Category: General Blog

This week has been draining on social batteries and anyone who knows me well is aware that mine run flat frequently and fast. Anyone who delights in the solitary room, the blank computer screen with only imagination, a few scattered notes and a cup of coffee for company will appreciate this viewpoint! That’s not to...

Shakespeare, when writing this line in the song at the end of Twelfth Night, was being prophetic. Very prophetic. Clearly, he was projecting ahead to the late winter days of a year in the 21st century when rain had become such a common occurrence that any span of 24 hours when it did not happen...

The phrase in the title is not of my invention. It’s the first line of a poem by the 20th century Russian poet, Yevtushenko whose poetry I discovered round about the age of 16 and have continued to love the handful that I know since then. People – or rather characters as clearly they are...

Celebrities seem to be ubiquitous these days. So much so, that I haven’t even heard of most of the names that people mention or know the reason for their apparent celebrity status. And it’s not just the pop and sports worlds that produce them either. Social media, the era of influencers and reality tv are...

Historic fiction is self-explanatory. Surely. It refers to novels about the ‘Old Days,’ as we used to call the past when I was a child. By which, of course, we meant the times when our grandparents were alive. When life was in black and white rather than colour. When people were ‘Old Fashioned.’ I think...

There has to be a psychological term for what authors suffer from. All those months that trail into years of writing a novel, re-writing, editing, altering, changing – and finally the finished article, the published bound edition is to hand. And, unpacking that first box of books, sifting the copies from their layers of protective...

And yes, it really is 40 years ago. For anyone of at least 55 or so, that’s quite a startling thought. For whilst it may not feel quite like yesterday, memories are surely so sharp and acute for the era of the 1980s. For it really was a turning point in so many ways. Which...

And here it is again, our Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness. Our time of sodden paths and leaf-strewn parks and a determined putting away of the flip flops and sliders and a seeking out of boots that need heeling and a glove that has apparently lost its partner over the summer. And we embrace...

My fourth novel, The Odyssey of Lily Page, began life in 2020 immediately after I had finished Miller Street SW22, ahead of its publication in early 2021. Yes, I write slowly. The rest of living, getting, spending etc so often get in the way and even after the last sentence is finished, numerous re-writes, edits,...

At what age are we when we start wondering, What if …? At which particular stage of life have we reached when we begin to consider, in a musing, abstruse kind of way, Supposing I had taken that job. Or supposing I’d accepted that invitation to that particular party Or supposing I’d not noticed that...