Happy 2019! I'm starting this year's blogs with a wild tangent from my writing life into, well, the rest of my life. Gasp! No, writing is not the entirety of my life, though it occasionally seems like it (not a complaint). Like many people who watched 'that' episode of Planet Earth II by the incomparable Sir … Continue reading Plastic-free, cruelty-free, chemical-free
Category: Life
In no particular order and with varying degrees of importance and silliness, some things 2018 taught me. Note, these are not prescriptions for others on how to approach life, writing, or anything. My job isn't to tell you what to do; it's, hopefully, to entertain you and then tear your heart out and crush it … Continue reading Things wot I learnt or did in 2018
First off, let me say I've updated my events page - I'm going to be a busy writer in the run up to Christmas! Check it out. Second off, I'll be popping up in an anthology early next year - the Art of War. It's for charity. You should totally order a copy - there … Continue reading Recent occurrences, and one big life decision
OK, confession first: I saw Wonder Woman this morning and I'm still a little hyper about it. Right, now that's out of the way, let me tell you why I think we need films like this in our lives. I'm going to talk about me for a minute, but go with it, because it is … Continue reading Why we need Wonder Woman
I'm saying it right up front - I won the Three Peaks. I won it inasmuch as it was the toughest mental and physical challenge I've ever undertaken. The only person I beat was myself - and that's more than good enough. For the non-UKers, the Three Peaks Challenge is climbing the three highest mountains … Continue reading Winning the Three Peaks Challenge
Ooh, use of the Oxford comma in the title there. Random. Better not do that when I draft Godblind's sequel. I've had some busy times lately. In June I met Natasha Bardon, my editor at Harper Voyager, for a fabulous lunch in the Hix, Bankside. We hit it off straight away (or we did from … Continue reading Reads, Goodreads, and Writes
So I did hand in what turned out to be my last round of edits to my agent. Relief and alcohol were the order of the day. I was then immediately confronted with the looming deadline for Birmingham Writers Group's summer short story competition. The theme was Alternative Birmingham, so I couldn't just do my … Continue reading Writing and … not writing
Here are six stories about the rock star who left a mark on music, fashion, and art. Source: David Bowie, 1947-2016
We burned him on the first Saturday of the new year, while snowflakes fat as goose eggs twisted from the air. In the distance, white hills faded into white sky, their limits only showing by the lines of black trees poking fingers into the clouds’ bellies to deliver more snow from their pregnant heaving. It … Continue reading Fire and snow
"It isn’t a fact universally acknowledged that a person who mistakes his opinions for facts may also mistake himself for God." Source: Reading Lolita in Patriarchy: Rebecca Solnit on Being Mansplained About How She Must Have Misread Nabokov
