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Blog: I’m sorry Neil, although I love your writing and agree with your opinions on most subjects I have to disagree with you on the writers’ strike. No-one should have a more privileged life as a result of being clever and creative. I worked from the age of 15 to the age of 65 in low-paid jobs, taking 1 year off to go to drama school and 3 years off to get a fine art degree. I worked in terrible but necessary jobs, labouring, stacking boxes, unloading trucks, running errands, filing, going to work on a bicycle at all hours of the day and night on shift work in all kinds of weather. Even when I was a student I was still working in part-time cleani8ng jobs and even during periods of unemployment I worked in volunteer jobs for charities and social services. According to Mensa I have an IQ of 160 and according to Plymouth University I have a BA hons in Fine Art but I cannot accept the idea that writers and other creative people should avoid normal jobs like driving an “Uber” or working in an office/shop/factory/construction site. To accept that idea would be to create a new aristocratic class when we should abolishing the old princes and aristocrats. What we need, I feel sure, is a redistribution of labour so that everybody who can do so would spend some time each year in blue collar work and everybody who can would get higher education and a chance to make art of one sort or another. The idea of doing other jobs to supplement writing or drawing shouldn’t be seen as a terrible thing, a punishment or a suffering. Sharing the jobs around should be seen as normal. I mean, I’ve done my half century of sweat labour and it didn’t hurt me too much. I’m retired now and still making art of various kinds and I’ve never asked anyone to pay me for any art piece I’ve made. making art, writing, drawing etc. is the fun stuff which we get to do in exchange for the blue collar stuff which puts food on the table. The worst pop song ever written was Sting/Dire Straits song “Money for Nothing” which ridicules the working class from a position of educational privilege. So what’s my question? My question is: What’s wrong with a writer doing other jobs to make ends meet? Sounds perfectly fine to me. from
Joanne Harris in the group Fans of Joanne Harris 2 years agoNothing’s wrong with a writer doing other jobs to make ends meet. Writers and artists have been doing that since the dawn of time. Actors too. But by the same […]
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Blog: The Final Chapter from
Joanne Harris in the group Fans of Joanne Harris 2 years agoA review – well, sort of – of Chris Fowler’s WORD MONKEY.There are books that you never want to end. Sometimes it’s because of the thrilling plot; or the fantasti […]
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Blog: The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup from
Books | The Guardian in the group The Guardian book reviews 2 years agoA Bird in Winter by Louise Doughty; A Line in the Sand by Kevin Powers; My Husband by Maud Ventura; Case Sensitive by AK Turner; The Turnglass by Gareth RubinA […]
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Blog: Friday Poem – ‘Ernest Morgan’s House’ by John Powell Ward from
Seren in the group Seren Books 2 years agoThis week’s Friday Poem is ‘Ernest Morgan’s House’ by John Powell Ward from his new collection Last Poem for Sarah and other poems.
The post Friday Poem – ‘Erne […] -
Blog: Ayòbámi Adébáyò: ‘I read The Go-Between by LP Hartley and couldn’t stop crying’ from
Books | The Guardian in the group The Guardian book reviews 2 years agoThe Booker-longlisted Nigerian author on the elementary appeal of Sherlock Holmes, crying with LP Hartley and the joys of rereadingMy earliest reading memoryThe […]
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Blog: Quinn Eastman on the Science of Sleepiness from
The Virtual Book Channel – Literary Hub in the group The Virtual Book Channel 2 years agoHosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological i […]
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Blog: Bliss & Blunder by Victoria Gosling review – an Arthurian legend for our times from
Books | The Guardian in the group The Guardian book reviews 2 years agoTech bros are the new Knights of the Round Table in this whip-smart fable of friendship and misogynyAnd what if it’s not – just this once – about the boy?” This qu […]
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Blog: My problem with “was” from
Thanet Creative Writers in the group Thanet Creative: Writers 2 years agoThe word “was” is an easy fit when writing in the past tense. Along with “had” it is easy to use the word so hard and often that it becomes a distrac […]
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Matthew Brown edited the blog post
My problem with “was” in the group Thanet Creative: Writers: 2 years agoMy problem with "was"
The word “was” is an easy fit when writing in the past tense. Along with “had” it is easy to use the word so hard and often that it becomes a […] -
