On the train during my Harrogate residency
Amtrak have taken inspiration from the idea Sam Eades and I hatched for writers’ residencies on trains!
As a past Writer in Residence on East Coast Rail, I did a piece yesterday for the BBC World Service on the whole business.
There’s also a really interesting piece by Alison Flood about it on the Guardian Books Blog.
My three 1980 notebooks
I am a great fan of notebooks. I have always kept what I call an Everything Book: just one journal that I carry everywhere with me in which I put everything: notes taken at meetings; ideas for stories; word or line sketches of things that take my fancy; eavesdroppings; doodles (rather too many doodles, if truth be told).
Why an Everything Book? Well, I am an alphabetiser, an organiser, a categoriser. By recording everything in just one place, I save a lot of energy that would otherwise be wasted by deciding where to put it.… read more
Have a peaceful and restful time. Or, if you’re like me, spend the entire holiday period cooking, clearing up and failing to delegate. It’s all fun, either way.
This week I’m based in Harrogate and journeying between Ripon and Leeds on the glamorous, leather-seated number 36 bus, stopping off at the many wonderful places in between and talking to the people who live and work there and who ride and drive the bus, which runs every fifteen minutes along the route. I’m finding it a bit harder to keep the pen steady than when I was writer in residence on a train, but it’s just as inspiring…
So far I’ve had the honour of being shown round Ripon by the mayor.… read more
(This post expands on a NaNoWriMo pep talk I wrote a couple of years back).
Are you at the end of the first week of NaNoWriMo 2013? If so, congratulations!
If you are (and even if you’re not), it’s likely that you will be very familiar with this scary thought:
When you start to create something, YOU ARE FACED WITH INFINITE POSSIBILITIES.
You may sense the germ of an idea, a character, a colour, a bit of story or a setting, but beyond that, once you sit down to start whatever it is you’re making, anything can happen; you’re simply finding the best path through the whole universe of choice.… read more
So when Agent Simon sent my manuscript out into the world of publishing, he told me that I had written a piece of Crime Fiction.
Crime Fiction? I said, mildly appalled.
Not having had any dealings with publishing before, I thought to be classified as a writer of genre fiction was somewhat demeaning. This is an example of the ignorant state I was in. Of course, like many first-time writers I had thought I had written a literary novel, the best I could possibly write, potentially the next Booker Prize winner.… read more
What a first reader looks like
When the first proof copies of Cuckoo were distributed, I likened the feeling to taking my knickers off in public.**
But I have found something in this writing process far more challenging even than that, and two weeks ago, on holiday on France, I had to go through it again.
The most difficult part is the very first read.
Well, not the very first read – I do that myself, obviously (and god knows, that’s hard enough).… read more
Oh dear, this writer’s blog has been a bit of a builder’s house for the past couple of months.
Well, it isn’t because I have been idle. Quite the reverse. I’ve been busy finishing my fourth novel, the first of my new two-book deal with Headline and life, blog and all but essential functions have been put on hold since May.
It’s not healthy, in any way.
I’ve not gone for a run, barely walked, forgotten all about yoga.… read more
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Last week it was the launch party for TARNISHED, held at Brighton Waterstones. Despite the strange, heavy April snowstorm that kicked off at about the same time as the launch, it was a great night. Loads of people turned up and enjoyed wine generously supplied by my publishers Headline, and amazing mozzarella, parmesan, parma ham and various salume provided, as ever, by my sis-in-law’s company the Ham & Cheese Co.
A book launch is a marvellous thing for the author.… read more
I am completely delighted to let you know that Tarnished is book of the month at You’re Booked – the online community for crime readers and writers over at the Harrogate International Festivals Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival site.
Not only that, but they are running a competition to win a signed copy.
It’s not a piece of cake, though. You have to answer a devilishly difficult question…
