Inspired in part by a post on a fellow writer's blog, I've reached the conclusion that I need to shuck off this bad habit I've fallen into - of seeing writing as yet another chore, a means to an end, when I used to enjoy it as an end in itself.

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Still no luck on BT mending my home email problem, sigh – no matter who we speak to! Poor Lord H spent 45 minutes on the phone with them before work this morning but they couldn’t solve it. They’re going to look at it today and ring us tonight to discuss the situation. Double sigh – don’t wait up then … Mind you, I doubt that huge numbers of publishers are frantically sending me offer emails or begging me for my next book, so I’m maintaining my inner calm. Ho ho ...

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I've decided to take myself in hand, because I have been drifting. I've been drifting away from my own writing, letting so many other things take over. And I don't mean editing The Short Review, because that is something I love, which involves reading short stories, reading reviews of short story collections, interviewing authors of short story collections - heaven, in other words.

No, what has been causing (or I should say, what I have been doing to cause) the drift is a building obsession with submissions. I have been spending more and more time looking for places to send stories, looking at details of competitions, sending stories off and then waiting, clicking, re-loading, emailing, to see if the results are in, to see if my story has been accepted. I keep a spreadsheet-like document to track all my submissions and also to remind myself of upcoming deadlines. But now I have been thinking of what I can write to submit to themed issues of magazines, which of my stories might be good to send to competitions...and I realised that I was trying to write FOR someone, FOR something. And I had completely lost that joyous feeling of writing just for me.

This actually has been put in perspective by the responses I have been getting by authors to my interview questions for The Short Review. .....

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All hands to the proverbial today as shed-loads of gubbins hit my desk in the last week before my holiday. Bloody hell, isn’t it always the way? It was just one thing after another – actually, no, that might have been nice. It was just the fact that everything came at once which was sending my blood pressure soaring. Big time ...

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…But I try not to let it go to my head. I acknowledge the receptionists and PAs who now seem to know my name whilst giving them what they want; mournful, sultry looks full of endless, aching sadness. Luckily, this is my natural expression.

I sit at the table with Sid, Chris and the suit whose name, I think, may be Jason. If it isn’t, it should be. Other suits sit a respectful distance away, and I keep my shades on because I have an excuse. I myself am wearing a jet black suit.

“Well, Christopher,” Jason begins, but stops when I toss a fat A4 envelope onto the table. “What’s this?” he asks, opening it.

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I'm not the sort of writer who carries a notebook around with him at all times, or has one in every room of the house, so I can scribble every single fragment of an idea down the very moment it comes to me. Typically, I'm quite laid back with ideas.

There are times though, when I need to make a note of an idea. I've been known to text it to myself, or leave a message on my own voicemail. Occasionally, when out, I've asked a barman for a piece of paper and a pen.

The other day I found one such note tucked in my wallet. Ooh, an idea for a story, I thought.

And you know what it said? What this idea that was too good to not write down was?

It said: "Man cooking a turkey. In a kitchen."

Hmm. I don't think I'm quite the genius yet, am I?

Anyone else had any daft, or cryptic, ideas?

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I decided to take a bash at this year's Debut Dagger, run by the Crime Writers' Association.

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Funny, how it comes around. The sun is shining. It's freezing cold. I've written 150 words of flash fiction for this week's challenge at WriteWords, and I'm pretty excited about them. Won't post just yet, though. Waiting for the first flush to fade so I can get a perspective on the piece. It's my trademark 'ambiguous', and that doesn't always translate the way I want it to. So I'll let it simmer for a while.


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Lord H and I popped along to the Candlemas service at St Mary's today - all very civilised and they did stuff with candles too, which was nice. It doesn't always happen. Lord H lit the one we were sharing and I blew it out the two or three times we had to do the ritualistic candle thing. Well, one has to cater to marital strengths: Lord H is an enabler and I am a destroyer. Naturally ...

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I suppose it's possible that some writers love plotting, but I'm not one of them, or not yet. Indeed, three years ago, I swore I couldn't plot for toffee (not that anyone was offering me any toffee at the time). It's one of the reasons I believed I'd have a hard time trying to hack it as a crime writer. Then I wrote (in fact, co-wrote) an opus that exceeded a quarter of a million words, and surprised myself by managing to conjure the illusion of progression and, moreover, by bringing the story to a definite conclusion. My co-writer, a wise and wonderful woman, told me not to get hung up on the notion of plotting - 'What is plot, anyway? Just a series of coat-hangers, one leading to the next.' She was right, too. There's an art to arranging those hangers, though, and it helps to have most of them in place before you get too deep into the process of writing. That, at least, has been my experience. What do other writers find? Care to share a few tips? I'll go first.


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