Blogs

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lily-Poole-Jack-ODonnell/dp/1783522356 I like to read and I like to write. One is the engine of the other. When you’re writing fast, with dash, you just fling words down, and hope for the best. Lily Poole was a serial on ABCtales. Bang, bang, bang, around 2000 words a day. It wasn’t called Lily Poole then, I’d given it the working tag, ‘School Photos’. First-draft stuff. Let’s not call it a novel, but a collection of...

I've always loved music; I was fortunate enough to gig in the 80's & 90's and took it quite seriously. I also, through a musician's network in Ireland, review CDs and they get posted up on-line. Its a real help when the mojo's has abandoned me & the muse is on an extended tea break, so I'm putting this up, not only because I'm a huge fan of the man, but as an idea for anyone suffering with 'blank page syndrome' might think - I could...

I missed out on Gregor Fisher’s reading of his autobiography in Dalmuir Library recently. Tickets only. It’s a small place. Sold out. Gregor Fisher is a ‘National Treasure’ ran an advertisement campaign to promote a play ‘Yer Granny’ he was in. And on the front page of his book, the tagline from The Telegraph reads: Rab C Nesbitt is the most memorable comedy character Scotland has ever produced’. There’s a lot of good will to be tapped around...

Congrats this week go to Ladylily and hoalarg1. The poem in particular is a real gem: http://www.abctales.com/story/ladylily/grief-gaziantep And the story is moving and well written: http://www.abctales.com/story/hoalarg1/spectrum The Inspiration Point, is, I think, a real challenge: http://www.abctales.com/inspiration-point-ip Thanks all for another week of wonderful creativity!

It was a small thing really that turned my thoughts to yesterday...A long lost keepsake that returned to me unexpectedly. I could not believe it when I saw it...it had been lost for so long and there it was in a most usual place... How had I missed it before? I picked it up and the memories were like flood gates opening…the rushing thoughts washed over me. I could taste and feel the past around me…I could touch yesterday again…That small trinket...

Many thanks to Jane(airyfairy) who chose our picks for August: Amidst all the wonderful pieces on the site this month, two particularly stood out for me both for the quality of the writing and the (very different) emotions that stayed with me long after I’d read them. My poetry choice is VeraClark’s Magic, which manages to convey the love, fear, wonder and frequent banality of parenthood in its beautifully crafted lines. http://www.abctales.com/...

Imagine someone handed you thirteen billion Euros, approximately £11 000 000 000, as the European Commission tried to do, claiming that Apple had acted illegally in Ireland and paid an effective Corporate tax rate of 50 Euros for every 1 000 000 Euros they took out of the country. In a deal known as the Double Irish, Apple claimed they did not take any money out of the country, but simply moved it between different offices with no staff and an...

Many ABCTales members pledged for Jack O’Donnell’s debut novel ‘Lily Poole’ to be published by Unbound and now it’s a fabulous reality. Here are two great reviews from ABCTales Editors, Sooz and PhilipSidney to spur readers on: Philip Sidney, ABCTales: 'I read Jack O’Donnell’s haunting novel, Lily Poole some time ago and yet it stays with me like a memory from my own life; such is the intimacy of the writing. Lily Poole gets close to you, seeps...

It’s almost fifty years since The Outsiders was published. ‘The Original Teenage Rebel Story’ proclaims the tag on the cover. I’m sure William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet had the same banner headline, but in yeh olde worlde English. Hinton was only seventeen when she wrote it. And like fourteen-year old Ponyboy, the first-person narrator, you can imagine her trying to impress her English teacher and scrape a better grade by turning a...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07pqpfp The best thing for me about the Rio Olympics was it was on in the middle of the night because I didn’t need to watch it. Not that I would have. I couldn’t give a toss of your caber how many gold medals Britain racks up. There’s only one sport, one club that I follow and one team I support, Glasgow Celtic. And I’m bigoted and bitter enough to remember comedians with eighties punchlines Loadsamoney and the...