I normally hate the beginning of the year but I’m currently feeling more optimistic than expected. Today I’ve blatted out another 2,000 words of the novel I started in National Novel Writing Month and done some of the short story admin I’ve been putting off. Some of those old stories are due to be retired […]

I’ve just got back from Christmas in The Village. Not the same as Christmas in A Village (which is what I’d have had at home), Christmas in The Village is something rather special. Actually the village in question, Portmeirion, isn’t a real village at all. However, despite my extensive travels (see below), it is probably […]

Well, I did it. I’m a NaNoWriMo winner. I’ve got a flashy little icon thingy to prove it, but as my blog editor can be a little idiosyncratic I’m not going to try and paste it here, so you’ll have to take my word for it. I feel I should do the customary emotional thank-yous, […]

I’ve just signed up for NaNoWriMo. For what, you say? For National Novel Writing Month. The intention is to write a novel in one month (specifically, in November). My first novel took several years (and far too many revisions) to get into shape, and after several months work I’m only about a quarter way through […]

A while back at the day job (actually a morning job at a local marine engineering firm) one of the engineers asked me how many words I was likely to produce when I went home to write that afternoon. I had to tell him that it doesn’t work like that, at least not for me. […]

I have to confess that this summer hasn’t been as productive as I’d hoped, writing wise. This is partly due to the recent impossibly hot weather (now resolved into a more normal British summer of grey, cool and sometimes wet), partly due to a certain disillusionment at my lack of recent story sales, and partly […]

This week I didn’t ask a question which I should have. The person I should have asked is one of my American cousins who was over for a holiday. I have a lot of American cousins: my father was one of seven children, and most of his siblings followed the Irish dream of a better […]

Most writers work in silence. Even the only notable exception I know of, Stephen King, apparently plays loud thrashy music only as a kind of ‘white noise’, not as something he listens to. Several writers I know say they can’t write at all if music is playing. I, however, need music. I write in a […]

I’ve decided that having started to blog, I may as well continue, though at a much reduced rate. About once a month should be enough at the moment. Getting home wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it might be. We arrived at Heathrow just before a cold January dawn, but had a warm taxi waiting. […]

Much as I’d like to tell you about the last three days which I spent at an Indonesian beach resort, I’m typing this at Singapore Airport, with only a few minutes until we board the plane back to London, so to take my mind off the fact that the Big Trip is almost over, I’ll just […]