Scum of the Earth is written by Pamela Freeman. This is actually the second book in a series of three. However, if you’re a goose like me and tend not to realise these things until after you’ve finished reading the book, it doesn’t matter.
I read Trick of the Light first, which turns out [...]

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I finished reading “Trick of the Light” by Pamela Freeman last night. Shocked? So am I. Taking two sittings, a total of about 2 hours, this must be the fastest book I’ve read in ages. Admittedly, it is a thin book (120 pages), with quite large print, but the story was [...]

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I’m embarrassed to say this, because I’ve read many good reviews on this book, but last night I abandoned A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin. I think my expectations were high, but in all honesty, I’ve never read anything by this author before and I found her writing style to be “stuffy”.
The [...]

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The edit of Cat’s Eyes is complete.
At 9.45pm last night, I reached the end of the manuscript and saved the file for the final time. I then sat looking at the screen in disbelief. After months of writing, rewriting, suffering a non-writing period, then editing; the manuscript is complete. It feels good, [...]

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On Friday night, I had an extra late night and then found that I couldn’t sleep. For various reasons (which you’ll find out about later in this post) I tossed and turned for hours. I considered getting up and making a cup of tea at 4.30am and possibily starting the day, but I [...]

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Excerpt from The Business of Writing for Children: An Award-Winning Author’s Tips on Writing Children’s Books and Publishing Them, or How to Write, Publish, and Promote a Book for Kids by Aaron Shepard.
All at once, in the middle of the story, I “woke up” with a shock. For just a few seconds, I had [...]

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As a reader, no matter what I’m reading - a children’s book or a book for adults - I always enjoy the books that start right in the middle of the action. It’s exciting! It makes me keep reading to find out who the characters are and what is happening to them. [...]

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Thanks to Helen, I’ve been introduced to Google Book Search.
I did a few test searches on children’s chapter books and middle grade writing, and was surprised by the results (pleasantly surprised that is).
If you have some questions, try it. You might even start using it more often.

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Prior to starting the edit of Cat’s Eyes I had 15 chapters, but early in this edit I combined the first two chapters and made that section of the story a lot shorter, so now I only have 14 chapters.
Yesterday, after two weeks of no writing activity, I spent a number of hours [...]

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This book was written some years ago, and it shows in the choice of words used. I did find this distracting at the beginning of the story. In fact, some of the phrases used were so weird that I had no idea what was meant. This did give the book an old [...]

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