Infinite Monkeys

This is a place for writers of all kinds, readers and viewers too. Things I’ve learned on the road to getting published, my work made for TV, talk about the craft, tips, news and intel, reviews to celebrate other creators. Click the link at the top to go to Infinite Monkeys HQ for all the articles.

Books for the season. #booksky

If you love Night of the Demon as much as Kate Bush and me, this might be of interest.

“Ideas are your currency. Good ones are in very short supply, and they will buy you riches beyond imagination and that gilded future you dream about. But you need to know how to mine them, and how to recognise them when you turn them up in the soil.” #booksky

Here’s a brief extract of my book Testimony which was adapted for the hit podcast The Witch Farm and which will be on TV under the same name before the end of the year. #booksky

The most disturbing thing in this movie, every single time I see it, is not the supernatural element, it’s the gaslighting of Rosemary by her husband.

On learning the craft and comping. #booksky

On learning the craft and comping. #booksky

Writer to writer.

The TikTok effect:

And Mike is a really nice guy.

Can't believe I made it to 79. I mean, holy cow!

Handsome Spanish edition of my pseudonym’s Hereward novel just arrived from Desperta Ferro.

Science: big health benefits for kids and adults from the simple act of reading a book you like, including a significantly reduced risk of cognitive decline.

Apple TV’s Slow Horses has been renewed for two more seasons, just as season six launches.

Penguin Random House (PRH) Children’s has appointed Cate Augustin as publisher at Rachel Denwood’s new imprint. Read more 👇

New Age, New Opportunities. #booksky

Anyone thinking about #writing needs to read this. It was Mark's talk about the business of writing that kickstarted my writing career and he is absolutely correct about the three-legged stool analogy for writing full-time; I am a writer, journalist, editor, events organiser and games master.

New Age, New Opportunities. #booksky

I am not first and will be far from the last to say this: I have purchased so many books because I saw them recommended or publicized here on bsky. I cannot urge you all enough to KEEP TALKING ABOUT BOOKS. I know it's easier to talk up someone else's book, but this also means you, the shy author.

“In her nineties she wrote 120 new novels, totalling six million words, or five times the length of Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu.” Review of what seems like a must-read biography. The bon mots are hysterical.

Could have stopped after the fifth word.

GIVEAWAY, with @blackcrowbooks.bsky.social: one lucky UK reader wins COFFIN MOON by @keithrosson.bsky.social, his blood-soaked reinvention of the vampire novel. To enter: Like, Share and Comment on this post. UK only. Winner drawn at random on [closing date]. Good luck, and mind the moon.

“The desire to understand ourselves is engrained in our very nature. It’s powerful and addictive and everyone needs it. You can’t feed that yearning with slop.” #booksky

Just about to start The New Iberia Blues by James Lee Burke.

Just finished The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson. First time I’ve tried any of his work and thought it was great. As brutal as you’d expect but a brilliant exploration of the mind of a psychopath.

@lunabelle.bsky.social What was the name of that US crime novel you recommended recently? I thought I’d made a note of it, but typically can’t find it.

When someone asks you to read their work: “If it’s bad, I’ll hate it. If it’s good I’ll be envious and hate it even more. Never ask a writer to read your work.” - Ernest Hemingway, Midnight in Paris

Slightly reversed my view on Stuart Fails To Save The Universe. Episode 5 is a solid satire that will get MAGA people spitting.

Embrace the power. (Cross-posted from @infinitemonkeyshq.bsky.social )

Embrace the power.

It’s funny that they’re always asking if there’s *enough* working class people in publishing, acting or the arts generally but they never seem to stop to wonder if there are *too many* posh idiots?

AI firms may now be secretly consuming second-hand books.

Science fiction, Quatermass, Doctor Who and the secret magic of writers who open the door to ghosts.

Scribe has won a four-way auction for Oxford Prof Jan Rosenow’s “urgent blueprint for post-fossil-fuel era”: Electrostates: How the Race to Electrify Will Redraw the World. It’ll be published in May 2028.

The first episode of this was very good. A crime drama with female rage directed at the Epstein Class.

Jack Reacher author Lee Child has turned his back on Trump America after decades in NYC and returned to England. “ I’m intensely sad my American dream is over — that mythic, legendary postwar America is definitively gone now.”