratchett

Writers and their cats…

Liz ponders writers and cats:

“In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.” ~ Terry Pratchett

Cover of Seriously Funny. The Endlessly Quotable Terry PratchettWriting tends to be a solitary business. Many of the authors I know have a dog who will happily sit at their feet while they’re working.

Egyptian cat goddess

Egyptian cat goddess that lives on Liz’s desk

Cats, on the other hand, are unfamiliar with the “sit, stay” command. It’s not that they don’t want to be with you. On the contrary. When they aren’t sleeping, they demand your full attention.

American fantasy author, P C Cast, put it perfectly.

“You know how it is with cats: They don’t really have owners, they have staff.”

“Authors like cats because they are such quiet, loveable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.” ~ Robertson Davies

I like that quote for obvious reasons, but how accurate is it? Continue reading →

What to choose for Reading in Lockdown?

Rather to my surprise, people have been asking me to recommend books for lockdown reading. Virtual strangers, some of them. I suppose they think a writer reads more than other people. Well, to keep abreast of the competition, if nothing else.

Now, I like talking about books. And I am congenitally incapable of ignoring a request for help.

But this particular question throws me into a quandary. I mean I can happily spout for hours on books I love. As you probably know. But…

Finding a story that somebody else might like, especially someone I barely know (not to mention that someone’s son, daughter or grandchild) is hard. To be honest, it has left me  with eyeballs swishing about, looking for the escape hatch.

So far I’ve blundered through, hauling up titles from the cellarage pretty much at random. Do people want books they can read together? Or are they trying to read to block out the effects of too much togetherness?

With a very uncertain Christmas coming, I thought I’d try to be a bit more disciplined.

New Lockdown Bookworms?

Continue reading →

What I Did On My Holiday : perils, pitfalls and Pratchett

Eton_Schoolboys,_in_ad_Montem_dress,_by_Francis_AlleyneThis is the time of year when school children up and down the land are required to produce an essay, project or even, God help us, art homework on the subject of What I Did On My Holiday.

They are supposed to have had some wonderful new experience to share with their grateful class mates. At least, I suppose that’s the idea.

Might be a bit of a damp squib this year, I’d say. For a lot of people, anyway. But for some of us it was always torture.

Not necessarily because you’d had a bad holiday, either. Just because of the impossibility of a) selection and b) giving enough context without boring the pants off your class mates. Ten-year-olds make a tough audience. I speak from experience.
Except once.

What I Did on My Holiday at Christmas

At my primary school one year we got the assignment when we went back in January as well. (My mother blamed the teacher’s Christmas-through-New Year hangover. Though she didn’t tell me that until after my 21st birthday.)

Me? I’d spent my holiday reading. Continue reading →

Reader work

reading with catReader work is a new concept for me. Reading, especially with Companion Cat purring beside me, has always been my purest pleasure.

Fact, fiction,  annual financial statements, cornflake packets, I read them all. And I revelled in the otherwhere of the printed word, quite apart from whatever I learned from the text in question.

During lockdown, I have been reading even more than I usually do. Some old friends, for the dark times. Right Ho, Jeeves never lets me down. Nor does Sylvester. Or Wyrd Sisters, Fire and Hemlock, Persuasion…

But also new voices. Recommendations, serendipitous discoveries, long postponed titles from TBR pile, curiosities. All were interesting, many fitted my mood or preoccupations of the time. A few were utterly fabulous and I binge read everything else the author had written.

But what surprised me was that reading a new book tired me. Especially the ones that I really loved. Nearly as much as writing the damn stuff.

Reader Work – Co-Creation?

Think about it. Reading a new book is nearly as tiring as writing a new book? Continue reading →

Diane Pearson, In Memoriam

 

So very sorry that wonderful Diane Pearson, seen here on the left, with the equally legendary Patricia Robins, has died.

Best Selling Novelist

Yes, she was a genuine, gold-plated, international best selling novelist. Her greatest work, Csardas, was called the European Gone With the Wind.

It was reprinted a couple of years ago. And, in spite of her increasingly debilitating illness, Diane saw no reason not to give one of her justly famous parties to celebrate.

It was a lovely summer evening, she was on gossipy top form and the new edition had a spectacularly beautiful cover. One of many delicious memories I have of Diane.

And Editor …

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