Caught Jona Lewie on an old Top Of The Pops in the early hours. I remember him because I used to live in Palmers green and was very easy to find.
BOOK WARS: efrictions surfaced at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate.
Some argue the traditional model – agents and publishers as gatekeepers – is dead. Others claim the epublishing bubble will burst.
Epublishing allows all shades of crackpots, one-issue obsessives and not-very-good writers to publish with little scrutiny.
But publishing works on trends. One publisher strikes gold and suddenly everyone is hunting the next Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code or 50 Shades Of Grey.
Writing is not a hobby, it is an obsession. The expanding magma that is the need to write has to burst out somewhere even if it’s off-trend.
So epublishing allows writers who can create a reasonably entertaining story to get their work seen. It’s down to the paying customer to sort the wheat from the chaff.
And you are all invited to join the growing band of Danny Lancaster enthusiasts who have enjoyed my crime thrillers the Wreck Of The Margherita and Death Squad.
THE CRETAN DEFENCE: Meeting people is a big part of travelling. Once we bumped into a Cambridge professor and his daughter in Crete. He was a wise and lovely guy. Being young and cocky I challenged him to a game on my travel chess set. Battle raged for days until the Prof admitted he couldn’t win because my play was so erratic and illogical. The pieces are still in place on a shelf somewhere. I think we’ll call that a draw.
WHIPPING UP A THRILLER: Plotting for Danny3 is shaping nicely. I am getting the writing twitch but it’s a mistake to jump in too soon.
The spark of an idea is like an ultrasound image of your offspring, faint and fuzzy but beautiful.
Slowly it grows flesh and bone, strength, character and a will of its own. One day, if all goes well, it will walk out into the world leaving me at home feeling empty-nesty.
I’ve considered trying to boost sales by riding the shirt tails of 50 Shades Of Grey with a little bondage, riding crops etc but I’m tied up with other research.