In preparation for an upcoming episode of The Joined Up Writing Podcast, an interview with author, Merle Nygate, I read Merle’s espionage novel, ‘The Righteous Spy’. I enjoyed it for a number of reasons and what better way to end the year than by sharing a positive review and suggesting another novel to add to…
Tag: novel writing
How to know when an idea is ‘THE IDEA’
As writers and creatives, the problem is rarely ‘I have no ideas’. It’s usually quite the opposite and we get inundated with the damn things. So how do we know which one is ‘THE IDEA’, the one that has the legs, the depth and the originality to be worthy of our valuable time? It’s a…
When Writing Gets You Down, REWRITE YOUR ATTITUDE
Today I’m talking about my recent struggle with self-doubt and what you should do when Writing gets you down. It’s been a while since we spoke, hasn’t it? Here we are sprinting toward the end of September and a quick check tells me that my last post was in December (an evergreen post that you…
How To Keep Writing Over Christmas
This weekly series of posts follows my writing journey as I prepare to independently release by debut novel, Safe Hands – a Crime story about an aging safe cracker called out of retirement for the sake of his dying wife and a son that hates his guts. It’s set for release in June 2018 and…
Novel Writing – Research: How much & when to do it …
Weekly posts on Novel Writing with updates on the progress of my debut crime novel, Safe Hands, about an ageing safe cracker forced out of retirement for the sake of his dying wife and a son that hates his guts. This week I’m talking about Research – how much to do and when to do…
Novel Writing – Editing and The Ripple Effect
Another of my weekly updates on the progress of my debut crime novel, Safe Hands, about an ageing safe cracker forced out of retirement for the sake of his dying wife and a son that hates his guts. Last week was all about getting my productivity back on track but the theme for this week…
Novel Writing – Fail to plan . . .
Last week I talked about the work I’ve begun on redrafting the beginning of my novel, ‘Safe Hands’ – focusing specifically on my opening chapter and prologue. This week, the ‘plan’ was to complete the structural work on the novel – by discarding the current end section and working out how and where to add…
Novel Writing – Opening Chapters and Prologues
This is the latest of my weekly updates on the redrafting of what will be my debut novel, ‘Safe Hands’. You can find the story so far in this previous post. This week was all about revising my opening chapter. Like many of you reading this, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about whether…
My Debut Novel, ‘Safe Hands’ – The Story So Far
I have mentioned my debut novel from time to time on this blog, but it’s been a while so in preparation for my upcoming weekly updates, I thought it might be an idea to bring you up to speed with what it is and where I am. “Cracking a safe doesn’t mean dynamite. No oxecetyline…
Parker and why we love an anti-hero
Richard Stark’s Parker novels offer the perfect anti-hero and inspired my own protagonist.