A Book or TenReader, writer, eater of Maltesars
On Thursday 24th August I’ll be running a free workshop on writing while parenting. We’ll be covering:
If you’d like to join, you can sign up via Eventbrite here.
Hello lovely blog readers
I’ve been writing a book blog here since 2013, and I’ve loved it. But the time’s come to change things round.
This site is more useful to me right now as a home for my writing news and endeavours. I’ve got lots of things in the works, which is very exciting. It also means I need to streamline where things live so that it’s easy to keep them up to date. I’ve decided the best way to do that is by moving to Substack. This allows me to put three things in one place – my blog posts, the (upcoming) podcast, and the option for people to financially support my work (pretty please).
There will still be occasional posts on this blog with news on my writing career.
Housekeeping:
I’ve set the paid-for options as low as I can, but if you are able to support me through Substack it really does make a difference. My main posts will always be free to read, but paid subscribers will get more chatty, informal updates about day-to-day writing and podcast progress.
Thank you for being here on A Book or Ten. I’m excited to see what comes next.
Marianne. x
Episode Transcript
Hi, I’m Marianne Dugdale, and I’m here to tell you about Beta Writers, a new podcast for early career writers. There’s an enormous community of writers working hard, drafting, revising, querying and submitting their work. These are the books we’ll have on our shelves in years to come, our future favorites. Beta Writers will interview some of those writers still right at the beginning, hoping to be discovered by agents, editors and readers alike. I’ll be talking to some wonderful writers about self publishing, what happens when agent relationships don’t work out, the value of qualifications, writing communities in different countries, and the debut experience, as well as aspects of craft and inspiration. If you’d like to get updates on production of the podcast before Season One comes out, you can join the Patreon from £1 a month. And you’ll also get access to the Beta Writers Club Discord to chat all things writing life. You can also subscribe to my website, abookorten.co.uk for blog posts from me about all things reading and writing. Thanks for listening. I’m Marianne Dugdale. Wherever you get your podcasts in the new year, you will be able to find Beta Writers. Bee-ta Writers? Bay-ta Writers? Well, we’ll be there.
Social media has its vices, but it also helps me discover books I wouldn’t otherwise have picked up. This was one such book. Had I not seen others falling in love with this story I might have avoided it for fear I wasn’t emotionally resilient enough for its subject matter, but in fact I found it shored me up far more than it broke me down.
I’ve been reading Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper since it was a webcomic, and now own all four of the published graphic novel volumes. I’ve binged the Netflix series through several times and am incredibly excited that it is getting at least two more seasons. This story is full of wholesomeness and it brings warmth to my heart, so when I was in Booka bookshop recently and spotted Nick and Charlie I immediately picked it up.
There’s an oft repeated theory that’s been playing on my mind recently in regards to my writing – the idea that to be an expert at something, you need to put in 10,000 hours of practice. Recent changes in my life have meant I’ve been thinking more about my goals and priorities, trying to work out what it is I want from my writing, and as I think about all of that, I can’t get the idea of ‘my 10,000 hours’ out of my mind.
It’s possibly surprising given how much I loved A Court of Thorns and Roses and its sequels, and how many times I’ve reread them, how long it took me to pick up this latest installment in that world from Sarah J Maas. Largely that was because I love Feyre so much as a narrator, and so much of the original ACOTAR that I enjoyed was about her narration. I didn’t really like that parts of A Court of Wings and Ruin took us into Rhys’ point of view.
However, I did really enjoy this book. Nesta’s point of view is fascinating and I enjoyed having a different perspective on Prythian. A disliked character is always interesting to get under the skin of and understand why they behave in ways which seem inscrutable and unkind to others around them. Nesta is a prickly and hard on the outside but written here by Maas with remarkable empathy. At no point is she reduced to her cruelties but instead her own pain is explored and acknowledged.
A few weeks ago I had time to kill in a coffee shop and picked up Lily by Rose Tremain. This is the story of Lily Mortimer, a foundling abandoned as a baby and rescued from wolves by a timelines; first as a child, and second as a seventeen year old murderer.
A Book or Ten 