Category: Articles

Article: Introducing Jean Gill

23/10/2018

MY New 'Partner in Crime'

I would like to tell you a little more about my new writing partner, award-winning author, Jean Gill. We’ve been great friends for over eight years and although our new joint venture, Life After Men, is more cosy chicklit than hard-boiled police procederal, Jean is still, very much, my new partner in crime. The reality of this situation was vividly brought home to me two years ago when we crashed my car in Northumberland. We are Thelma and Louise without the cliff edge - and shouldn't be allowed out on road trips together. But hopefully, on the literary front, we can still rustle up a decent cliff hanger, or two, between us.

A professional photographer as well as a writer, Jean lives in the south of France with her husband, two scruffy dogs, a Nikon D750 and a beehive. She is the mother or stepmother to five grown-up children. Jean taught English for many years and was the first woman to become a secondary school Head Teacher in the Welsh county of Carmarthenshire. With Scottish parents, an English birthplace and French residence she can usually support the winning team on any sporting occasion.

Jean’s literary career has been as varied and eclectic as her life. Alongside dog training, photography and translations, she’s published all kinds of books, both with conventional publishers and by herself under her own imprint, The 13th Sign. If you take a trip to her Amazon page here, you’ll find everything from prize-winning poetry, novels and military history, to a cookery book on goats' cheese.

My own particular favourites though are her historical fiction novels, the Troubadour’s Quartet. Set in the period following the Second Crusade, these spellbinding romantic thrillers evoke medieval France with breathtaking accuracy. The characters leap off the page and include amazing women like Eleanor of Aquitaine and Ermengarda of Narbonne, who shaped history in battles and in bedchambers. Jean captures the soul of the age and the characters who lived in it.

But delve into any of Jean’s books and, whatever the genre, you’ll soon discover the thrilling power of her writing and understand why I joined forces with such a talented and professional author. Happy reading.

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Article: The Story Behind 'Life After Men'

3/10/2018

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Why I've moved into Cosy Chicklit

(The Story Behind Life After Men)

I love Stephen Lavender, Ned Woods and my mystery writing. Those guys have kept me warm and entertained throughout some of the darkest days of my life. Creating exciting new mysteries for them to solve for them has been the highlight of my last six winters. The thought that I will have Stephen Lavender’s company is often the only thing that gets me through a cold British January. I still have several untold criminal investigations rumbling around in my imagination and I don’t ever foresee a time when I will abandon my intrepid crime-fighting duo.

However, a little part of me has always wondered if I could write something else, something modern. But that’s a scary thought for a woman whose head is permanently stuck in the Regency period. Was I ready for such a challenge? And if I did leap forward two hundred years into the twenty-first century, what the devil would I write about? I know nothing about modern policing and there’s an awful lot of people out there writing better contemporary crime fiction than I could ever create.

Jean Gill

‘Write about what you know’, people say. Really? Do folks really want to read about the life experiences of a fifty-plus widow from northern England? I remained unconvinced. But then my good friend, and fellow co-author, Jean Gill, persuaded me otherwise.

I first met Jean Gill on the (now defunct) online writers’ website, Authonomy about eight years ago. We made friends with a few other girls and eventually formed our own very supportive little private writers' group. We call ourselves the Historical Fictionaires because, amongst other genres, we have all written historical fiction. We chat every day via FB messenger and are sometimes hysterical rather than historical.

The girls and I have holidayed in Provence, Northumberland and the Canary Islands and we’ve attended a number of literary conferences together. Jean and I also famously crashed my car in Alnmouth. If friendship can survive that, it can survive pretty much anything – even co-writing fiction.

At the HNS Conference with Jean Gill & Jane Harlond

The idea for The Silver Sex Kittens Series came about during an excellent meal in a pub in Northumberland. While lubricating our creative brain cells with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, we bemoaned the lack of novels starring women of our own age having fun without a man in tow. It appeared to us that most single, middle-aged female characters were portrayed as either eccentric or miserable and were only happy when a new romance blossomed.

‘But I know many successful and fulfilled, single women aged over fifty, who do remarkable things and lead fun-filled lives,’ Jean said.

‘Me too,’ I agreed. ‘Everyone seems to be giving it a go these days. Even their disasters are impressive.’

We decided that the world needed some cosy chick-lit featuring some of these remarkable women and the characters of Carys, Moira and the rest of the girls were born. We finally found time to start work on our first warm-hearted comedy this spring. In our hands, these stories would never be anything but comic; we just don’t take life seriously enough to get heavy.

Life After Men is the result of that collaboration. A second short story, Moira's Highland Fling, is planned for 2019 – and all five of the Silver Sex Kittens will eventually reveal their full potential as the series continues.

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ARTICLE: WRITERLY FRIENDS

29/4/2018

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"Birds of a feather Flock together"

We’re all familiar with the stereotypical image of the lonely and isolated author scribbling away in a cold garret – but after five years as a full-time author, I know that nothing is further from the truth. Writers rarely work successfully in a vacuum. They need other writers – and actively seek them out.

The scaffolding behind a literary work can appear baffling to the non-writer. Authors need each other for support, inspiration and sometimes for collaboration. Only our fellow scribblers truly understand our obsession with plot holes, narrative structure and character development. Writers need to be able to put aside their fear of competition and intellectual theft and reach out to their peers. They need to find the confidence to ask each other for help and find the time and energy to offer mutual support. It’s a foolhardy and ego-centric writer who believes they can create a masterpiece in complete isolation, negotiate the complex world of publishing alone – and retain their sanity.

Oliver Goldsmith with James Boswell and Samuel Johnson

From Shakespeare to the Bloomsbury group, the history of literature is full of strong and supportive friendships between writers. When Shakespeare's first folio was published, his friend and fellow playwright, Ben Jonson , wrote a glowing introduction to the manuscript. In the eighteenth century, James Boswell, Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith were great friends and the first two toured Scotland together. A few years later, Lord Byron and the Shelleys were travelling through Europe together when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Meanwhile, Wordsworth and Coleridge were inspiring each other’s poetry and co-wrote The Lyrical Ballads.

In the mid 19th century, