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...

On Sunday as we sat in church waiting for the service to begin, I asked my husband how he was getting on with reading Wool  by Hugh Howey, a book I have been raving about recently and had enthusiastically recommended to him. "I'm struggling with it," he admitted, "Because I can't get past all the swearing." Swearing?  I didn't remember any swearing, and told him so. He opened his Kindle and showed me and indeed one character swears constantly. I was shocked that I hadn't noticed. Only a couple of months ago I refused to finish reading one of our book club assigned books because of all the bad language in the first couple of chapters. (If you want to know why I object to swearing, read this post .) My first thought was that the fact that I hadn't noticed the swearing in Wool  was testament to how well written it was. I must have been completely engrossed if my brain glossed over it. Maybe, like an addict in denial, my mind had refused to...

Imagine, for just a moment, that you grew up in a world where everyone believes in God and respects His laws. Your culture, society and traditions are based entirely on God's holy directives, and the lives of all citizens are dedicated to following His path. In your society the fallen nature of man is well understood, in particular with reference to his carnal desires, and so your society protects men from themselves (and women from men) by putting in place strict rules and laws. Sex outside marriage is illegal. Women are protected from leers and lasciviousness by a protective barrier of fabric which they wear whenever they are among men. This "safety barrier" covers them from their glossy and alluring hair down to their fine ankles, so that no man can look upon them with lust. Maybe they are accompanied by a husband, father or brother, or some other man who can protect them whenever they venture out. Women know that their bodies are sacred and to be enjoyed, visually a...

I don't play an instrument, can't sing in tune, have no skill in any sport, and what little ability I had in drawing and painting has long since waned. The only talent I have is for writing. I have always believed that this is a talent which is in every way as valuable as being able to act, dance or sing. The importance of being good with words was brought home to me recently because I have had to write two very important pieces. The backstory is that I discovered recently that Essex County Council is undertaking a consultation on the future of my daughter's school. Like many of the parents, staff, and pupils I found out not from the Council, or from the Headmistress, but from a leaked document on the website of a neighbouring school which had apparently been asked by the council whether it could take the displaced pupils should my daughter's school close. Within a few days a protest group had been put together and a petition was circulating. My daughter loves h...

The ebook revolution is upon us, and with free publishing now available to everyone the landscape for writers has changed dramatically over the last ten years. Anyone, anywhere, with any level of skill can now write a book and publish it, at no cost to themselves, and it will be indistinguishable from a book published by a large, established publisher, like Penguin, HarperCollins or Macmillan. Many authors, including established authors with traditional publishers, are celebrating and embracing self-publishing. Some are putting out their out-of-print back catalogue in ebook format, while others are eschewing traditional publishing altogether and going for the bigger royalties percentage promised by self-publishing. And yet I continue to send my work out to agent after agent, publisher after publisher, again and again. I have now clocked up fifty-two rejections for my sci-fi magnum opus, Emon and the Emperor, and despite the regular assurances (often on the rejection slips) t...