Anna Jones Buttimore

In writing, as in so many areas of life, we all have strengths and weaknesses. Even a really good writer will have elements of the craft that he or she is not particularly good at. Tolkien, for example, wasn't very good at battle scenes, and the film-makers charged with bringing his books to life for the big screen reported that they relished the opportunity to fully create a dramatic and authentic fight because there was so little to work with in the books. A friend of mine is currently editing a book. She says that the writer is extremely good at writing interpersonal relationships and she is often moved to tears as she read these powerful sections, but is very poor at creating a fully visualised and relatable setting. I'm not particularly good at characterisation or dialogue, but readers of my books have said that they like my descriptive scenes. I'm also a bit of a horror for writing myself into a corner. I'll have my character say something like, "I...

Like most writers, I have a day job. I love my job, and I'm very happy that it affords me the opportunity to use my writing skills. As an example I present exhibit A, which I think is some of my best work. Specifically, note just how many kettle puns I have managed to squeeze into just the first two sentences.

There seems to have a been a rise recently in people writing books about crazy things they did. From Yes Man (saying Yes to every proposal) to The Year of Living Biblically  and Round Ireland with a Fridge (you figure it out) it's a fun way to have an adventure, write a book and make some money. It's given me a new idea for a book: The Year of No Tax .  Unfortunately I can't write this book (you'll see why later) but I am happy for someone else to take up this idea and run with it, and maybe even make a good (taxable) income from the resulting book.  Whoever that person might be, the premise is that the author has to live for a whole year without paying tax. Not just income tax, but other taxes too. Here's the demographic of the person who might be able to pull this off: He would have to have earnings of under £10,000 per year, or whatever the current tax-free allowance is. (That rules me out.) He couldn't run a car. From road tax to fuel duty, motori...