Remembering how my novels began their life is always a problem. With Incident on the Line I wrote a paragraph, without knowing where it was going, likening life to a concertina, each event as the pleat of the bellows. Those particular events that are marked in your memory. At the same time I wanted to explore opening […]
Where did this come from? Did I see a couple, man and wife, sitting upright side by side, stiff Lego models in their camper van? I don’t remember, though the image, real or imagined, is where it started. Who were they and are they both happy? I thought not. What I do recall is sitting on the […]
This began with a newspaper cutting given to me by one of my writing friends, Henrietta Branford. It was the true story of a woman who had lived outside in her garden for years, shielded by umbrellas. It seemed that she died of old age rather than hyperthermia; no one knew why she had take […]
‘I wasn’t the first man to put a pillow over a woman’s face, even with love. … “I don’t want to live anymore, let me go!” That’s what I’d heard her say, my mother. When it was all over, I stood beneath the cherry tree, the blossom growing whiter as I watched, more glorious than […]
In a previous blog I discussed my view of literary fiction and its value. The fact is that I enjoy a novel which is more than plot, which makes me think and keep on thinking, which offers me language that sings. And I tend to avoid those classed as bestsellers! For this reason I always […]
A friend recently wrote an email questioning the purpose of blogging, who it served and whether to do so had any worth. Hum? Blog. A web log, I have just learned, was first introduced as an online journal in the late 1990s, thus the origin of the word ‘blog. Joe Bloggs, on the other hand, […]
A present from a friend last Christmas has provided a lot of fun and given me a great writing stimulus. Jan Carson, in 2015, wrote a short, short story each day on the back of a postcard and sent it to a friend. Postcard stories by Jan Carson Each story is a tiny gem of observation. They might be […]
This has to end! This idleness and guilt. What would Virginia say? Maybe this situation has prevented me visiting an exhibition of her work. I cannot face her disapprobation. You see it comes down to this. I have all the time in world so I watch the birds. Endlessly busy flitting from feeder to feeder, […]
In a discussion I heard recently – I believe on Radio 4 – an author was asked which writers influenced them and by whom they measured their own work. The response was, yes, that there are those ‘go-to’ authors to whose writing they aspire. That is not to say copy, for, as was said at […]
A romance is the genre claimed for ‘Mothering Sunday’ by Graham Swift, a novel which I’m reading for the third time prior to discussing at http://thespring.co.uk Book Group this month. Yes, it is a marvellous story of love but never borders on the sickly sweet, happy ending which I’ve always associated with that genre. I’ve avoided […]
Literary fiction has been in the news; concern that since the recession it has been particularly badly affected. There are also fears that things could get worse in the post-Brexit world. It is easy to see from the best seller lists that populist, genre fiction, is doing well, particularly promoted on Amazon with sales of […]
There is one prize that I don’t want to win – awarded each year for the worst sex scene in any novel. Mills and Boon for sticky romance, El James series starting with Fifty Shades of Grey which verge on porn, are to be avoided at all costs. Yet we all know how hard it […]
How many times have I done this? Left my characters high and dry. Total neglect. Two whole months we have been apart. I’ve thought of them when driving, that open space when the brain is intent on only one thing, the mechanics of getting from A to B. Then, I have made contact, remembered where […]
Val McDermid spoke these words when interviewing a fellow author on BBC 4 Front Row recently; ‘That’s what we authors do,’ she said, ‘plunder our own lives.’ And I was thrilled to hear her say this. For that is exactly what I do. Initially I was surprised as her novels are psychological thrillers, always featuring […]