This week’s reading has been as usual, random, what I find in our local library. Having watched Ken Follet’s interview on TV I finally got to reading one of his books “WHITEOUT”. His most interesting comment on his own success was that he wrote what people want to read. Sounds obvious? Yes, but too many authors in my humble opinion and that includes myself, only write what they want to without thinking about what their readers might enjoy.

I am always amazed at the number of ‘would-be’s’ who have a book they are desperate to get ‘out there’, say for young adults, but haven’t read a young adult books in ten years. Mostly these are autobiographical, which probably explains why so many authors have only one book in them and find writing the second book so much harder.

So on to those authors who do keep their reading audince in mind and my week’s favorite is Anthony Horowitz. I have always admired his TV scripts for adults. They are consistently brilliant and so are his books for kids. This weeks read was ‘The Devil and His Boy’. I am also enjoying an adult novel by Canadian Mary Lawson’s ‘Crow Lake’. She takes her reader well into areas where farming families struggle to survive. Lovely writing.

I am still struggling with the umpteenth rewrite of ‘Hatchlings’ and my lovely mentoree Ella Lamb very kindly read the opening and made some excellent suggestions. We all learn from each other and it is almost impossible to write a novel for any age group without someone from outside giving it a careful read. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to as famous as say a Rowling and have a bevy of editors to ‘fix things up.’