My Muse Sings and other miscellaneous gumph

Appearing at a school near you

I will be attending my first public event since the launch, next Tuesday at a school down in Surrey, talking about The Secret War and the whole writing process to three classes of secondary school children. Having never spoken to kids before about my writing, I’m a little nervous, though not too old that I can’t remember what held my interest at that age – so I’m going armed with a few visual aids, and of course, a few books.

It does beg the question though: what age is The Secret War appropriate for?

There are only slight sexual references, hardly any swearing – yet it is quite bloody. I suppose in visual terms it is no worse than perhaps the films Titanic or Lord of the Rings (both received 12 certificates on release). I myself picked up Frank Herbert’s Dune around that age (though I understood very little of it), and by the age of 12 I was quite content reading Stephen King short stories.
But that’s just me, and my folks were happy to indulge in that sort of thing as long as it meant their son was reading.

So to those parents out there: what would you find suitable or not for children between 11 and 13? And if you’ve read The Secret War, would you see it as appropriate?

Grumpy’s Millions

Grumpy Old Bookman has recently announced that he is to retire – at least from doing regular blog entries. And who can blame him? At the end of last year I cited my reasons for blogging more infrequently – one of them being the 50,000 words (more like 60,000 now) I could have spent on writing my books. G.O.B. has reputedly written almost a million words in three years on his daily blog – which in book terms amounts to around five to six novels, including the drafts.

Like many ‘netters, I found his blog informative and entertaining, and his regular input will be missed – though this move is hardly surprising. If blogging (a means to an end, as well as an enjoyable pass-time) detracts from the actual process of writing, then you need to look at the raison d'être to blog. This could explain why almost 200,000 blogs went dormant towards the back end of last year.

Blogging is like keeping a very public diary, yet sometimes you can forget the reasons why you’re blogging in the first place…

Now where was I?