Blog - Philip Holyman

An blue notebook with the words 'Blog - But Anyway, I Digress' written on the front cover.

As often as I can — at the very least, every other Tuesday — I’ll be adding new posts to my blog. By promising you in writing that I’ll do it, I am now properly accountable to actually get on and do it. (It’s going well so far.)

The blog will include things I’ve read, heard or seen that have started living rent-free in my mind (for better or for worse) — with sources fully credited and with external links so you can read, hear or see these things for yourself.

It’s also where I’ll occasionally extract vague thoughts from my head and try to make them less vague by giving myself a bit of space to write about them. With luck, some of those thoughts might interest you as much as they’ve interested me.

I’ll be collating those posts over on Substack, which is a great place for you to find, hoard (in a good way) and share all kinds of interesting writing from all kinds of interesting writers. Hop on over, sign up for free, and start stacking!

Explore blog by tags:

AUDIO, FILM & DIGITAL

FICTION

IDEAS THAT WENT NOWHERE

INPUT

NOVELS

OUTPUT

SALVAGED FROM THE ARCHIVE

On writing better ghost stories than ChatGPT, and stealing like an artist
12/11/2024|WRITING PROCESS, IDEAS THAT WENT NOWHERE, FICTION, SHARING SOME DOTS, SHORT STORIES, THINGS I'VE READ|
I took part in a workshop led by Liam Brown, exploring AI’s capacity to write good ghost stories — and by extension, our own. Who would do better — us, or it?
On writing a 90,000-word novel in a month (Part 5 of 5)
07/11/2024|FICTION, NOVELS, SHARING SOME DOTS, WRITING PROCESS|
If there's one thing I'd like to leave you with at the end of this special, exhausting, exhilarating month, it is this — say yes to your writing by saying no to something else.
On writing a 90,000-word novel in a month (Part 4 of 5)
03/11/2024|FICTION, NOVELS, SHARING SOME DOTS, WRITING PROCESS|
107,910 words, and still nowhere near finished — but for now, I’m content to keep wandering across the universe of this strange, sad, redemptive novel.
On writing a 90,000-word novel in a month (Part 3 of 5)
27/10/2024|FICTION, NOVELS, SHARING SOME DOTS, WRITING PROCESS|
I’m now getting to the stage where I am required to write characters whose attitudes, opinions and experiences do not correspond to my own, in three primary and overlapping areas: sexuality, religion and politics.
On writing a 90,000-word novel in a month (Part 2 of 5)
20/10/2024|FICTION, NOVELS, SHARING SOME DOTS, WRITING PROCESS|
I wrote my first ever sex scenes this week. Every aspect of these scenes could be viewed as a template for the kind of questions we need to ask ourselves about every single thing we write.
On writing a 90,000-word novel in a month (Part 1 of 5)
13/10/2024|FICTION, NOVELS, SHARING SOME DOTS, WRITING PROCESS|
I’ve written a total of 24,136 words this week. Considering I pledged to finish a 90,000-word draft this month, you’d be forgiven for thinking I’m well on course.
On the only kind of permission you ever really need
01/10/2024|SHARING SOME DOTS, THINGS I'VE READ, WRITING PROCESS|
In six days' time, I'll be embarking on a thrilling/foolhardy (you decide which) literary experiment, writing a 90,000-word novel in the space of a calendar month — and not only that, I'll be on show for at least 20 of those days, in full public view.
On digression, sub-digression and even deeper digressions below that
24/09/2024|FICTION, NOVELS, SALVAGED FROM THE ARCHIVE, SHARING SOME DOTS, THEATRE, WRITING PROCESS|
I've got to thinking more about a technique which I've used more often than any other in all of my writing. It's the thing which even helped to give this blog its title. I'm talking about my great love of digression.
On a long sentence of my own
12/09/2024|FICTION, NOVELS, SHARING SOME DOTS, WRITING PROCESS|
By way of a bit of bonus content, I decided I should quickly follow up this week’s latest post with another one in which I put my money where my mouth is, by sharing an example of me putting all that I think and feel about long sentences into practice.
On the joys of a long sentence, a thing which we are nowadays encouraged to avoid on the basis that readers cannot cope with processing more than twenty words before a full stop, but which, in thoughtful and sensitive hands, can be a thing of great beauty and a tool of magnificent narrative power
10/09/2024|FICTION, SALVAGED FROM THE ARCHIVE, THEATRE, THINGS I'VE READ, WRITING PROCESS|
If writing long sentences is the crime that readability analysis (including on this site) makes it out to be, then many of the nineteenth and early-twentieth century writers who have had a big influence on me are serial offenders.