Blog
Steps forward, steps backward
I write this on the day I heard the sad news that Ursula K Le Guin has died and, once again, I think of journeys. She told us it’s ‘the journey that matters, in the end’ (The Left hand of Darkness 1969) and I’ve reflected on that many times over the years. When I was […]
The skating minister: how I found a protagonist
This is the story of a protagonist and how he found his way into my imagination. In late 2014, I had the bare bones of a new book, the themes and basic structure. I had the main characters too, but I still knew very little about them. I was really challenging myself when I suddenly […]
Research for writing 2: THE TEXTURE OF LIVED EXPERIENCE
The writing has been going slowly during the last couple of weeks, not because I’ve been slacking but because I’ve been researching more than usual as I write. It’s a reminder that research, for a writer, is so much more than checking names and dates and background events when drafting the plot. I’ve been reading […]