Rae of Light

Most of my friends and writing support network knows that I'm working on my second novel – Sharp Dark Things [ SDT ]. The thing which has always left me floundering with regards this novel is that I feel it is essential that sections of it be illustrated. I found an illustrator a couple of years ago but things didn't work out. The main problem is that I can't afford to pay my illustrator and so can only offer shared notoriety once the book is published. Please take note of the positivity here. Not an if in sight. The prospect of finding an illustrator crazy enough to go along with me seemed impossible, but life has a wonderful way of throwing you what you need . Enter the exuberant Miss Sarah Pennock. I met the lovely Sarah through my work with Inkhead Creative Writing . I watched her create a sketch of an Olympic swimmer from descriptions provided by a group of children attending a writing workshop and knew I had to ask h...

Us writers give ourselves a really tough time about how much writing we get done. We beat ourselves up about whether our characters are convincing enough or if we've used too many clichés or adverbs. We agonise over word count and have endless inner debates about the merits of a word in a sentence or the construction of a sentence to clarify meaning. We worry that we'll befuddle our readers or over egg a description. Writers have indeed turned self flagellation into an art. So I feel it's crucial that we also do a serious amount of R&R. In my view this should involve indulging in your vice of the moment to the max. We writers live on the edge when it comes to our attempts to deliver a piece of writing worthy of our audience. I feel our readers may think the writing process is all too easy. After all, we only have to sit down and write something. How hard can that be? So it seems only fair that we should be allowed to be a little extreme when ...

Sydnee Blake was born in New York, lived in France but spent most of her working life in London.  She has been an actor, theatre director and teacher.  Her stories appeared in Worldwide Writers and Brittle Star .  They have also been placed in awards, including The Ian St James, The New Writer and Fish.  She has two sons and four grandchildren. It’s published!   I have my book Finding Words in Whitechapel and other stories. It looks beautiful BUT the cost. The journey… The adventure began a year ago with a small publisher, who will remain nameless. For £680.00 my master-piece received Publishing Services: Title set-up and administration, an ISBN allocation, legal deposit, bar code which resulted in a 250 gsm printed full colour outside only paperback book. Print on demand = £3.46 for each copy. Less for large orders, of course. Okay. I had friends do the cover, friends edited my book and that saved me a lot but what happens...

About 2 years ago a fellow writer, Emma   , invited me to a Liars League event. At the time I thought, What a good idea!  Wouldn't it be great to find an actor willing to read my stuff?  What a shame I don't know any actors. But knock me down with a robin feather –  last September I got the opportunity to have an extract of my novel performed by AN ACTOR.  I've been working on my novel Sharp Dark Things almost 4 and a half years now and it was beginning to feel a bit of a trial. It needed extensive editing and I was baulking. I needed a kick up the jacksy. A huge one. And since I'm not double jointed I wasn't able to perform the task. Well hello Actors Reading Writers 3 The lovely Sue Lanzon ( Something In The Water ) asked me if I'd like to contribute to the event. Well I would have been a total fool if I'd said no. And here's the evidence that I stepped into the void and hoped I wouldn't crash too ha...

Gift voucher! Gift voucher! Gleaming bright Spent at emporiums day or night, Thanks to Amazon and eBay Could there be any other way? I apologise to Blake for the flagrant abuse of the first verse of one of his most famous poems. If you're turning in your grave Bill, you can stop now because I promise it stops here. As you may have gathered, the main reason I'm writing this month's blog is to laud the virtues of the humble gift voucher. It may also have something to do with the fact that my birthday is imminent and I'm considering writing a definitive birthday present list for my friends and family. High on this list is the gift voucher. I'm one of the odd minority who relish receiving them as gifts. Yes, I know some of you think they're boring. But here's the thing – they mean I can get WHATEVER I like, WHENEVER I like, WHERE EVER I like. What's not to like about that? When I reached the age of 10 or 11 my gra...

I don't do presents at Christmas so a lot of people assume that means I'm a bit of a Scrooge about the whole season. But they couldn't be more wrong. Christmas for me is all about time spent with family and friends I love to pieces. I've been feeling pretty nostalgic this December and put my tree up on the 1 st when usually I put it up when I finish teaching round about the 18 th or 19 th . My lovely friend Chantal and I had a mini tree decorating party. Just her and me. The festivities involved: good food Christmasish music quite a bit of mulled wine and the inevitable set of lights which didn't work, The result was this shining example of a Christmas tree you see before you. It's always a fake tree because being South African I don't know any other kind. My strongest childhood memories are of lengthy journeys in our Hillman  (later a bright yellow VW Beetle) to friends and family on C...

For as long as I can remember, reading has been a part of my life. As a child I remember walking to the bus stop with a book in my hand because I was so engrossed in the world within those pages. And by some miracle of auto steering I managed to manoeuvre around obstacles in my path. Even now, as an adult, I go everywhere with a book in my bag, sometimes two. When I'm not driving I like to take every opportunity to get engrossed in the plot of a novel, live the lives of the characters and marvel at the author's choice of language.  An ex boyfriend gave me a Kobo for Christmas last year and since then my bag has been a whole lot lighter. But whether in paperback or encased inside the gubbins of an e-reader, books are always with me.  I can't imagine a time in my life  without them or when they didn't give me the most immense pleasure ever.  Books have seen me through every major event in my life.  When I've felt that I couldn't rely on peo...