"Gentlemen, I have just completed my new novel."

If only it worked like this...

Attention, creative writing class-mates...

Because lots of you will have sat in creative writing classes, and some of you will have taught them too...

A Letter to My Creative-Writing Class

Anatomy of a bookshelf

More cartoon brilliance from Tom Gauld.

As spotted in The Grauniad, Saturday 24th May 2014.

Ballardian children's fiction

Spotted this in the Guardian at the weekend and couldn't help but repost it. I also couldn't help but wonder whether an old friend of mine, creator of some uniformly excellent Ballardian fiction himself, saw it too.

As spotted in The Grauniad, Saturday 12th April 2014.

Old chestnut time

Written by Frank L. Visco and originally published in the June 1986 issue of Writers' Digest.

How To Write Good

My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:

1. Avoid Alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
12. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
13. Don't be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?

Minus two kudos points for anyone who comments that it should be "How To Write Well". Oh, and minus five irony points too.