No Time Like the Present

It’s been a while since I last wrote a blog; actually 3 long months. Life can throw you curve balls, and I recently had one thrown at me.  A bout of pneumonia saw me rushed to Exeter’s A&E, then onto Plymouth for surgery on my lungs. Recovery was going well until I picked up a secondary infection. Looking back I am in awe of the NHS. Plymouth were unable to help so contacted London’s Brompton hospital, who drove down to collect me and take me back to the capital. Being sedated in ICU I have no memory of the Brompton, only waking up back on home turf at the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital.

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York Literature Festival

Last week was wonderfully busy, taking the long drive from Exeter to York for this year’s York Literature Festival. It was a fabulous opportunity to take part in a Sci-fi/Fantasy event hosted by the lovely folks of Stairwell Books, joining up with fellow authors for a panel of questions and readings from our array of worlds.

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Representation in Fiction

Writing a book is one thing. Marketing a book is quite another. In talking about Return of the Mantra I often reflect on the process of its creation: what inspired me, what the essence of the story is… It’s harder than it sounds. How to sum up the pages into a brief description? Anyone who writes will understand the pains of reducing a story into a one page synopsis, and then a paragraph long blurb. Even now, when people ask what my book is about, I struggle to find those one or two lines to do justice to the story I spent years nurturing into creation.

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Cause and Effect

A girl was walking the streets of Exeter dressed as a bee, carrying a placard with the simple message, ‘Tick Tock, Tick Tock’. She was one of hundreds of children and young people, striking from school, marching to the County Hall to deliver their impassioned message: it’s time to declare a climate emergency NOW!

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Ask the Author

I remember the days of tape recorders and cassettes, the horrifying sound of the tape being chewed, and the delicate task of winding it back with a pen. And the excitement of opening a gifted multipack of blank tapes, deciding and sorting an order to record. Gran still called the radio a wireless, and TVs sported three whole channels that could time out, leaving you with trade test transmissions.

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Happy New Year – 2019!

As evening approaches, I imagine people discussing their resolutions for the New Year. I’m not one for resolutions. Instead I try to stick to the simple motto: keep trying to do better. In life as in writing, with practice, hopefully we improve.

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