No Good Deed

It doesn't matter if it a haiku poem or an epic saga, whether it's your first short story or your tenth novel, that frisson of excitement on receiving an acceptance, never disappears.

Continue reading
0 Comments

Freelance Fun

Somehow, it’s now ten years since I left my ‘proper’ (permanent and pensionable) job to become a freelance writer, editor and tutor in all things writing.

Continue reading
0 Comments

A Life of Crime (Writing)

From Killer Women to Bloody Scotland, September has seen me pitch – literally – into a flurry of crime…I’ve been grilled by a panel, defended myself in public, put my statement down on paper, and got my mugshot up there with the best of them. The confession? Of course, I’m talking about the writing of crime, not actually perpetrating it. And even then, ‘crime’ might be stretching it a bit, I’m probably sheltering more under the broad label of psychological thriller. I’ve always loved crime novels, from classic Agatha Christie to contemporary cosies from Lynn Cahoon, and all the local (Scotland) writers in between. The same goes for psychological suspense. But had I ever seen myself writing either? No, not really. The whole genre has always been a mystery (no pun intended) to me. How does an author do it? Painstaking planning and water-tight plotting; clues, red herrings and hints; authentic...
Continue reading
0 Comments

Telling It Like The Telly

I found television over the summer. It’s not that we don’t have one at home, we do, but it’s inherited, from The Old Days, and the size of a postage stamp. Squinting through each section of my multi-focal glasses isn’t really worth it (except for Masterchef Australia, the best programme ever).

Continue reading
0 Comments

The Invisible Women

Most of the time I’m not only content to be invisible, I actively seek out invisibility. It’s one of my markers of being a good editor – there should be no evidence of me in an author’s work, my role is in the wings: prompter and advisor.

Continue reading
1 Comment

Blog Archive

Popular Blog Posts

30 April 2019
29 August 2019
30 November 2016

Tag Cloud

No tags has been created yet.