Proust, Joyce and a dead rabbit…
I think I’ve mentioned here, or at least in a video blog from my studio, that from where I sit as I record my books I can see out of the front window to the street. In our front garden we have a...
View ArticleGrandads …and (one) other small stuff
It’s been a very busy couple of weeks, so I’ve not got to this page very much and when I have started writing I’ve always out-thought myself afterwards and erased what I started. But I kept the last...
View ArticleI blame Syd, Proust and Jimi amongst others…
I’ve been wondering why I haven’t been able to summon up the creative energy to write a new blog in a couple of weeks (of course you have too, and that’s why I’ve been inundated with emails and tweets...
View ArticleAnimals
You’d be forgiven for thinking, if you know me well, that I’m about to launch into some kind of blog about the Pink Floyd album with the same name (which is, I have to say, a very good album). But no,...
View ArticleWeaving the Strands
Surprised myself this morning by being somewhat poetic. My wife spends part of the week down at UC Irvine during the academic year and we usually speak a couple of times a day on the phone just to...
View ArticleFlying High
When I first flew into the United States almost 20 years ago I hadn’t done much commercial flying. Getting about the UK for me meant long train or car rides – I once flew to Aberdeen, but that was it....
View ArticleThe Story of My Heart – #GoingPublic on Twitter
Not my heart, in fact, but that of Richard Jefferies, a prose poet of the English countryside. I’m doing this at the instigation of my friend and fellow narrator Xe Sands. In a moment of inspiration...
View ArticleIt all began like this…
Not exactly like this, but the goal was the same: Creating audiobooks for the blind, partially sighted or dyslexic. When I began 30 years ago we recorded on reel-to-reel 1/4″ tape machines and had one...
View ArticleA series of one-liners…
I am an audiobook narrator. In my day-to-day work I deal with many hundreds and thousands of words passing in endless formation in front of my eyes hour after hour… and I love it. But this blog today...
View ArticleThe Sinking of the MV Port Victor – 1943
There’s a lot in the news right now about the tragic loss of a rather large ocean liner that took place about 100 years ago. Sixty-nine years ago a rather smaller ship than the Titanic went down in...
View ArticleNothing to see here… or is there?
Hi… I’ve just sat down with less than an hour to go before I should be preparing to leave for tonight’s event with the author Mira Bartók (the book tour for her novel The Wonderling reaches Book Soup...
View ArticleThat time of the century…
Today, as I write, it’s Veterans Day here in the US. In the UK tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday, which commemorates the agreement to end fighting during the First World War in 1918. 99 years past. The...
View ArticleWhat were we thinking?
Yesterday took an interesting turn after I wrote the blog inspired by Veteran’s Day. I spent more than two hours on it, which is much longer than usual. I would have loved to spend even more time on it...
View ArticleThis is what I do
This is the final stretch for this 30 day writing challenge, the last seven days. It hasn’t always been easy and some days have been downright hard, but it’s been an experience. Let’s see what happens...
View ArticleA-whats? Oh. – Why, thank you!
This morning, in my drowsy state just before jumping out of bed…or, more accurately, crawling, I thought that I had an angle on writing about ‘awards’. But now that I come to sit down and write...
View ArticleMum! (she hates when I call her that)
Rosemary Elizabeth Catherine It’s my mother’s birthday today. Given how old I am, you can imagine she’s no spring chicken (spoiler alert: she’s 89). She’s the person I have known longest and,...
View ArticleThe Social Notwork
Boy, Facebook… what are you gonna do? Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Well, that’s not true. For someone like myself who works from home it is an excellent way of staying a part of the...
View ArticleIt’s Good to Cry
I am one big softie. In tears this morning…but I think I had it coming. It all started yesterday (blurry wavy line transition into the past) Finished another book in the studio. Although this was one...
View ArticleIt’s going to be a whimper, not a bang – sorry!
The penultimate post in my ‘write something everyday for thirty days’ challenge. It’s here… Whatcha got, Simon? Okay, here’s the thing: It would have been really good to have known exactly when I...
View ArticleThe Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
[Spoiler Alert: There is no ugly and the bad turned out okay in the end] The Good: And this is really good! I woke to the news this morning that Audible, as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations,...
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