Gerard Kelly's Blog, page 6
August 30, 2013
10 Rules of Writing
Crime writer Elmore Leonard, who died this month aged 87, famously declared adverbs to be ‘a mortal sin’. His !0 Rules of Writing, from the 2010 book of the same name, are summarised by the Guardian here.
August 9, 2013
Kurt Vonnegut – writing is just a matter of time
“Novelists have, on the average, about the same IQs as the cosmetic consultants at Bloomingdale’s department store. Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each [...]
Spufford on Spufford
I have written here before of my enthusiasm for Francis Spufford’s’ “Unapologetic”. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, the book is without doubt one of the bravest and most original recent efforts to talk about religion. Spufford works hard to describe the experience of faith using a language that people who have no faith can [...]
August 6, 2013
July 31, 2013
Following the Fault-lines
I’ve just been browsing the upcoming list of publications from Wendy Grisham’s Jericho Books in the US, and there are some really great titles. Jericho is working in the new territory opening up between Evangelicals who are hungry for a bigger God and those outside the church who want to question their own assumptions and [...]
10 Words you use badly…
This is quite fun… 10 words you have probably been mis-using… Chances are there are 1000 more out there. The dilemma is, if you want to write in the way that people speak, you have to adopt all these ‘wrong’ uses: but how do you signal to your readers that you’re doing it on purpose, not [...]
July 23, 2013
Help me Name my Baby
So apparently, naming other people’s babies is interesting… The media frenzy around poor Kate would seem to suggest that we all want to have a go. Though I don’t claim Kate’s media profile, I’d also like some help. The Jairus Child needs a new title. Do any of these three grab you? Let me [...]
Regroup: Reimagine: Rekindle
So, it now seems unlikely that Hodders will publish The Jairus Child after all… I‘m an untried name in fiction, and faith-based fiction is an untried (aka almost non-existent) market in the UK. The book is done and ready for its final edit. So I’ve made a few decisions. to self-publish, and to do [...]
July 2, 2013
Sport as Art
July is the month of great entertainment and sporting challenges. Glastonbury, Wimbledon, The Tour de France. But what if you could combine the two? What if one event could provide you with both the joy of art in action AND the ultimate physical challenge? Would you pay for such an event? NOW YOU CAN, with [...]
