December 2025 … I’ve recently had the pleasure of reading The Creeper by Margaret Hickey (Penguin Random House, 2024). The novel is notable as it was the winner of the …
From the Stack – ‘The Creeper’
Literary or Genre Fiction
November 2025 … Recently I have been preparing synopses and pitches for my two manuscripts, which has led me to the question ‘what is their genre?’ In some cases, where …
Reader Emotions
October 2025 … One of the aspects I enjoy about being in a writers’ group is being prompted to explore the deeper ideas about why we read novels and stories, …
Discovering Characters
September 2025 … In my April 2024 blog I talked about outlining a new major work using a Mind Mapping method. I created a network of characters and their relationships …
Writing What You Know
August 2025 … One common piece of advice given to authors is to ‘write what you know’. It usually means writing about those themes and settings that are most familiar …
Developing A Story
July 2025 … I recently finished the fifth editing round of my novel Trials of Henry. Given that the novel is about 100,000 words in length, the editing is no …
Promises and Loyalty
June 2025 … As part of the editing process for Trials of Henry I have drawn advice and guidelines from various references about the craft of writing. One piece of …
Writing and Empathy
May 2025 … It is often said that a good story shows a character undergoing a change – for better or for worse. The challenge of the author is not …
From The Stack – ‘The Soulmate’
April 2025 … I recently had the pleasure of reading The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth (Pan Macmillan, 2022) which falls into a genre known as ‘domestic thriller’. It follows the …
Writing as an Outlet
March 2025 … A little while ago I formally retrieved my draft of Trials of Henry from my little wooden vault. It was a token thing to do but an …