Catherine Banner's Blog, page 7

happy new year and an update

A very happy New Year! January 2014 marks a year since I began this blog, and I'd also like to say to everyone who has been reading it that I've really appreciated all your comments, emails and ideas over the past twelve months.It's been a while since I posted anything, so I thought I'd write an update today and explain what I've been up to since mid-November. Mostly, I've been hard at work on my next book in various different ways!

Firstly, during part of November and December I was away on a...

2013... a year in reading so far

At the start of this year, inspired by the fact that I'd recently signed up to Goodreads, I thought it would be interesting to start recording the books I read, something I've never done before. Although we're only 5/6 of the way through the year, I've just had a look at the list, which reminded me of the experience of discovering so many great books. I know a lot of keen readers keep a record of the books they read, and I'm always fascinated to see what other readers' lists look like. So I t...

what's inspiring me right now: milan kundera

On the wall of my writing room, I've usually got a set of post-it notes related to the project I'm working on. At the moment, instead, I've got four quotes from Milan Kundera's The Art of the Novel. This is a complex, opinionated and fiercely intelligent book, which I somehow missed during the every-book-on-the-novel-known-to-humankind part of my English degree. In fact, I only read it for the first time a couple of months ago. ThisGuardian review from the time it was publishedgives a p...

some praise for alice munro and eleanor catton

I don't know why, but this feels like a good time to be writing - and a lot of it has to do with two writers in the headlines right now: Alice Munro and Eleanor Catton. I'm immensely cheered and energised by who has won the prizes this week, in a way I don't think I have been for a long time. These two very different authors have been recognised for their individual gifts, but their successes inevitably have an effect on everyone else working in the great continent of...

where do ideas come from?

Writers apparently dread the question 'Where do you get your ideas from?' A fact which might seem a bit strange. Ideas, surely, are the writer's bread and butter. So why do most writers, even very distinguished and experienced ones, appear unprepared, flustered and vague when faced with questions about how they generate them?

I've heard persuasive arguments that it could be because because a writer's main fear is running out of ideas, so the process has to be swaddled in superstition and myste...

first three weeks of a work in progress

As some of you already know, I'm at the very start of a new project. Rather than aiming for a particular word count or page count each day, as most writers do once a book is well underway, this stage is about planning, researching and thinking. Anew book usually starts with a faint set of images, voices and ideas which, if allowed to develop, will provide the threads that guide the writer into the labyrinth of a story. The last few weeks, for me, have been about letting that process happen.I...

full-time writerdom

Today is the first day back at school for teachers and children across the UK. In fact, as I write this I can hear the primary school children at the school behind my house noisily enjoying their break - a strange thing, as it reminds me that I would have been on break duty too right now. The start of a new school year feels like embarking on an uncertain kind of adventure: gradually getting the measure of new classes and separating out the individual personalities of the children from the gr...

nine worlds: some thoughts

I'm back at my desk after a month spent mostly away from it, catching up with friends and family. It's been a great thing to take some time off for travelling, thinking and reading, and I hope to post more about this in due course. But meanwhile, from the 9th to the 11th of August I found the time to stop off at Nine Worlds Geekfest. Although it's a bit late to write a full report on the event, and others have done a better job of that than me, I thought I'd share a few of my impressions of w...

nine worlds convention

Hello, and sorry for the absence... I've been spending some time visiting family and friends in Italy, Austria, Hungary and Switzerland; it's been a great though very busy three weeks, which I'll post more about in due course. Today, I'm just online for a quick update about my schedule for Nine Worlds Convention this weekend. Tomorrow I will be back in the UK, just in time for the start of this fantastic event, a multi-genre convention which is taking place at London Heathrow from tomorrow to...

writing full-time

I've got some news to share today. For the first time in six years, I am about to become a full-time writer again. This is something I've known about for a while, but I've saved this blog post until today so that I could explain properly.
Writing full-time is an unusual step. As I've mentioned before, I've never chosen to go full-time, though I've had the opportunity. To some people this probably seems slightly insane. Why would anyone not want to spend their days working from home in their dr...