Never mind the Brrr... At Asda we're lining up for the Next Big Thing.

Read Full Post

To lose one haggis may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two looks like carelessness.

Or at least looks as if somebody somewhere in the postal chain between Edinburgh and Sheerness has a serious haggis fixation. Two dispatches of the warm-reekin great chieftain o the puddin'-race had disappeared en route, my mother whispered, as Rhona and I arrived at the Burns Supper this evening. How else could we otherwise explain by what mystery a collective weight of ninety pounds of haggis (sheep's ‘pluck’ - heart, liver and lungs - mixed with oatmeal and spices) had vanished into the ether?


Read Full Post

It crops up on loads of writing websites and author blogs – the advice that if you want to be a published writer, you must never give up. I used to think it was all very well for people to say that - I mean, most of them just happened to have a book deal, right? It was easy for them to look down with a beatific smile from the heights of publication to patronise the folks treading water in the slush pile. They were right not to give up because they were talented – but if you’re an aspiring writer who has just received her fortieth wonkily photocopied rejection slip, how can you be sure it still applies to you?

I’ve never really liked the term ‘aspiring writer,’ but it makes me even more uncomfortable now I’m supposedly not one any more. It suggests that even if you’ve written ten complete novels but haven’t got any of them published, your efforts aren’t really valid. You’re just some wannabe; some deluded schmuck scribbling in green ink...


Read Full Post

As things sometimes do, it all started with a funeral.

That Billy was dead in the first place seemed most out of character. There are some people who are, well, so full of life, so much part of a place, that death must surely not apply to them. But it does and did, and Billy had died suddenly and unexpectedly, having only recently survived a serious illness.

Squashed into the last seat of the last pew at the back of the church, I’d glimpsed Jeremy as he carried his father’s coffin on his shoulder. And now, as we trickled out of the door, there he was, in front of me.

Read Full Post

Today's amusement - which I was somewhat in need of while I waited in all through a brilliantly sunny afternoon for DHL to come and collect the proofs of the US edition of A Secret Alchemy - is that apparently several national newspapers have been trying very hard indeed to find out who wrote which of the stories in In Bed With. Emails have been whizzing round, beseeching all 24 of us to keep everything under our hats. I can't say that half Fleet Street's outside my door, but I gather there's been a certain amount of pressure exerted in some other quarters. Whether there's a Trappist vow actually written into the contract or not, I can't remember, but it's certainly in the moral contract with my fellow contributors that no one should say anything, in case someone starts a process of elimination. For all I know, some of my fellows would actually prefer that people (their mothers?) don't know they write this stuff. Besides, it's much more fun, and more publicity, this way.

And meanwhile the legend that is Georgina Moore, Headline's publicity director, is getting stuck into the next stage of A Secret Alchemy's career, and I've got a magazine interview in a couple of weeks, though I'm used to those, these days. One way and another it reminded me, in a funny way, of a long-ago post of mine here, Leaving Eden.

Read Full Post

The themes are interesting, although obscure, but a cringe-making climactic breakdown scene with Ben wallowing in patriotic sentiment and sobbing over and over ‘I did a bad thing’ like Lenny in ‘Of Mice and Men’, was embarrassing.

Read Full Post

Have you read Twilight yet? Seen the film? Can you name one or all of the sequels? If you answered no to all of the questions above then you are, these days, a rarer creature than you would once have been. International Twilight fever continues unabated, particularly among the female of the species.

This review in the Guardian, covering both the film and the book, made me laugh. As well as making a few indignant points about the different way in which author Stephenie Meyer has chosen to present her vampires - defanged and dressed in (oh, the unspeakable horror of it!) beige ;-) - it confirms that the Twilight phenomenon is all but irresistible to any who choose to dip even the tiniest of their toes in the water. However much they claim not to want to, people seem unable to stop themselves from finishing first the original book, then the series, and, finally, going to see the film.


Read Full Post

No, no, no - not me! I am full of cheer (despite/because of a certain someone suggesting I was a werewolf -which made me chuckle a lot: see previous post's comments). It's the title of my story which has just gone live over at Six Sentences.

Read Full Post

I know it's traditional to begin the New Year on January 1st, but having been sick as a snuff movie this week I've decided that for me it's starting January 12th. That's when I will begin writing the next crime novel. I

Read Full Post

As I scour my subconscious and memory for inspiration, I come across subjects or experiences I’d like to draw on but can’t. I need to detach myself to the point where I can turn them into fiction, but as yet I don’t have the nerves of steel required to do this.

How do other writers deal creatively with the (metaphorical) loaded gun? [more ...]

Read Full Post