Author Archives: Lee J. Russell

Col Chris Hadfield covers Bowie’s “Space Oddity” from the ISS – I can’t believe I missed this last year!!! I picked up the story of Col Chris Hadfield covering David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” over breakfast this morning… and I simply CANNOT believe that I missed this last year. This cover is the most beautifully poignantContinue reading “From 5/11/14 – “ISS Oddity””

I saw two of my favourite sci-fi genre films back-to-back at Vue last night: Ridley Scott’s “ALIEN” followed by James Cameron’s “ALIENS”… WOW, what an experience!!   ALIEN made the most lasting, influential, cinematic impression on me as a lover and writer of science fiction.  I first saw it on VHS video in about 1985,Continue reading “From 1st Nov 2014 – “Halloween Horror!!””

  I’ve said before how much I love walking around Ramsgate Harbour. I find it both very relaxing and exciting, there is always something going on!  Since we returned from holiday in Dorset I’ve seen some interesting things, and enjoyed one marvellous moment of innocent expression which reminded me that not everything is spoiled inContinue reading “From 22/8/14 – “Harbour delights…””

I only discovered Gabo’s writings last year and rapidly fell in love with Macondo and the sumptious insights into Colmbian life that he shared with us. The world is smaller without him but he leaves us with a marvellous mix of tales… I very quickly came to appreciate the sense of post-revolutionary reality that heContinue reading “From 19/4/14 – Gabriel García Márquez – died 17th April 2014…”

As I write this blog update it is now 13 days since the world was plunged into possibly the most significant political crisis since the official end of the Cold War. Russia stands accused by much of the International Community of having violated the sovereign territory of Ukraine by surreptitiously invading Crimea.  The Superpowers areContinue reading “From 12/3/14 – Crisis in Crimea”

28th December was a lovely day and I decided to have a walk around Ramsgate harbour. The south-east has been hit with a lot of unusually strong storms this Christmas but on this day the weather was quite pleasant! Ever since I was a boy I have enjoyed the atmosphere around the harbour. In thoseContinue reading “From 30/12/13 -“I had a lovely walk around Ramsgate Harbour just after Christmas…””

  I enjoy running for general fitness an relaxation. I don’t aim to run competitively against other people. Rather, I like to see how my personal fitness varies over time. But when the opportunity to take part in this charity run for Men’s Health in the UK, I thought “why not?” So at 7:00 thisContinue reading “From 30/11/13 – Enjoyed the 10k MoRun in London’s Greenwich Park today”

Here is a quick drawing from the scene where our group of survivors meet an inhabitant of Charybdis for the first time…  I’m not a great artist, as the drawing shows, but do I find that sketching things out like this helps me to visualise a scene. At this point the story had reached 50kContinue reading “Another concept drawing for “An End Of Beginnings”…”

Do you listen to music when writing? I don’t like to be distracted when I’m writing and enjoy the feeling which comes when my study is quiet and suddenly I’m really “in the zone” and the story is taking off. This happens most often when writing dialogue, but I have a confession to make… IContinue reading “Musical inspiration”

In August 2013 we enjoyed a fantastic day at Harry Potter World at Leavesden… I have become a great fan of the Harry Potter saga; the stories have been a massive commercial success but they’re also very engaging tales! This ‘Making Of’ event is arranged around two “sound stages” that are used to showcase a veryContinue reading “Harry Potter World – great for the imagination!”