http://tobshalearner.com/blog An insight into the working life of an author - the joys, the frustrations and the grammatical idiosyncrasies of an dyslexic maverick. Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:31:16 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Given the tremendous success of SPHINX in the UK, I thought I’d shared some insights into my writing/research process for my UK and Australian readers. In terms of thriller writers some of my favourites would be John Le Carre, Robert Harris and Alan Furst. So I guess I fall more ... http://tobshalearner.com/blog/?p=131 Flying Time I can’t believe it’s been a decade since 2000, I’m not sure whether it’s the number of noughts in these last ten years or whether the significant events (and I would count amongst these – the emergence of the climax debate, rise of fundamentalism, the massive acceleration of internet ... http://tobshalearner.com/blog/?p=129 I have to apologise profusely to my regular blog readers, I have been out with chronic bronchitis for eight weeks and only just got my personality and brain back sometime last week. Meanwhile in between dealing with absolutely zero energy I have been working on a commissioned radio  play for ... http://tobshalearner.com/blog/?p=126 I am currently in Sydney, after a whirlwind visits to both Brisbane and Melbourne. As some readers might know I attended the Brisbane Writers Festival as a guest on several panels – most of which came under the bracket of ‘female writers of erotica or sexy historical fiction’. Quiver, my ... http://tobshalearner.com/blog/?p=124 It’s been a big month for gender – with the globally publicised scandal of gender testing of Caster Semenya, the South African runner and the humiliating trails she has had to undergo to confirm her sex. Regardless of the outcome and regardless of the surrounding ethical debate and constructs around ... http://tobshalearner.com/blog/?p=120 I’m about to head down to perform at the Brisbane Writers festival in a few weeks, but in the interim I have been brainstorming a couple of theatre projects and possible screenplay between the next big novel idea. Fertile time. It’s always liberating to come from under the yoke of ... http://tobshalearner.com/blog/?p=117 There was an interesting article a few weeks ago in the Australian papers citing a legal case in Western Australian wherein the Western Australian State government had frozen the bank account of an author who had co-written a book with an ex SAS soldier who had previously served time for ... http://tobshalearner.com/blog/?p=115 This week I’m posting a dialogue between the Australian writer of erotic fiction Linda Jaivin (Eat Me, A most Immoral woman) and myself, which is a humorous, but not outraged response to the statement released a few weeks ago by Kate Copstick, the new female editor of the Erotic Review ... http://tobshalearner.com/blog/?p=112 This week I had one of those bizarre encounters with Nature an urbanite like myself rarely experiences. Our neighbour in the US had told us about an incidence a couple of weeks ago where bees started swarming around an old china cabinet he was installing. Fascinated he’d watched as ten ... http://tobshalearner.com/blog/?p=110 First of all apologies to regular readers for the late posting, I have been overwhelmed with rewrites (which are now finished) and was uncharacteristically existentially exhausted afterwards. Could be a sign of the times with the strange sense of finiteness  (is there such a word?  – There is now) with ... http://tobshalearner.com/blog/?p=108