So, I’m in a comfortable enough place now to reveal – without sounding too pretentious – the workings of the next novel and what I want to achieve with it. Whilst my work with Concrete Operational is still in full swing, ...Read More
Taking risks with my writing, I’ve thought about this a few times but Mark's recent post over at his excellent blog – Voice of your muse – has inspired me to blog about the subject. Ever since man has been able ...Read More
I love walking into my local G&D's cafe in Oxford, grabbing a cup of tea, opening up my laptop, sitting down in the middle of the room, sticking my headphones in, looking at faces and letting go. Controlled breathing, a ...Read More
The duality of man is a subject that philosophers and authors have fought around for some time. I doubt my 8500 words in Chapter 8 really do the subject much justice when you've got masterpieces of literary history like The ...Read More
This post has now been updated, with a 'Part 2' including further notes on writing about love, 3 years on - HERE Arh, now, there's a subject, if not THE subject. To end, to beat, to change all other subjects, topics, ...Read More
On an instinctual level I like to believe books are there to raise questions, to grip you by the throat and make you challenge everything you every thought was right. They can make you surf an emotional tidal wave of ...Read More
I generally find inspiration in everything, literally everything. I guess you have to be like that when writing, take a look at an object or person, animal, anything, and take something from it, steal part of it for yourself. Always ...Read More
I'm extremely happy right now, I just broke 42k words. This basically marks the 3/5 point of the novel. It's probably just over half way, but not quite three quarters, that's why I went with that slightly odd fraction of ...Read More
Last time I quickly looked at painting a person, creating a being, with words. I thought for this post I may as well look quickly at actually creating an environment, surroundings, a landscape in which to place that person. Speaking ...Read More
Those characters, the basic building blocks of the entire novel, creating them, painting a picture of them with words, making them your own and putting them in the heads of the readers, it's all important. Without the brilliant description the ...Read More
