After a fortnight of spending every possible hour editing the manuscript, shoving the kids in front of the TV with chips, neglecting the cat, and watching weeds go nuts in the garden, I have finally delivered my second-draft-stage…
Nov 22 2015
Nov 13 2015
Show, don’t tell... really?
All writers have, at some point, been urged to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell.’ (This means, basically, that your story allows the reader to discover something by ‘watching’ the action as it happens, rather than being told about…
Nov 6 2015
Read an extract of 'Iteration' here!
After tweeting and facebook-author-paging my novel extract, my website stats show that the news hasn't got anywhere near as far as my blogs seem to. I'm including this brief extract as a blog post (forgive the layout -…
Oct 14 2015
Something I found today...
I went through a few desktop documents today, and found a screenshot I took when The Eternity Fund reached number 2 bestseller position in the 4,000 plus SF/F titles available on Audible.co.uk. It may not have been there for long…
Oct 9 2015
Interruptions: or when a phone call from school means that I will have a bad day at the office
Like any busy mum, my days are planned fairly meticulously, even down to the two hour slot I have, once a week, to do the family ironing. I've been known to turn my gate buzzer off when I work, so…
Sep 24 2015
Progress with my Novel-In-Progress
It’s surprising how much ‘Iteration’ has changed since I began writing it at the back end of last year. The only reason I know this, is that I keep detailed Learning Logs for PhD. The logs track progress, hold-ups…
Aug 7 2015
Some thoughts on reaching the end of my first year as a Creative Writing PhD student
I’m now a year in, and delighted I made the decision to enroll. In the hope that my experience will be helpful to others wondering whether this step is the right one to take, I’ve summarised some of what…
Jul 19 2015
Women Rise in Sci Fi - terrific article from The Atlantic, 2014
The debate on whether women write true SF or whether this is best left to men (while the ladies stick with softer fantasy) is always thought-provoking, and at times amusing. Follow this link to read a 2014 article on women SF writers…
May 19 2015
Write What you Know
I’ve just spent a lovely week immersed in the fictional world of Marie Brennan (‘A Natural History of Dragons’/’The Tropic of Serpents’, both Titan Books). It’s very difficult to be original (there are only so many ideas to be had…
Apr 30 2015
And She Was
My reading this week included the delicious and very Gothic verse novel And She Was, by Sarah Corbett.
One of the things I’m really grateful to my MA for introducing me to is poetry, in its many…
Apr 24 2015
Progress with my Novel-in-Progress
I’m on a drive to finish the first draft of Iteration, and racking up the word-count at 2,000 words a day. This is weekdays only, because on weekends it’s a mum-and-dad taxi-time to street-dance, rugby, and whatever other…
Apr 14 2015
Reviews: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
It's a fact that most people who read/listen to a novel won't leave a review.
If they decide to go ahead and write one (for Amazon, Goodreads or so on), it can vary vastly between a couple of sentences, a…