Tag: writing
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James Sadler the first English aeronaut
I was walking along Dead Man’s Walk the other day when I came across a plaque commemorating James Sadler, the first English aeronaut. I’m just going to wind back a little to the beginning of that sentence. Dead Man’s Walk – what a fantastic name! And an intriguing location. You’d be hard pressed to come…
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I’ve just discovered audiobooks and now I’m a complete convert
Audiobooks are changing the way I, and many other book lovers, consume fiction. They’ve also made me rethink the way I write my own stories. It’s five weeks now since I listened to my first audiobook. That doesn’t exactly qualify me as an early adopter. But I’ve more than made up for this late start…
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The growing page length of the novel
How long is the book you are currently reading? If it’s a recently published novel, there’s a good chance it’s at least 400 pages long. It might even be considerably longer. A recent survey found that the average page length of a novel has increased from 320 to 400 pages between 1999 and 2014. My…
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Using music to imagine my way into a scene
Music has always played an important part in my writing process. It keeps me company during the long hours of staring at a blank screen. And it helps me block out the external world when the words finally begin to flow. I often use it to imagine my way into a particular scene. And it’s…
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Using Google Docs and Google Drive to stay productive when you’re away from your desk.
A recent change in work routine means that I’m away from my laptop for much of each day. This has forced me to look for new ways of staying productive during those many small moments when I could be writing. Last week, I wrote about an experiment with speech-to-text dictation using Google Docs on my…
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Is dictating the new writing? Can speech-to-text engines help you talk your way to a novel?
Thanks to speech-to-text engines it’s now possible for anyone with a smartphone to become one of the great dictators. Not the testosterone-fuelled – my rocket is bigger than your rocket – kind of dictator. I’m talking here about writers who use dictation to speak their way to a story. Dictation was once the preserve of writers…