My Blog
Plot, character and setting: which comes first?
When I'm talking about writing, explaining the balance between plot, character, point of view and setting is a helpful starting point for people who haven't yet thought about how a novel is developed. In my West Cumbrian trilogy, the first novels I wrote, setting was...
What price expertise?
How easy it must be to finish a manuscript and just send it off, confident that a small army of people employed by your adoring publisher will immediately step up to do everything necessary to get your masterpiece into the hands of equally adoring readers. Editors,...
I’m keeping my writing plans private
So, the week's writing adventure at the Arvon centre in The Hurst, John Osborne's house in Shropshire, is done. Monday to Saturday, five days of thinking and writing and talking and sharing, and cooking and washing up. And very enjoyable it was too. Two well-prepared...
How long will readers stay loyal?
I'm trying to keep my ideas open and fluid around the issue of future writing. At the end of the last post I wondered whether I could sell copies of my backlist books if I didn't have a new book to add to the list. Now my conversations with myself, and with others in...
The joy of talking about writing
As you might have gathered from my last post, and others over the past few months, I'm seriously weighing the positives of writing and self-publishing against the negatives, and there's no certainty that I will want to continue. But when I think about giving it all...
My new book arrives: how does it feel?
I'm ruthless with my Twitter feed, regularly and systematically blocking anything I don't want and refusing to 'follow back' until I've checked the person out. Too many 'followers' are just fishing for reciprocation, and I'm not interested. As a consequence, my...