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John Baker's Blog

Reflections of a working writer and reader

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking. Jessamyn West (Hide and Seek)

Latest Posts

Out of Nothing

I’m frightened of writers, the woman told me. They steal you away. They write you up as soon as they get home.

No we don’t. What we do; it comes out of nothing.

It’s such a weird impulse, this manufacturing of fictions or poetry. The strange concoction of intangibles that writers put together. A bushel of memory and a tray or two of observations.

Selected nothings.

A paper twist of emotion. A fine gauze of thought. Nothing to hang on to.

A stammered utterance. A roar of silence. Snatched from the air.

The absolute and the implied. Stirred in a pot.

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Writing The Meanest Flood

The Meanest Flood is the sixth novel in the Sam Turner Series and was born out of a cocktail of ideas. The main aim when I began the narrative was to get Sam and Geordie away from York. To give them an outing away from their usual surroundings. This came from a preoccupation with the [...]

continue reading . . . Writing The Meanest Flood

An Evening with Murdersquad

 
Tonight the two authors read from their works and share fascinating insights into their lives.
This is taken from the programme of The Terry O’Toole Theatre for tomorrow evening when Margaret Murphy and myself are booked to entertain the residents of North Hykeham, in Lincolnshire.
I suppose I do this kind of thing about once a month. [...]

continue reading . . . An Evening with Murdersquad

Must reads

Writing a Novel
Out Stealing Timber I
Looking to be understood?
A Writer’s Notebook I
(La Peste) The Plague by Albert Camus - a review
Saddest Books Revisited
The Glass Menagerie - a review
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Bhagdad Burning
Five things Feminism has done for me
Read extracts from my novels

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