nothing in the rulebook

A collective of creatives bound by a single motto: There's nothing in the rulebook that says a giraffe can't play football!

recent posts

about

Tag: writing

  • William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech

    As prizes go, the Nobel has long been accepted as one of our civilisation’s highest seals of merit. Among the great writers to have received the Nobel Prize for literature – including J.M. Coetzee, Ernest Hemingway, Alice Munro and Seamus Heaney – stands one of the all time masters of the written word: William Faulkner.…

  • Kafka, truth, reality – and working for an insurance company

    For many aspiring writers and artists working full-time jobs, the difficulty in pursuing their calling comes from the challenge of rousing one’s creative self after hours spent in stressful offices trying to meet tight deadlines. Often, the easiest option is to simply stumble through the front door, and crash in front of the television set…

  • Elmore Leonard’s ten rules for writing

    In 2010, The Guardian asked authors for their personal lists of dos and don’ts. We’ve gone through the whole list and, week by week, will be bringing you the timeless counsel of the great writers of the 20th and 21stcenturies. Last time out we brought you Michael Morpurgo’s writing tips. And in the past we’ve also featured Zadie Smith’s exquisite…

  • Ray Bradbury on work, and writing with love

    Often, it is easier to shy away from work than face it head on. And when we do tackle our work – be it the drudgery of the nine to five, or the fear of finally getting round to working on that novel you’ve not yet started actually, well, writing – we can often approach…

  • White winter mist

    The woods are shrouded in a white winter mist. Snow falls from the sombre sky, trees twist and creak in the icy wind. There is someone lying in the woods. A girl. Her skin is as white as the snow around her, and yet it is a sickly pallor. Her mouth, once as red as blood, is now…

  • Creatives in profile: interview with Pondering Media

      In the latest of our ‘Creatives in Profile’ interview series, it is an honour to introduce you to Karen and Michael Healy – the brother and sister duo behind the award-winning original comedy production company, Pondering Media. Karen Healy is Pondering Media’s founder, CEO and perennial lead performer. Her work on Pondering’s award-winning shorts has…

  • Hilary Mantel’s ten rules for writing

    In 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing, The Guardian asked authors for their personal lists of dos and don’ts. We’ve gone through the whole list and, week by week, will be bringing you the timeless counsel of the great writers of the 20th and 21stcenturies. Last time out we brought you the sagely advice of…

  • Find of the day: Raymond Carver reading ‘What we talk about when we talk about love’

    Described by the New York Times Book Review as “surely the most influential writer of American short stories in the second half of the 20th Century”, Raymond Carver is perhaps best known for his celebrated short story – and short story collection – What we talk about when we talk about love. It’s incredible therefore…

  • Rise of the machines: will computers replace human beings in the publishing industry?

      We’ve previously written about the way data on reader’s habits stands to revolutionise processes in the publishing industry. But while so-called “big brother analytics” might change the way publishing houses choose which books they invest in, a general assumption was that the ultimate decision would be made by a human being. This might sound…

  • Comedians should be allowed to be offensive, they just shouldn’t be

    One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed in myself after a year of regularly performing comedy is a broadening of my comedic tastes. If you’d asked me a year ago what comedy I thought was good I would have replied with very strict and narrow parameters. “Stewart Lee is good.” I would have said, “I…