Terribly Lazy Bloggers, Master's Degree and Life.

I'm sorry I'm the world's worst blogger and have abandoned this blog for well over a year... inexcusible but life just got in the way of itself.

In a nutshell:
1) I graduated from my MA in Creative Writing at Northumbria University. If anyone is considering studying there, feel free to drop me a message for a chat about the course.
2) My house is still a partial building site, but I actually have a sofa and a desk now, which helps.
3) I can now share some of the writing I submitted for my MA course - I'll share this in the next week or two. I also did a reading of said work at The Lit and Phil in Newcastle last year. I won't go into detail about the plot here but it's about an isolated, elderly farmer and his relationship with the landscape and community around him.
4) I've started playing with flash fiction as a way to keep writing when life is busy. I'm finding it a really fun way to explore ideas without the pressure of a plot. It's making me write more provocatively and across a wider range of subjects, which is good for me.
5) I've acquired several additional animals - some pets; some livestock; some visitors like this little guy. It really is a beautiful place to live and to write.

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Book Review: Adam Kay - This is Going to Hurt

For several years now, my handful of Twitter followers have been audience to multiple weekly retweets of articles, stats and news stories concerning the problems faced by the NHS and junior doctors, largely thanks to Jeremy Hunt’s expediency and ineptitude. Is there a single statistic the man hasn’t yet managed to warp for his own ends? More recently, my (re)tweeting regarding the NHS has increased has increased, (probably to the dismay of the 90% of my followers who are sheep farmers; they’re more interested in Michael Gove’s ineptitude these days) and the reason for this is because I’ve started researching and working on a novel where the protagonist is a junior doctor. It’s early stages yet, but the plot is slowly taking shape. Writing about current, raw, politically-sensitive issues is something I’ve dabbled in previously when talking about farming, but it was nowhere near on this scale. I realised instantly that in fictionalising something which for many is real, exhausti...

Book Review: Gabriel Tallent - My Absolute Darling

Anyone who's been near my social media channels lately will know that I've been engrossed in Gabriel Tallent's much talked about debut novel, My Absolute Darling, the instant success of which has been partially attributed to an unsolicited blurb by Stephen King . I have no doubt, however, that this book would have made waves very quickly without that endorsement, had it been so . I finished reading My Absolute Darling last night and have been unable to stop thinking about it today. There were times I couldn't put it down. I had to force myself to close it at 2am because I had work the next morning. There were times I was so appalled at what I was reading I simply couldn't carry on. Turtle Alveston is one of the strongest, most convincingly flawed, rounded, incredible and terrible characters ever written - and she's 14. A million-and-one synopses online will tell you she is a dead shot, a loner, equipped to survive anything and anyone - except the person w...

My summer book reviews (and my autumn reading list)...

Summer is coming to an end, but before it vanishes completely, I've slipped a garden party into the schedule on Sunday to celebrate all the work we've been doing at home. However in the four days since I first drafted this blog post, the weather forecast has now taken a rather drizzly turn and I’ve ended up lighting the fire twice this week. Still, I'll keep my fingers crossed for a dry, if not warm weekend. Work on the house and party planning are just two of the many things keeping me busy lately, but I've been trying to keep some time aside to read, even if I'm not doing a great deal of purposeful writing just now. With this in mind, here's a round-up and review of some of the things I've been reading over the course of this summer, followed by a handful of things on my ever-growing ‘read this' pile. This has turned this into a rather large post, but I hope you enjoy it and please let me know if you read any of them and let me have your thoughts. ...

Nikita Jane Garner

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