MacNovel on Twitter- Isabel Costello Literary Sofa
- XX or XY? Do readers care about gender of author? June 17, 2013
- Guest Author – Susan Elliot Wright on Writing a Dual Narrative June 10, 2013
- Let’s all talk about GONE GIRL June 4, 2013
- This Itch of Writing
- Guardian Book Blog
- The best books on Egypt: start your reading here | Pushpinder Khaneka June 19, 2013 Pushpinder Khaneka
- A note on Neil Gaiman's politics June 18, 2013 Paul Owen
- Neil Gaiman in conversation June 17, 2013 Paul Owen
- The Forest for the Trees — Betsy Lerner
- I Love You Just the Way You Are June 16, 2013
- I’m Trying To Beat Life Cause I Can’t Cheat Death June 3, 2013
- Could It Be That It Was All So Simple Then May 30, 2013
- Kathy Greethurst’s Blog
- Untitled January 10, 2013 Kathy Greethurst
- Bloody Flies by Andrew J Keir - Review by Helena Frith Powell June 7, 2012 Kathy Greethurst
- A wonderful afternoon in Avebury February 22, 2012 Kathy Greethurst
- How Publishing Really Works
- Does The Self-Publishing Review Fall For Robert Duperre? March 29, 2012
- The Self-Publishing Review Goes In Search Of The Menopause Ranch March 22, 2012
- Travelling To The Self-Published Review March 15, 2012
- Female PTSD — A Blog By A Brave Female Victim of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Help I Need A Publisher
- I'm still here... December 31, 2012
- All my advice about publishing and writing September 4, 2012
- Two last questions for DEAR CRABBIT September 3, 2012
- The Elephant in the Writing Room
- Sunshine and Showers June 15, 2013
- Not a lot of writing but a whole load of reading... June 5, 2013
- Jon and the Pacemakers May 31, 2013
- Bren Gosling’s Blog (ex-City Novel coursemate)
- Short listed for the Harry Bowling Prize ! January 30, 2012 Bren Gosling
- About - Sweeping up the Village- by Bren Gosling January 16, 2012 Bren Gosling
- A taster... December 22, 2011 Bren Gosling
- Charlotte Haigh MacNeil’s Blog (ex-City Novel Coursemate and Journalist)
- The real reason insomniacs can’t sleep June 7, 2013
- The myth of delayed motherhood May 18, 2013
- The extreme female brain February 21, 2013
- Michael Braga Writes (ex-City Novel coursemate)
- THE SIGNS -A short story by Michael Braga Oct 2010 October 10, 2010
- Friday thoughts on a Monday afternoon September 6, 2010
- The pursuit of sadness August 25, 2010
- Sometimes I Lie A Little
- Some Things That
- Moira Garland’s Blog
- Partisan writing April 11, 2013
- Brain error? April 7, 2013
- Longing April 4, 2013
- Talli Roland
- Pavilion in the Park June 17, 2013
- Sex. On Tuesdays. Or Not. June 10, 2013
- Notting Hill Press Launches! June 3, 2013
- Charlie Mackle
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Tag Archives: London
Falling, Yes I Am Falling
The photo above is not, as my friends at Love Art London tweeted, me doing a ‘flying squirrel impression’ but me being a serious, living artwork in Amy Sharrocks’ studio in Chelsea — and she’s a real artist! To my … Continue reading
Posted in Research
Tagged Amy Sharrocks, art, bonkers, Chelsea, falling, Go Ape!, London, Love Art London, Museum of Water, performance art
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Alexis Cole — Transcendence
One of the questions that recurs in my novel is the importance of location — especially for artists.In my novel Kim is a German artist who has arrived to London from Berlin in the expectation that it’s the place to … Continue reading
Posted in Research
Tagged agents, Alexis Cole, art, art galleries, artists, bookshops, Brick Lane, Damien Hirst, Kim, London, Mat Collishaw, Publishing, Research, setting, Shoreditch, theme, Transcendence
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Point of View
The point from which this view can be seen is unique — with that tremendous triangular shadow — and it’s only been open a week. I must have been very lucky to have caught a moment where the sun … Continue reading
Posted in Influences
Tagged Cheesegrater, London, marketing, setting, Shoreditch, The City, The Shard, Village Underground, Walkie Talkie
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Parallel Lines
Last week I ventured into deepest Stoke Newington for another fascinating Love Art London event. I wasn’t sure what to expect in advance of visit to Rana Begum‘s studio. The Love Art London website promised that ‘tightly controlled compositions, hard-edge … Continue reading
Posted in Research
Tagged art, artists, London, Love Art London, Rana Begum, Stoke Newington
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In-Out, In-Out, Shake It All About?
