Christopher J. Yates's Blog, page 8

Fictionary 4

I used to work as a puzzle editor and compiler and thought it might be fun to make up a book puzzle. This is a wordplay challenge in which each circle contains a cryptic-style clue to the name of a book. So, for the example, over on the right here, the answer is ‘Trainspotting’. (TRA – in -SPOTTING, yes?)

See if you can work out the titles of nine novels below, arranged in approximate order of difficulty. And to narrow things down, this timethe theme is ‘Children’s Books’.I’d like to say a hug...

Black Chalk, In Numbers

700 – the number of days it took to write a first draft of Black Chalk

10 – the number (for the sake of argument) of good ideas you need to hang a moderately complicated plot together

70 – based on the previous two numbers, this is the frequency in days with which you need to have a good idea. People have often said to me ‘oh you must be full of ideas’ or ‘how do you come up with the plot?’ and the secret is time. I am not full of ideas, in fact, most of the time, I feel I am seriously lacking...

Fictionary 3

I used to work as a puzzle editor and compiler and thought it might be fun to make up a book puzzle. This is a wordplay challenge in which each circle contains a cryptic-style clue to the name of a book. So, for the example, over on the right here, the answer is ‘Trainspotting’. (TRA – in -SPOTTING, yes?)

See if you can work out the titles of nine novels below, arranged in approximate order of difficulty. And to narrow things down, this time the theme is ‘Postwar American Literature’.

I’ll add...

Dog Week – The Finale

So here it is, the finale of Dog Week, Mabel’s appearance at this year’s Tompkins Square Park Halloween Dog Parade.

This year Mabel went as… drumroll… Sharknadog!

OK, in case you are unaware of the movie Sharknado, it’s a disaster B-movie about a waterspout lifting a load of sharks from the ocean and then dropping them down on Los Angeles. Favourite line from the trailer: “We can’t just sit here and wait for sharks to rain down on us.” (You can see the trailer here if you need to see the full h...

Dog Week

Yes, the Discovery Channel has Shark Week and now, here on my website, it’s Dog Week.(This is somehow linked to my writing, bear with me.) For the past three years our dog, Mabel, has taken part in New York’s Tompkins Square Park Halloween Dog Parade. For those of you who don’t know, this is the world’s largest, campest, gaudiest Halloween dog parade. (I’m just assuming this. But if there is one larger and gaudier then please let me know so that I can creep quietly into a garden shed and shoo...

Streaming Spires

I had the enormous pleasure of tuning in to BBC Radio Oxford last week to listen to a discussion of my book. Yes, I was listening to British local radio all the way over in New York. God bless modern technology – well, apart from the stuff that’s horrible and seriously world-threatening. Like Candy Crush Saga.

Anyway, click here to listen. It comes with a proper traditional-style local deej and everything. And I swear that if you listen closely enough, you can hear the books in the Bodleian Li...

Fictionary 2

I used to work as a puzzle editor and compiler, so I thought it might be fun to make up a book puzzle. This is a wordplay challenge in which each circle contains a cryptic-style clue to the name of a book. So for the example over on the right here, the answer is ‘Trainspotting’, TRA – in -SPOTTING, yes?

See if you can work out the titles of nine novels below. And to narrow things down, the theme is ‘English Language Novels Pre-WWII’. There arranged in approximate order of difficulty. I think t...

Two Weeks In Pictures

After a frantic but enjoyable two weeks in the UK, here are some picture highlights. The launch party was an incredible experience, thank you to everyone who came, fuhgeddaboudit to everyone who didn’t (you had excellent excuses), and apologies to the people I didn’t get a proper chance to chat to (which felt like almost everyone).

Click images for larger version. (I probably didn’t need to tell you that.)

Red Magazine Article, Full Version

Here’s the article ‘We Had a Book Instead of a Baby’ written by my wife and published by Red magazine.

Part 1

Part 2

And here‘s a shorter blog version on the Red magazine website.

Thank you to Red magazine for their kind permission to use their material. All photographs in parts 1 and 2 are © Circe and used here with her permission

Chalk Dust

After a wonderful but hard-slog time in the UK we’re back in New York. And here’s a little round-up of things I’ve written for various websites, plus some reviews I’ve received from hither and thither over the last two weeks.

Yonder at ‘We Love This Book’ I’ve written a ‘story behind the story’ article on how competitive Oxford students (myself included) inspired my novel. You can read it right here.

There’s a little recommendation penned by me for ‘The Ministry of Fear’ by Graham Greene, one o...