Nigel Jay Cooper's Blog, page 3
January 2, 2019
Write for the love of writing
I’m such a dick. I barely wrote a word in 2018 and I’ve just looked at my website and realised I also haven’t written a blog article since May 2018 and even that was an old article rehashed. It’s title (I kid you not): Stop making excuses, you have got time to write.
Obviously, I’m the absolute King of not practising what I preach. Because I was supposed to have finished the first draft of my third adult novel as well as the first draft of my mid-grade children’s bo...
Write for the love of writing… there isn’t another reason
I’m such a dick. I barely wrote a word in 2018 and I’ve just looked at my website and realised I also haven’t written a blog article since May 2018 and even that was an old article rehashed. It’s title (I kid you not): Stop making excuses, you have got time to write.
Obviously, I’m the absolute King of not practising what I preach. Because I was supposed to have finished the first draft of my third adult novel as well as the first draf...
May 5, 2018
Stop making excuses, you have got time
Ever since I was a boy, I’ve dreamed of being a novelist. I ground my parents down until they bought me an electric typewriter when I was about 11 years old so I could write a rip off Hardy Boys adventure yarn on it. Utter rubbish, I’m sure, and luckily no copies survive to tell the tale.
When I was about 15, I convinced my mother to buy me one of those writing courses that were always advertised in the newspaper in the late 1980s. It was a distance lear...
February 1, 2018
Madness, normality, reality
Excerpt, The Pursuit of Ordinary
‘Joe says he feels like a deadheaded plant,’ Dan said to Natalie last week, a light smile on his face. ‘Like his head has been chopped off and mine has grown back in its place.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Natalie replied, turning her back on him and unpacking the shopping, emptying it onto the side in the kitchen rather than putting it in the cupboards and fridge, taking one item out after another after another.
‘But is it ridiculous?...
January 29, 2018
Who gets to say what’s normal?
Excerpt, The Pursuit of Ordinary
‘Dad,’ he said, eventually.
‘Hold on, I want to watch the news,’ his dad replied, flapping a hand at him, as if to shoo him away.‘Dad, I’m serious,’ Dan said, picking at the skin around his thumbnail—pick, pick, pick—until little spots of blood appeared, gradually growing, bulbous, full of life, scarlet bubbles of reality nestling on top of his skin, taunting him with their realness, a visual anchor to a life he could no longer...
December 17, 2017
Does anyone value literary fiction anymore?
Truth is, I haven’t been writing much recently. I often need ‘recovery time’ after finishing a novel, and The Pursuit of Ordinary was no exception. Partly, that’s due to the material I write – I need a break emotionally – but it’s also due to the fact I also run a business (with my other half) and am bringing up two young children.
Before I was published, I imagined the day I’d be able to write full time. Once I had a publishing contract, there I’d...
November 24, 2017
Nobody plans to be homeless
Dan lay awake on the sofa, trying to forget his nightmare and listening to the heart beating in his chest, wondering why it felt like someone else’s.
When he woke up the next morning, his friend Stu was standing in front of him nervously.
‘Look, Dan. I’d love to let you stay a bit longer, you know I would, but Karen has some friends coming to stay and we need the sofa back…’
‘Don’t be silly. Of course,’ Dan had replied, glanc...
October 8, 2017
What’s in a name? Quite a lot, it turns out…
The name Nigel is dying a death… as a baby name, it is on the verge of extinction. This year saw no new Nigels. Not one.
As a Nigel myself, I can’t fault this. It’s a terrible name. It was never a stylish name, it was never cool or indy or retro… it was just… insipid, really. Fopish at best, pale, weak and a little bit inbred at worst.
I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner, but I can’t help thinking the ever-present Nigel Farage has helped it on it...
May 25, 2017
Over-editing, a writers invisible enemy
Over-editing, worse, perhaps, than the writer’s other well-fed demon: keeping hold of your ‘darlings’ and not editing enough.
On the days when confidence is low, it’s tempting to decide your work isn’t good enough. Perhaps if you just tweak ‘this’ or ‘that’ – or, in my case yesterday, move and rewrite a huge chunk from the middle of your novel and make it the opening three chapters.
Why? Because I’d decided the opening three chapters must be a problem....
May 1, 2017
She doesn’t watch him all the time. She’s not weird… excerpt, Beat The Rain
She started watching him shortly after she met him. Not stalking him, she’s not weird or anything. But he’s living in the flat above the garage opposite the café and she can see so much. And he never seems to draw his curtains. Not fully anyway. He doesn’t eat badly for a man living alone: some ready meals, but just as much fresh veg and fish (she’s ‘bumped’ into him in the supermarket). He likes beans on toast (he...
