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
- A note on Neil Gaiman's politics June 18, 2013 Paul Owen
- Neil Gaiman in conversation – live coverage June 17, 2013 Paul Owen
- Tips, links and suggestions: What are you reading this week? June 17, 2013 Guardian readers, Hannah Freeman
- 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: setting
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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Looking At The View
I was walking to the station a few days ago — the long way round because the footpath over the fields is too muddy (see the melting snow in the photo) and noticed a wonderful sunrise emerging over the tops … Continue reading
Posted in Research
Tagged art, artists, Caspar David Friedrich, Chequers, Chilterns, Hanover, JMW Turner, John Constable, John Nash, Kim, Kurt Schwitters, landscape painting, landscapes, National Gallery, Research, Royal Academy, setting, Tate Britain
1 Comment
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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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
Know What You Write
I’ve recently been writing a new scene for the novel involving street art. As readers of the blog will know, I’ve spent plenty of time recently learning about street art and observing it around Shoreditch (on Thursday this week I was … Continue reading
Posted in Influences, Research
Tagged Adam Neate, art, art galleries, artists, Berlin, Elms Lesters Painting Rooms, graffiti, Kim, Love Art London, method acting, psychology, setting, sex, Shoreditch, Street art, Tate Gallery
2 Comments
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
7 Comments
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
‘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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(M)eine Grafitti Shoreditch Wedding
It’s a slightly cheesy caption for the above photo but those in the know will also recognise it as the name of a pub near Old Street, on the edge of Shoreditch and the place I ended up with the … Continue reading
Posted in Research
Tagged art, Ben Eine, Boxpark, Ebor Street, graffiti, Redchurch Street, setting, Shoreditch, Street art, Wedding, workshops
1 Comment
Two Novel Views of England Within 24 Hours
Here are a couple of contrasting photos taken in the last eighteen hours of the different aspects of England that feature in the novel. The first is one of the photos I took on the fascinating Love Art London graffiti … Continue reading
Posted in Influences
Tagged Chilterns, contrasts, graffiti, Love Art London, setting, Shoreditch
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Love Art London and the Catlin Prize
The last post dwelt on art at the celebrity and ‘major gallery spaces’ level  (as Time Out describes them). But my novel is about an artist trying to make a living, someone who doesn’t have the reputation of Picasso or Hirst nor … Continue reading
Posted in Research, Uncategorized
Tagged ABC, adeline de monseignat, Affordable Art Fair, artcatlin, artists, Catlin Prize, jonny briggs, julia vogl, Kim, Love Art London, max dovey, owl and the pussycat, Research, setting, Shoreditch
2 Comments
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
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
1 Comment
Broad Beans and Sea Urchins
I was in London today and took the time to do a bit of novel-related research. I’m planning on setting a small part of my novel in the Tate Modern and so thought it might be in the spirit of … Continue reading
Posted in Research, Writing Process
Tagged aphrodisiacs, backstory, broad beans, Daunt Books, food, Gerhard Richter, iguanas, London, psychology, sea urchin, setting, Tate Modern, The City, The Shard
1 Comment
When I Grow Rich…
…ring the bells of Shoreditch in Oranges and Lemons, Shoreditch being where mos of the start of my novel is set, although I very much doubt the bells of St. Leonard’s are going to help me get rich by writing … Continue reading
Posted in Research
Tagged artists, Curtain Theatre, history, Hoxton, London, Moniker Art, Norton Folgate, Oranges and Lemons, pubs, setting, Shakespeare, Shoreditch, The City, Village Underground
3 Comments
Ready for the Shardpener
Another photo for the fans of the amazing Shard who end up landing on this blog and wondering exactly why. It’s very close to being finished on the outside. The concrete core has reached its final height and the glass … Continue reading
Posted in Research
Tagged City of London, running, setting, St. Paul's Cathedral, The Shard, tourist sights
2 Comments
