It’s April’s Fools day and I may have been foolish in my decision to enter into a blogging challenge for a whole month. It’s day one and letter A. What have I chosen for the first post on my theme of inspiration? As a writer my biggest source of inspiration comes from what’s gone before […]
In a blink of an eye it happened. I signed up for the A-Z Blogging Challenge. 26 letters of the alphabet spread over the month of April. Why the heck am I doing this – I’ve enough on my plate as it is and blah blah…. excuses, good and bad pop into my mind. However, […]
This week the oven broke, which meant buying a new one at short notice because I like to bake and the kids whine if the roast isn’t there on their plates on Sunday. Then, we found a hole in the outer glazing of our conservatory roof. I spied it when chasing away the cobwebs. Still, […]
Just set up a Twitter account. No followers, not following anyone. This is probably due to the fact I’ve no idea what to do with Twitter. I’m not especially good at turning my life’s events into bite sizes. My first tweet could reflect what I’m doing like — typing blog post while eating lunch. Or […]
I’m a impulsive cleaner. When it comes to housework, I’m not one for setting aside a time to do it. Instead, it leaps out at me at an inconvenient moment. I might be in the middle of making a cup of tea when I spy a child’s fingerprints on the wall. I wipe it off […]
How to construct a ghost story. I’m thinking not so much a haunted house, though it’s always fun to have clues in the building, but simply a ghost. Ghosts are often tied to places. You don’t hear of the story where a ghost up sticks and moves house because they’re in need of a better […]
In a quiet moment, thoughts flitted through my mind and I’d been thinking about saying sorry, showing remorse for our harshest actions. It brought to mind a quote from the 1970 film Love Story – ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry.’ When I first saw this movie many moons ago that line gave […]
Sometimes the dialogue I write is in the form of emails or text messages. Obviously, it’s probably down to the publisher on how they handle the formatting, but when writing, do you bother with the subject, the names, the dates? I don’t. For one reason, I’ve no specific date in mind. Does it have to […]
Around about the time I turned eleven I started to read adult literature. Amongst my early reads were two great crime writers, who’d written about very different characters – Arthur Conan Doyle and Ed McBain. I was, still am, a huge Sherlock Holmes fan. I lapped up the short stories, book after book. The four […]
Dorothy Dunnett was one of those authors who researched at great length. I’m justifying my approach by emulating her style – that’s what I tell myself. She was the historical author who took fact and interwove fiction amongst real events and characters. The fictional hero, Francis Crawford of Lymond, had a delicious mix of improbable […]
The Quiet Writer 