Charlie Garratt – Author of Mystery and Historical Fiction

Category: Random thoughts

  • May I help you sir?

    Today was not good. It started well enough with a sunny morning and the opportunity to get on with some gardening, but the main task of the day was to drop off some copies of my novel, A Shadowed Livery, at a bookshop who’d initially offered to take some. The reason I’m delivering them myself…

  • Musings

    This week I visited The Four Masters bookshop in Donegal Town to ask if they’d  take some of books. To my surprise, and unbounded joy, they already had them on the shelf. I was so impressed I’ve put a photo as my new header image. I’m plodding through my redraft of my current novel, though it…

  • Suspension of disbelief

    Last night I attended a play. I wouldn’t go to the theatre that often, partly because we don’t have one nearby but I enjoyed this one immensely. My English Tongue, My Irish Heart is about emigration and its effect on personal identity, the subject of my wife’s memoir The Road Taken. What I found fascinating about the experience…

  • It’s not worth voting?

    Britain is in the grip of a general election and many people are still trying to decide which way to vote. However, a large section of the potential electorate probably won’t vote at all, probably due to disaffection with the process – and the resulting representation they receive. A friend of mine re-posted a piece…

  • Social media – Good? Bad?

    We’ve had an explosion of social media opportunities over recent years and as someone who pre-dates these digital connections I watch with a wary eye. I’m not a Luddite, I use the technology every day and I have done for over thirty years, so I don’t think it’s the fear of change which bothers me.…

  • A new reality show?

    Having watched the final of the amateur painting reality show  ‘The Big Painting Challenge’ and being a fan of ‘The Great British Bake-off’, I wondered if it was time to have one on writing. Half an hour to compose a poem? 50 word flash fiction piece based on a trigger. A novel by the end…

  • Building an audience

    So we’re all out here in blogworld trying to communicate, yet there seems to be a chasm between those sites with a stellar audience and those with just a few dedicated followers. I’d be interested to know how you get your stuff out there. I’ve now read quite a number of on-line articles and they…

  • A time to write

    I haven’t posted anything for a week or so and I’d like to say it’s because I’ve had my head down redrafting my novel. But it isn’t. In fact, I don’t know where the time has gone. I was reading a post from an author a few days ago where she thought her idea of…

  • Sticky end

    I’m musing over a villain I want to dispose of and can’t decide between a number of options. This bad guy isn’t the main one in the novel, though he’s caused quite a bit of trouble for our hero, a police inspector, let’s call him Henry,including kidnapping him and attempting to kill him.The options are:…

  • Death in the stars

    Funny where the inspiration comes from. I downloaded an astronomy app this weekend, Night Sky Pro, and began thinking of where I might put a telescope if I bought one, again. Then I remembered that when I had one some years ago, it was usually too cold on clear nights to go out to use…