Elspeth Cooper's Blog, page 4

Well, that was painless

Thanks to those clever people at All-in-one* the hardest part of moving my website to a new host was waiting for the domain transfer to go through (then it happened in the middle of the night because of course it did). Nice here, innit? *Seriously, their All-in-one WP Migration plugin does exactly what it says […]

Website issues, or why IT is like Hotel California

Apologies to anyone who’s experienced any difficulties with using my site in the last couple of weeks. There have been some gremlins in the works. I was trying out some new plugins when I noticed that after a flurry of updates, one of them had changed its name, and sprouted a new control panel. Then […]

Getting out of my own way

Reading Twitter over breakfast recently*, as you do, I came across this piece of writing wisdom from Aliette de Bodard: Writer life: making a diff btw “words not flowing bc procrastination” & “words not flowing bc brain is signaling they’re the wrong words” — Aliette de Bodard (@aliettedb) August 29, 2017 and it slapped me […]

Thank you all

I just wanted to write a quick note to say how humbled I was by the reaction to my recent post about what a struggle writing has been lately, and why. Two weeks ago, I feared the worst. That was one of the reasons why I hesitated so long before posting. Instead I have been […]

Defining success

It’s that time of year when the newspapers are full of pictures of joyful girls (and it’s always girls, isn’t it? Funny that) leaping in the air celebrating their A Level results. These will be followed in due course by lots of well-meaning but uninspired advice for those whose results were less gravity-defying, and in […]

A needful thing

So this post has been a long time coming. It needed to be written, but I kept putting it off because frankly, I didn’t know how to write it. I still don’t, but I’m going to have a go anyway. I hope you understand. I’m not a fast writer. I have perfectionist tendencies, which mean […]

Surprising myself. Again.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: contains spoiler for TRINITY RISING, so bear that in mind if you read on! Most of you know by now that I am a discovery writer, what GRRM calls a ‘gardener’. I do not build my books out of 3×5 index cards, beat sheets and 16 different-coloured pens. I mean no disrespect to […]

Introducing a thing: the Tuesday Teaser

If you follow me on the Book of Face, you may have noticed I’ve been teasing you, somewhat erratically, with snippets from a chapter of THE DRAGON HOUSE. Usually, I am hopelessly undisciplined when it comes to things like regular blog posts and refreshing my social media with new content, so I am making an […]

Of magic and medicine

This post originally appeared at the Booksworn.com writers’ collective. I thought it deserved another airing. *** Some years ago, I attended a series of night classes entitled “Myth, Magic and Mystery” at a local high school. Sigilization, Kirlian photography, odd exercises in dimly-lit rooms with candles and mirrors – it was Wicca-lite crossed with Fringe, […]

Writing weather

© Illreality | Dreamstime Stock Photos

I’ve always been the kind of person whose mood is influenced by the weather. Not in some New Age in-touch-with-nature sort of a way, I just notice things. Rainy days make me melancholy. Strong winds give me the fidgets. And sometimes I notice the seasons change.

Ever since I was small, too young to feel the relentless march of the calendar pages turning the way an adult would, I’ve associated autumn with crows. I say crows, but really I mean all the corvids we got where I grew up: rooks, jackdaws and carrion crows (no ravens or hoodies in the north east of England). In early September, they got restless, swirling across the sky in great raucous flocks before settling back into the tall trees next to my parents’ house. It always meant summer was ending for another year.

I went into the garden this morning and the first thing I heard was the rooks. The sky was still blue and patterned with housemartins, the air still warm, but that dolorous cawing made me feel change was afoot.

Now the clouds are blowing in. A fretful wind is tossing the jackdaws around, and the trees are hissing like surf over shingle beaches. It feels like autumn. That means it’s writing weather.