Blog: 144. Thee, Hannah! from
Becky's Book Reviews in the group Book bloggers 2 years agoThee, Hannah! Marguerite de Angeli. 1940. 98 pages. [Source: Library] [children’s classic; j fiction]First sentence: Hannah stopped talking for a moment to listen […]
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Blog: Establish Your Freelance Writing Rates (New Data) from
Copyblogger in the group Copy Blogger Fans 2 years agoAs a freelance writer, I never fully understood the value I provided to my clients until I wrote a case…
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The post Establish Your Freelance […] -
Blog: P.S. Burn This Letter Please by Craig Olsen review – tales from New York’s drag scene from
Books | The Guardian in the group The Guardian book reviews 2 years agoAn eccentric retelling of the lives, loves and traumas of 1950s and 60s queensEd Limato was a razzle-dazzle agent who provided “the bridge between old-time H […]
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Blog: Dr. Peter Kim on How Trust Works from
The Virtual Book Channel – Literary Hub in the group The Virtual Book Channel 2 years agoHosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological i […]
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Blog: Matthew Moynihan on the Promises of Fusion from
The Virtual Book Channel – Literary Hub in the group The Virtual Book Channel 2 years agoHosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological i […]
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Blog: Shark Heart by Emily Habeck – the man who turned into a shark from
Books | The Guardian in the group The Guardian book reviews 2 years agoThis high-concept romantic debut explores the experience of facing life-changing and life-threatening conditionsOpposites, as the saying goes, attract. At first […]
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Blog: Dust by Jay Owens review – the stuff that surrounds us from
Books | The Guardian in the group The Guardian book reviews 2 years agoDust is everywhere, but it’s so much more than a mere nuisance, as this eye-opening account showsThe subject of Jay Owens’s new book has long been trying to kil […]
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Blog: 143. Dust (Silo #3) from
Becky's Book Reviews in the group Book bloggers 2 years ago143. Dust (Silo #3) Hugh Howey. 2013. 458 pages. [Source: Bought] [Adult science fiction; dystopia; adult fiction]First sentence: “Is anyone there?” “Hello? Yes. […]
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Blog: Caret by Adam Mars-Jones review – a semi-infinite novel from
Books | The Guardian in the group The Guardian book reviews 2 years agoThe third instalment in the brilliantly immersive autobiography of tragicomic creation John Cromer takes a picaresque tour of 1970s EnglandCaret is the third […]
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Blog: Alex Segura on Spider-Man 2099, secret identities, and writing comics from
The Virtual Book Channel – Literary Hub in the group The Virtual Book Channel 2 years agoAuthors in the Tent is a professionally filmed series of interviews with established and emerging authors conducted in a tent Ona Russell purchased during the […]
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Blog: The Stirrings by Catherine Taylor review – coming of age in Sheffield from
Books | The Guardian in the group The Guardian book reviews 2 years agoA piercing memoir of growing up in 70s and 80s Yorkshire amid male violence, political protest and Pulp gigsYorkshire in the late 1970s, and women have been told […]
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Blog: A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll review – haunting gothic tale with a heady whiff of Daphne du Maurier from
Books | The Guardian in the group The Guardian book reviews 2 years agoThe award-winning Canadian graphic novelist’s account of a young woman whose widower husband has a dark secret about his first wife is vividly drawn and m […]
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Blog: Q&A with Lissa Morgan! from
Mills & Boon Blog in the group Mills and Boon fans 2 years agoWe caught up with the lovely Lissa Morgan to chat about her writing journey and new book, The Warrior’s Reluctant Wife. * You write for the Mills and Boon H […]
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Blog: Katherine Rundell on Imagining a Fantasy World Into Being from
Waterstones Blog in the group Waterstones’ blog headlines 2 years agoOne of the finest children’s authors of her generation, Katherine Rundell has won awards, critical acclaim and the love of the bookreading public with novels such […]
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Freddie became a registered member 2 years ago
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Blog: Ece Temelkuran on Social Media’s Failure to Change the World from
The Virtual Book Channel – Literary Hub in the group The Virtual Book Channel 2 years agoHosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological i […]
