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James Kemp

Goodreads Author


Born
in Glasgow, The United Kingdom
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Twitter

Genre

Influences
Iain Banks (with and without the M), Charles Stross, William Gibson, T ...more

Member Since
October 2011

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I'm a Glaswegian, after decades living in Surrey, I am now back in Scotland, but in the East. I have always written stories, since I was a boy, and I've managed to carry that on even though I did a science degree and then work for the UK government. More recently I finished a degree with the Open University, which included creative writing.

Most of what I write is science fiction, and fantasy. The pandemic slowed me down, for two reasons, One is that I usually wrote on my commute. The walk to the station gave me the time and space to think about the next bit of the story and rehearse it in my head. The train journey was an opportunity to type that up. The second reason is that I've moved 500 miles north of the urban sprawl that was greater L
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James Kemp Just write stuff down. The first draft will always be rubbish. Don't worry about that. Tell yourself the story as you write it down. This might be an …moreJust write stuff down. The first draft will always be rubbish. Don't worry about that. Tell yourself the story as you write it down. This might be an outline, it might be a full blown draft, either way is good.

Once you have the story down you need to keep on re-reading it and editing it. Read the dialogue out loud and change it to fit the voice you want from the characters. Change the tell you write in the first draft so that you show readers what is going on.

Lastly find some honest but helpful beta readers and try out your stories on them. No matter how good you get you still need people that haven't lived and breathed the story to tell you how it is for them. (less)
James Kemp Write something just for myself. Mostly the thing that stops me writing is the inner editor that tells me it isn't good enough. Frankly you need to bl…moreWrite something just for myself. Mostly the thing that stops me writing is the inner editor that tells me it isn't good enough. Frankly you need to bludgeon the inner editor until it keeps quiet. (less)
Average rating: 4.14 · 36 ratings · 18 reviews · 4 distinct works
Exodus: Mike's Thread

4.31 avg rating — 16 ratings — published 2013 — 7 editions
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Themself: Confessions of an...

3.86 avg rating — 14 ratings — published 2016 — 2 editions
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Perfects (Exodus, #1)

4.50 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2013
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Fierce

really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings
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Carn an Tuirc [Munro #11]

3Alexander and I went up Càrn an Tuirc on Wednesday. It was his first Munro since he started university, so we only did half the (optimistic) route. Lots of this was because it was very boggy on the bottom end of the route, and we had quite a lot of stops to work out the steps to avoid sinking into the peat bog. Route for Carn an Tuirc and Cairn of Claise I very optimistically planned a route that

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Published on April 08, 2025 09:45
The Jacobite Rebe...
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The Merrybegot
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More of James's books…
J.K. Rowling
“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Iain Banks
“One should never mistake pattern for meaning.”
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