novel

  • Don’t talk, write…

    Hello, me again. I haven’t been blogging much recently. Not at all, really. I have all sorts of boring excuses reasons but here we are so let’s just forget about my absence and get to work. I’d like to say that all the time I haven’t been blogging I’ve been writing The Novel. But I…

  • A Dark and Stormy Night: The Weather In Fiction

    I’m typing this in my armchair, looking out at the snow – it’s a blizzard out there! – and listening to a classical music playlist I have on Spotify. It’s my go-to music for almost everything I write that isn’t novel specific. It also seems apt for the winter weather outside – it lends the…

  • Five Facts About Aurelia Miele

    Many thanks to Angela Barton who passed the “five facts” baton to me. What’s this? Well, writers are sharing five facts about a character from their work in progress. These aren’t necessarily facts you’d learn from the book but may form part of the back story which, as the creators, only the authors know about.…

  • Stabby Words and Cutting Remarks

    Last week Gary Parkin wrote a very good blog post about word lists and why it’s a good idea to use one when you are writing. You can read what he had to say about it here. Basically, Gary makes the point that it can be useful to have a small lexicon of era/genre/character specific…

  • The Quick by Lauren Owen

    I love a book which conjures me away to a different time, a different life and The quick, the debut novel by Lauren Owen certainly ticks those boxes. Brother and sister James and Charlotte live in Yorkshire where, in the absence of parents (a dead mother and disinterested father), they are looked after by household…

  • NaNoWriMo #1

    I haven’t written much for a while. There are all sorts of boring reasons with which I shan’t bore you, but ‘ma heid’s been like a stair heid’. It’s better if I don’t translate from the Weegie. Anyway, I’m hoping to change all that come November when I take part in this year’s NaNoWriMo. In…