Monday Motivation

Let’s have fun today thinking about the difference between real people and the people we create for our fiction, our characters. I’ve often pondered the nature of the reality of fictional [...]

I’ve been indulging in a deep dive into cosy mysteries and police procedurals, many of them independently published by their authors, rather than by established, traditional publishers. My [...]

I’ve been listening to a long and fascinating book by Naomi Klein called Doppelganger – about the confusion caused when thousands of people mistook her for another writer, also a Naomi – Naomi [...]

We went to the opera last week – one of those productions live-streamed from the stage of the Met Opera in Kennedy Centre, New York. It was one I wasn’t familiar with: Verdi’s La Forza del [...]

The experiences and memories we accumulate over time are not unlike leaf mould. Year by year, just as the leaves of a million trees rain down upon the ground, so an infinite number of sensory [...]

I fell in love with reading when I was in a rehabilitation hospital recovering from polio.* No sooner had I escaped, than I tried my hand at writing but, as I remember it, failed abysmally. [...]

We’re sitting in a Pret a Manger somewhere in Farringdon having coffee and keeping a wary eye on the weather. We have an appointment in thirty five minutes across the road, but the forecast has [...]

One of the most interesting of all writerly processes is how a story slowly – or sometimes quickly – takes shape. Here’s an evolution of a story. Trish and I booked into an Airbnb over Christmas [...]

The Guardian last Saturday carried a series of short interviews with people who’ve been diagnosed with terminal diseases of one sort or another. I took a deep breath and read some of them. Each [...]

I have often said that story ideas for writers are there for the plucking, like so many ripe fruit. This signal truth was brought home to me with force on our recent holiday in South Africa. We [...]

And a very happy, if belated New Year to you, too! I love new years and the opportunity they afford us to start afresh with new projects, new determination and a tankful of refurbished energy. [...]