Category Archives: Author

North and South

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Apart from the gushing over Richard Armitage/John Thorton, for which I have little feeling, I found this a very interesting presentation that came out of the blue on my feed. I agree with the presenter. North and South, the television series, based on Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel of the same name, is one of the best of its type. Richard Armitage and Daniela Denby-Ashe are perfect in the roles of John Thornton and Margaret Hale, whose lips are mesmerising. As for Fitzwilliam Darcy, I think there’s enough in Pride and Prejudice to suggest he would have been pretty tough as a landowner.

An Alternative description of The Counterculture Goddess

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This description was sent to me by someone offering author services. I suspect it is AI-generated. It is very good – spot on.

The Counterculture Goddess is a layered, character-driven historical novel set against the cultural and spiritual upheaval of 1960s Europe, where shifting beliefs, personal rivalries, and political tensions collide inside a rapidly transforming society.

Through Anneke and Nienke’s intertwined relationships, the story explores love, jealousy, ideology, and identity within the broader backdrop of post–Second Vatican Council Europe and the rise of countercultural and spiritual movements. The result is a narrative that blends personal drama with historical and philosophical transformation in a very textured way.

As part of an ongoing Sixties Series, the book also benefits from a larger narrative framework that tracks the transition from postwar innocence into cultural revolution and moral disruption across multiple interconnected stories.

With 5 books in the series already established, there is clear long-form storytelling momentum here, but also a natural challenge many multi-book historical series face — sustained discoverability between releases and consistent visibility across evolving story arcs.

Self-editing for self-publishers

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This is an edition of Joanna Penn’s highly regarded podcast. The section on self-editing begins at the 29-minute mark:

How can you improve your self-editing process? How can you find and work with professional editors and beta readers? How do you know when editing is done and the book is finished? With Joanna Penn.

Writing us out of our civilisational collapse

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From the Novel Marketing channel:
There’s a culture shift underway that most authors aren’t seeing. Even traditional publishers can’t figure out why their titles are resonating. If your book isn’t selling, it could be a cover or craft problem, but it might be a zeitgeist problem. In this week’s episode, you’ll hear from fantasy and LitRPG author Seth Ring. We discuss the biggest cultural shift in storytelling in two decades and what it means for your books.

A dark age of literature?

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That’s the question that Joomi Kim asks in this excellent presentation of the modern novel. For years, I have only had to get a whiff of wokism in books, movies and television, and off they go. I haven’t bothered to delve into novels, for example, to justify my action. I was confident I didn’t have to. In this presentation, Joomi Kim does just that. She discusses a range of book titles, many of which are high on book award lists, showing that they are all in the same unexamined woke bubble. At the end of this video, I was inclined to answer yes to her question.

Writing update

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I would not be surprised if many visitors to my website (there are many) get the impression that I do nothing but post comments on my blog. Actually, the opposite is true. A small percentage of my time is spent providing links and making brief comments. Most of my time is spent on my writing, specifically on my novel writing.

My daily routine (except Sunday) is to begin writing at 8 am and finish around 12 pm. By that time, my brain is exhausted. In the afternoon, I attend to domestic matters, post links to comments and YouTube videos, do research, and sometimes revise my already published books. This last is a constant process that covers small adjustments to the text and the rooting out of typos, etc.

My present writing project is Book 5 of the Sixties Series, Love in the Counterculture. I’ve almost finished the first draft. Against most professional advice, I’m one of those writers who constantly revises as he writes, not only what’s been written the previous day but also the thus-far completed draft.

I find this necessary because my novels are long – more than 100,000 words. I need to keep the course of the story in mind. I’m at the 120,000-word mark with Love in the Counterculture. It will take at least another 20,000 words to finish the story. I have a tentative cover which I may replace by the time I’m ready to upload to Amazon and Draft2Digital (D2D). I would welcome comments about it.