Writing is all about using what we have at our fingertips. But perhaps other body parts might help…

I spend a lot of time writing novels and editing them. I write four novels a year, so that’s twelve edits too. It’s nice when they come separately and a bit scary when they come together but I enjoy what I do so much and I never worry about looming deadlines. I do have to …

Continue reading Writing is all about using what we have at our fingertips. But perhaps other body parts might help…

Appreciating ‘Dappl’d Things’ during lockdown

During the difficult lockdown moments when the sun isn’t shining and the world looks quite bleak, when people no longer have a reliable source of income and they can’t buy some foods or they have to queue at a distance to get them; when we all miss the simple things like going out for a …

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Twelve protagonists? Why not?

Recently an author-friend of mine said a novel she’d written had been refused by a publisher because there were four central protagonists, which they said was three too many. There is a template in romantic comedy that requires one heroine, someone with a problem that needs to be solved, one handsome male who might do …

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The joys of research for a writer- and the scrapes…

As writers, we are often told that we should write about what we know. That much is true – we write about people, places, relationships and the vagaries of the human condition. So much of what we write is based on what we know already. But sometimes our writing ventures into places and areas we …

Continue reading The joys of research for a writer- and the scrapes…