I’m still getting over the virus I had, and can only manage half a day on normal activities before I get tired. That’s OK. I have a safe war...

Get over to Authors for Japan – I am on there now and people are bidding.

I feel awkward about carrying on with my blog as if nothing had happened. It doesn’t seem appropriate, in view of the earthquake, tsunami an...

If you would like to donate money to help the people affected by the earthquake and tsunami, you can do so through the Red Cross . If you ar...

Yesterday was a day of high adrenalin, and if I hadn’t been laid low with a bug I might have exploded. Two things happened. The first thin...

I’ve been waiting excitedly for the hard copy of my book cover to arrive from San Francisco. I’ve seen it on screen, but I was dying to see ...

When I started writing novels I read a book called The Weekend Novelist by Robert Ray. I found it useful as a guide to plotting, and also f...

Do you recall how happy I was when  my village shop sourced me a dozen packets of pork scratchings? For those of you who don’t follow me ...

Ooh, publishing has started to get exciting again. Isaac has finished the cover layout and it’s all ready to go to the printers. His good fr...

I have tried. I have tweeted. I have tweeted 39 times in three weeks. And some of them were OK: - a bad idea to have a sofa in my st...

(Hmm, the title of this post reminds me of the original title of Plotting for Beginners, which was   Red clover, rural chic and fairy ligh...

I like to make the dialogue in my books distinctive and interesting, so I’m a keen listener to what people say AND the way that I say it. I ...

Sometimes people give such great service, you want to shout about it, and today I am going to do just that. 1/ Thanks to my village shop –...

I just got back from a great weekend in Paris with my big sister, Kath. The main purpose of this briefest of brief trips was to see ...

Did you know that for litho-printed books, the number of pages in the book has to be divisible by 16? This means that if your book pages tot...

Don’t tell me that astrology doesn’t work. Yesterday I had Mars (energy/conflict)  opposition (in difficult aspect to)  Mercury (communicat...

One of the good things about this self publishing lark is how much you learn in the process. Did you know that you have to purchase ISBNs ...

After a hiatus while I’ve been ill, things are getting exciting again on the publishing front. Several weeks ago my sister Jen went throug...

I’ve done it. I’ve done that thing that I said I wouldn’t . I have tweeted. Why has it taken me so long when my son Isaac works for Twitter...

I went to see Rabbit Hole last night at the Sheffield Showroom. The film was about a couple grieving after the accidental death of their 4 ...

A family member who declines to be named has lent me the entire box set of Frasier and I am working my way through them in a post-virus haz...

I’m sorry for the lack of posts at the moment. I am still feeling awful after that virus. Last week the virus was a bit like that one in Gar...

Every day last week a friend or a family member phoned to tell me that Jon Snow – anchorman of Channel 4 News – was going to be on Desert ...

Look away now if you are not interested in the niceties of editing and the pedantic predilections of writers.. My good friend Chrissie ha...

The snowdrops are not out in my garden yet, but I did take the picture I’ve used for my February header in February. It was five years ago. ...