Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 514

A Hook For A Book

My publisher wants me to write 'something big', so I'm sitting here staring at the screen with my four thousandth cup of tea today, wondering where the flying flip I am going to find a killer hook, and I realise that the books I've written which have spiked sales all have aspirational and slightly sexy [...:]

Farewell, Modesty

Sad to hear of the death of Peter O'Donnell, the writer of mysteries and of comic strips best known as the creator of Modesty Blaise, sexy and smart superspy heroine. He was also an historical romance novelist who wrote under the female pseudonym Madeleine Bren. Joseph Losey's Modesty Blaise movie was rubbish, but the visual [...:]

The Incredible Shrinking Book Pages

Some writers keep massive cuttings files; I don't anymore. At the start of my career a mention in a newspaper was a cause for excitement, a case for scissors and glue, but after a while I became extremely blase about press mentions. This was largely due to the inaccuracy of the reportage caused by speed [...:]

Oh, Great!

So Jellyfish Man becomes Prime Minister along with micro-celeb Nick Clegg (he of the handsome smile and ugly policies) as his dogsbody. Expect old-Etonians creeping out of the woodwork to burrow into 'jobs for the boys', and infighting from Lib-Dems whose sole powers before today involved being able to get the bins emptied twice a [...:]

Strange Times

Now I feel really old.
Sometimes you come across amazing time juxtapositions that don't seem entirely feasible. I've always been surprised that the fountain pen (reservoir pen) was invented after the first London Underground trains were running. Okay, the Tube only predates the pen by three years, but you'd think it was the other way around. [...:]

Cursed!

'The Curse Of Frankenstein' featured – as all Frankenstein films seem to feature in their resurrection sequences – a steel ball-thing that makes electricity and the Wimshurst Machine, which creates an electromagnetic charge of static electricity (I think). My pal Graham Humphries, the artist of the Cramps album covers, the Evil Dead films and our [...:]

There Should Be A Special Word For…

…the feeling you get when you enter a store and already know it has nothing that will interest you. Shopathy? Shakespeare invented 1,700 words and compounds that have lasted 400 years. Surely we can come up with a few.

A Hot Date For Bryant & May

I'm pleased to say that I now have a June 24th hardback publication date for 'Bryant & May Off The Rails', my eighth novel featuring the elderly irascible London detectives, and advanced copies have already started receiving 'best ever'-type reviews!

But this could be the last in the present series. Although I have several more [...:]

There Should Be A Special Word For…

…the time you sit waiting for your laptop to fire up.

This will be an occasional wordpower series continuing the fine work by Douglas Adams to assign defunct railway station names to unnamed states of mind in 'The Meaning Of Liff'. My favourite; a word for 'the behaviour of sellotape when you're tired.'

Why Isn't There A Special Word For…

…the time you sit waiting for your laptop to fire up?

This will be an occasional wordpower series continuing the fine work by Douglas Adams to assign defunct railway station names to unnamed states of mind in 'The Meaning Of Liff'. My favourite; a word for 'the behaviour of sellotape when you're tired.'