The Hokey Cokey seems to possess the same level of serious reasoning as did last week’s unconvincing and desperately tactical David Cameron speech on an ‘in-out’ referendum on British membership of the EU. His gambling with the country’s political relationship with … Continue reading
Posted in Frustrations
Tagged artists, Conservative Party, David Cameron, David Lidington, Degenerate Art, entartete Künst, EU, Europe, European culture, Eurosceptics, Germany, Hackney, James, Kim, London, Research, setting, Shoreditch, theme, UKIP, Winston Churchill, Working in Europe, World War I, World War II
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London: Thank You For 2012
I couldn’t end 2012 without something for my Shardenfreude followers. I’ve had a fair number of hits on the blog over the past couple of years looking for photos of its construction and now it’s finished and shining like a, … Continue reading
Shoreditch Blonde
There’s a report on the BBC website today about the increasing fashionability and popularity of craft brewing in London. Its main focus is the Beavertown Brewery in Hackney where the brewer is Robert Plant’s son. A few years ago … Continue reading
A Flying View of London
This weekend I visited the latest fascinating addition to London’s skyline, a construction that would probably have attracted a lot more attention had it not opened immediately before the Olympics — an event it was partly conceived to serve. Its … Continue reading
Posted in Influences, Research
Tagged cable car, Canary Wharf, East London, Emirates Air Line, Greenwich, London, O2 Arena, Olympic Legacy, Olympics, pubs, setting, Shoreditch, Tap East, Thames, The City, The Shard
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Transmission
In the last post I mentioned the ‘Transmission Project’, which according to the Manchester Metropolitan University student handbook is ‘an independent research unit, undertaken at the end of the taught element…to explore a specific area of the transmission of text.’ … Continue reading
York Festival Of Writing
Apologies for the absence of recent updates: writing time has recently become increasingly hard to come by, although mostly in a good way, via holidays and other enjoyable events that I have hopes of getting around to writing blog posts … Continue reading
Olympic Legacy?
The last few postings on this blog have been about the fast-fading memories of the 2012 Olympics and it might be asked what relevance  photos and discussions about the Olympics have for blog about writing a novel. Fair question — … Continue reading
Posted in Influences
Tagged BBC, games makers, Gemma Gibbons, influences, London, Olympics, setting, writing
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Bonkers
While ‘unbelievable’ seemed to be the word applied an unbelievable number of times to British sporting achievements, ‘bonkers’ seems the most appropriate description to apply to the cultural and social impact of the Olympics – especially after that closing ceremony. … Continue reading
Posted in General Life, Influences, Uncategorized
Tagged bonkers, dizzee rascal, London, Olympics, pop music, setting
2 Comments
And Were We Ready?
I posted my last blog post about 30 minutes before the Opening Ceremony of London 2012 a little misty-eyed with expectation and anticipation. It feels like an awful long time ago now but, walking around central London, I’d had the … Continue reading
‘The Geiger Counter of Olympomania is Going to Go Zoink Off the Scale’
…as Boris Johnson inimitably said last night in Hyde Park — before his brilliant put-down of Mitt Romney. Well, my Olympomania Geiger counter has been building up to Zoink steadily over the last few weeks but Boris’s ‘Are we ready?’ speech seems … Continue reading
Posted in Influences
Tagged beach volleyball, Big Ben, Boris Johnson, Chilterns, day job, geosemiotics, London, Olympic Torch, Olympics, pink signs, pride, River of Fire, setting, The City, theme, Time Out, Todmorden, Twenty Twelve, Westminster
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Was It Worth It?
Last Saturday morning five of us ex of the City course met for our last workshopping session of the current year (although it’s two years since we finished the course we’re still loosely following the Sep-June academic year). I sent … Continue reading
Posted in Frustrations, Writing Process
Tagged agents, artists, Creative Writing Classes, Delia Smith, editing, frustration, holidays, London, motivation, Olympics, Publishing, Shoreditch, subconscious, synopsis, time management, time passing, tiredness, work, workshops
3 Comments
Poetry Parnassus
Here’s a very quick and timely post — showing that I’m still updating the blog despite only having posted once in June. (I’m furiously — and that’s probably a very apt word — trying to edit the novel into a … Continue reading
Posted in poetry
Tagged Cultural Olympiad, humour, London, Metroland Poets, poetry, poetry parnassus, Poetry Takeaway, South Bank Centre
2 Comments
The Great Big Fabergé Egg Hunt
Selected Fabergé Easter Eggs at Covent Garden Anyone who’s walked around certain areas of London — such as the South Bank, Carnaby Street or Canary Wharf — during Lent this year might have been puzzled by seeing giant eggs dotted around … Continue reading
Posted in Influences, Research
Tagged artists, Covent Garden, faberge, Kim, London, Miss Dee, the big egg hunt
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Something Else That’s Nearly There
The post below said that I’d been given good advice that one final push should see completion of a decent draft of the novel. Co-incidentally, that’s similar to the progress of something else that’s been featured in this blog occasionally … Continue reading
Dickensian London
I took this photo while on the pub crawl described below. The large lamp hangs outside Ye Old Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street. The street posts show it’s in the City of London while floodlit St.Paul’s almost hangs in the … Continue reading
Posted in Research
Tagged Charles Dickens, London, River Fleet, St. Paul's Cathedral, Ye Old Cheshire Cheese
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A Dickens of a Pub Crawl
As anyone who’d watched TV or picked up a newspaper since Christmas will know, 2012 is the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of arguably Britain’s greatest novelist. If you’re a person with more modern tastes in literature you may believe … Continue reading
Posted in General Life, Research
Tagged Armando Iannucci, character, Charles Dickens, Clerkenwell, Farringdon, Holborn, London, Nabokov, pubs, setting
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