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I’ve interviewed writer and award winning filmmaker, Magda Olchawska. Just click on the Interviews Menu option above for the full interview.

I went to Waterstones Chiswick branch to sign a few copies of The Banker. The staff mentioned the possibility of staging an event featuring local crime/thriller authors.

I launched a giveaway on librarything a few days ago. I’m offering 10 ebook copies and the offer closes on 7th April. The giveaway seems to have caused a surge in my kindle ranking. It moved from about 130,000 to 28,000 before falling back to 60,000.

Today I started work on my second novel.  The book will be a thriller with an alternative history context and retrograde amnesia (long term memory loss) playing an important part. Apart from a 500 word synopsis I haven’t written anything yet.  I’ll write more about the synopsis in a future post. At the moment I’m working on the plot and planning some research into amnesia.

I don’t know of any books with amnesia as a core part of the plot but I’ve been recommended  a few movies, none of which I’ve seen yet.  These are:

The Long Kiss Goodnight   – a 1996 movie starring Geena Davis depicting retrograde amnesia.

Memento -  a 2000 movie starring Guy Pearce. Experts regard this as an excellent description of anterograde amnesia (short term memory loss).

50 first dates  - a 2004 movie starring Drew Barrymore. Depicts anterograde amnesia.

My book will deal with retrograde amnesia so only the first movie is relevant, but I’ll try to see them all anyway.

If readers of this blog know of other movies or books dealing with this subject, please do let me know.

This is a very funny black comedy.  The film starts with two couples, Penelope and Michael  and Nancy and Alan reasonably amicably discussing a fight between their respective school-age sons.  Penelope (played by  Jodie Foster ) is an earnest, humourless writer married to working-class salesman, Michael(played by John C. Reilly).  Alan (played by Christoph Waltz) is a corporate lawyer married to broker Nancy (played by Kate Winslet).  Just as Nancy and Alan are about to leave the apartment a chance remark draws them back in. In fact they almost leave on two more occasions.  

The polite masks soon fall away and the arguments get increasingly nasty.  At first the rows are between the couples; this degenerates into a free for all. There are some very funny one-liners and put-downs.  I thought by far the stronger performances were from Jodie Foster and Christoph Waltz.

My Goodreads Giveway of The Banker ended yesterday. 2 winners, one in Canada the other in the US, will be receiving their copies shortly. On the day the Giveaway started my Amazon Kindle rank reached 11,400 before falling away to its normal ranking of 80,000 or so. Then yesterday (the last Giveaway day) it popped back up to around 20,000.

My spot the director competition is still on – closing date is 6th March.

I saw The Artist the other night. I liked it. It’s a French, black-and-white, silent movie. It has charm, some clever cinematographic tricks and a cute dog. I’m sure it will get a one or more Oscars tomorrow, but I feel there’s been a bit too much hype about it. The film’s running time is 100 minutes, which is short for a conventional film, but it was a bit too long for me especially in the second half. Maybe its something to do with being a silent movie, but I think 15 or 20 minutes could have been cut.

Two words are spoken right at the end. It’s a good job they are in English not French, otherwise the film would have entered under best Foreign Language Film category. It still would have a chance of winning, but the kudos in that category is much lower.

I’ve offered 2 copies of The Banker as a Goodreads giveaway. Goodreads members have until 29 February 2012 to register an interest.  Goodreads will then pick the 2 winners and I wll send them a free signed paperback copy.

Remember there is also a competition I’m running for a free copy of The Banker. This is open to everybody and closes on the 6th March 2012.  See my blog entry of  6th Feb for details.

Some notes from  Anne Aylor’s last seminar.

The main elements of Setting are:

Time, Place, Minor Characters, Mood and Atmosphere.

 Plotting doesn’t have to be done first, unless the book is a thriller.  The elements of a plot are Structure, Plausibility, Conflict, Climax, Denouement ( Mysteries revealed, most loose ends tied up), Subplot, Theme (central idea running through the book) and Symbolism (can be object, place, phrase, colour that runs through the book)

In fiction what is left out is important, like an iceberg.

Shaping is major structural revision and editing after first and subsequent drafts.

I was a bit disappointed with this movie. It’s about the  ménage à trois between Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), Sigmund Freud(Viggo Mortensen) and a patient, and later fellow psychoanalyst, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley).  The film starts with the relationship between Jung and patient Spielrein which initially professional soon becomes sexual.  Later Jung meets up with Freud and dumps Spielrein who, by now a qualified psychoanalyst herself, in turn forms a professional relationship with Freud.

Much of the film deals with the falling out of Freud and Jung. This is in part due to Jung’s initial attempt to conceal his unprofessional relationship with Spielrein from Frued but mostly because of their diverging views on psychoanalysis.

Although well acted, the falling out between Freud and Jung lacked any sort of drama. The viewer needs to have some knowledge of psychoanalysis to follow some of their disagreements.  I can only give it 2 stars.