Alison Morton | Alison Morton Author

How could I forget FOW YorK?

How very strange! I forgot to blog about the Festival of Writing at York. Actually, I didn’t forget. I’ve been so busy implementing things I learnt in the workshops, integrating wise pieces of advice I received and remembering stimulating and thoughtful conversations I enjoyed.

York was about people: authors, publishers, agents, to be sure, but […]

Obsession or addiction?

You start your novel, get the scenes down, complete the first draft. Fine so far. Any writer knows the first draft is not a work of art, or even saleable. So the real work begins; enhanching, slashing and burning, sweating over that love scene, ramping up the fight scenes, checking pacing, inserting tension, moulding and […]

Twenty quid for Japan

Nobody can fail to be shocked by the devastation in Japan. Word like apocalyptic and cataclysmic are flying around. Historians recall the Minoan civilisation was one destroyed by a tsunami.

The threads of modern life are multiple and complex, but fragile, vulnerable to stretching and snapping in seconds. Futurologists predict that tiny individual incidents in […]

Bridging sensibilities…

Simon Scarrow always succeeds in letting me into his tough, male Roman world without alienating me from an environment so different from my own. His heroes, Macro, the blunt-speaking grizzled veteran, and Cato, the educated and younger soldier, bash their way through numerous adventures (including Eagle in the Sand) in the time of Emperor Claudius.

[…]

Diversion, FTI or accidie?

What is that strange feeling when you schedule work in that day, but at 6 pm and the nth cup of tea, you wonder what happened. Many people suffer from this. Especially writers, it seems.

Diversion is a word that comes up a lot. Doesn’t sound too bad: something that distracts the mind and relaxes […]