Nov 01 2012
Second books are tricksy things, as I’m sure any writer will agree. No longer can you meander along at your own pace, letting your story take shape as it will; you’re on a contract now, and you have deadlines – you know, those things that Douglas Adams loved for the whooshing noise they made as …
Oct 18 2012
So that’s The Raven’s Shadow a.k.a Book 3 of The Wild Hunt Quartet packed off to my editor for scrutiny, so I can start to think about Book 4 in more detail than I have up to now. It’s going to take quite a bit of planning (a novel experience for me) as there is …
Jul 17 2012
It’s all happening this week. A bunch of us recent debut authors got together and decided to do something kinda fun to jointly celebrate our upcoming novels. Us crazy kids, right? All this week and next*, we’re taking over Justin Landon’s blog over at Staffer’s Book Review, one author per day, to talk about our …
Apr 16 2012
Funny things happen over the course of a novel’s gestation, especially if you’re a writer like me who has a very free-range, organic approach to the whole business. Sometimes it’s only obvious quite far down the line that the book you thought you were writing isn’t actually what’s coming out of your pen. Keyboard. Whatever. …
Mar 03 2011
I can’t believe my eyes – I must be dreaming… — Jack Skellington A parcel just arrived here at Cooper Towers. A thick, heavy parcel, bound in sticky tape and bearing the blazon of none other than Orion Books. So, naturally, I opened it – or tried to. Application of fingernails, scissors and finally brute …
Dec 09 2010
It’s hard enough being an unpublished writer, struggling along with the rest of the teeming multitude, trying to get noticed, so why the heck do we make things harder for ourselves by perpetuating myths, misunderstandings and downright untruths about the process of being published? Hang about in any writer’s community, be it online or in …
Nov 28 2010
As I’ve come to the end of Trinity Moon, I’ve found myself thinking about how it all began. As one so often finds, in endings are the echoes of the beginning and as I wrote these last few scenes I got to pondering. On questions of honour and integrity, on promises given and the value …
Nov 04 2010
Well, almost. I was writing up a storm at the weekend, and racked up just shy of 5k words in 24 hours, breaking the symbolic 180k barrier. A bit longer than I’d hoped, but never mind. I haven’t felt this energised about my writing in a looong time. This is A Good Thing. Naturally I …
Aug 23 2010
Authors of fiction should wear their learning lightly, I feel. Research should subtly inform their writing, not dominate it, and the reader should never, ever feel as if they’re being lectured. After all, they picked up the book to be entertained and transported into another world, not sat down and told to pay attention, because …
Aug 02 2010
I had a crisis of confidence today. These things happen from time to time, so I’m used to them. Happened with the last book, and it’s a good bet that it’ll happen with the next one, too. But it’s never pretty. I work myself into a right old state. I can’t seem to focus on …