It was “dance, experimental, arty” and that I must come, said Nina the friend who was organising the girl’s night out evening for her birthday do. We were a party of eight. I have never been to experimental theatre before, let alone experimental dance, never been to Sadler Wells or Lilian Baylis Studio. How often …
REVIEW: @SkyArts – Cautionary tale of Giles Coren “My Failed Novel”
Butchered: How can a novel written by The Times journalist-celebrity-critic flop? This is the question. And it is answered very well in this TV programme on Sky Arts, Mon 29 February 2016: Giles Coren: My Failed Novel. Every writer, published, unpublished, successful, unsuccessful, commercial, literary – should watch it. It has all the answers. It …
Rejections and the Pound on the Ground
So I had two rejections today, both for short stories. Another for my novel pitch, four days ago. No thanks For those of you who are young (you know who you are), they used to be called rejection slips in the good old days. The postman brought them to your door. They are in thick, creamy, …
4-in-1 Bedside Table Book Review: Atwood, Nemirovsky, Lumix GM1 manual, Urban Decay leaflet
Guess which one is the hardest to read? #whatimreadingrightnow #bedsidetablebooks #margaretatwood #irenenemirovsky #shortstories #urbandecay leaflet. Correct answer is: #lumix #gm1 #manual A photo posted by @ivyngeow on Feb 1, 2016 at 2:11am PST Is “Manual” and “Operating Instructions” two different things? By the time I am writing this post, I have read all already, except …
How do you write and what is your advice? Writers share their routines
Pen and ink – essential, and essential I write anywhere using my gold fountain Sheaffer pen using royal blue ink. I am not being pretentious. I just can’t write without this pen. And yes, maybe I’m superstitious. The ink is very smooth and I need smooth-flowing ink to be able to think carefully. I hate scratchy blotchy dried-up …
New Year New Blog
This is my first post this year. After a long time not writing, I was very encouraged by my recent short story “Funny Mountain” being accepted in an anthology called “Hungry in Ipoh” published by Fixi Novo in October 2015. What’s happened: During the non-writing lacuna of about five years, many things happened. That is, …