Creativity is great. At its best, it’s fertile, energetic, enthusiastic and rewarding. And sometimes the very best way of writing oneself out of a block is to doggedly apply the seat of one’s pants to the seat of a chair and get on with it.
And sometimes, it’s not.




Read Full Post

I’m all for a bit of stereotypical conformity in the workplace.

If, say, I ran a private detective agency I’m pretty sure I’d insist we all gather together one day each week to slap our thighs whilst collectively exclaiming “By Jove, Watson, I think you’ve got it!” in a range of plummy voices.

Read Full Post

[Picture of Glastonbury Tor]

Not quite Everest, is it? No, Glastonbury Tor is here as a visual metaphor that our deeds very rarely meet up to the challenges we set ourselves. BUT that doesn't demean what we achieve in any way. Glastonbury Tor is still quite magnificent in its own right, and this picture even has a cow on it. Bet Everest doesn't have any cows.

Read Full Post

Editing and revising your story when you haven't looked at it for six months is like drilling your own teeth out with a rusty dentist's drill. Okay, it's not that bad - the drill isn't rusty. And you have some oil-of-cloves to dab on afterwards.


You make changes, knowing that they will have a knock-on effect, creating more work and more changes. And all the time you are asking yourself,

Read Full Post

'I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.'

Don't get me wrong, I'm as fond of a nice tree as the next person, but for inspiration I prefer something hand-crafted in grey stone that doesn't shed its leaves every Winter.


Read Full Post

These wonderful photos come from a CD I bought off eBay. My work in progress is set in the late 1850s and starts off in Liverpool before the main characters move to London, so I was looking out for some old Liverpool pictures for research and inspiration ...



Read Full Post

Strictly Writing has been going for over two months now, so it's about time we had a run-out of the perennial advice: “If you see an adverb, kill it!”

For those few who have never looked at a writing website or read a how-to book, this paraphrases a Mark Twain quotation about adjectives, and is used to illustrate the accepted wisdom that adverbs are the Lex Luthors of the English language. If you let one of those evil, pace-sapping little fiends near your book, you might as well chuck the whole thing out the window and get a normal hobby, because publishers are going to laugh at you, my friend.


Read Full Post

As seasoned readers of my blog might know, I am a Jenn Ashworth fan and I think it’s fair to say that her short stories are not only things that I’ve enjoyed but have also had a considerable influence on my own writing. So I’m thrilled to have her here on my blog, to talk, chiefly, about her debut novel, A Kind of Intimacy, and other things, like typewriters, shampoo aisles and what dashing across a busy street is similar to...

Read Full Post

It seems that like Lennox in 'Macbeth' I should not have waited on the order of my going.


Read Full Post

According to Thalassa Cruso, 'March is a month of considerable frustration.' I'll say it is. The sun's out and it's warm behind glass but try sitting out in it for any length of time without getting whipped by the wind or freezing your feet off. March also seems to be a terrible month for receiving rejections, especially from writing contests entered in the blithe optimism of the autumn. One after another they've been blowing in. I feel battered.

Read Full Post