Blog

They’re Plotting Against Me!

06/12/2009
People (tutors, writers, other students) have told me the same thing in different configurations: “Characters drive the narrative!” I nod. I agree. I go back to quietly and tightly plotting...
Blog

Holden Back the Years

25/11/2009
I’m reading The Catcher in the Rye for the fifth time – following on from a week dipping into Borges’ short story collection Labyrinths, The contrast between these two experiences...
Published Work

I Love Spotify

11/11/2009
I love Spotify.  No one has paid me to say this.  I am free to say “Spotify is as rancid as an old plum that’s been stored for ten years in...
Published Work, Technology

Left 4 Dead 2

06/11/2009
While downloading Machinarium from Steam yesterday I noticed that the long awaited Left 4 Dead 2 demo was available. Had, in fact, been available for public download since the 4th of November. Just in...
Current Events

An Open Letter…

21/10/2009
An open letter to everyone who has asked me to sign a petition registering my disagreement with Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time. Dear Friends, I appreciate and understand your...
Blog

Notes on Narrative

07/10/2009
Some notes on narrative that, in best Blue Peter tradition, I made earlier. 16 years earlier: Narratives are made up of units of information. In Roland Barthes’ ‘Introduction to the...
Blog

Scrivener

06/10/2009
I’ve briefly reviewed the Mac-only writing tool Scrivener a couple of times for Macworld. This post is based on those two pieces: Most of the stuff I review goes straight...
Music

The Other Side of Abbey Road

01/10/2009
It was the 40th anniversary of Abbey Road, the Beatle’s last studio album in August, giving music mags and MP3 blogs a chance to review their final opus afresh.  Except,...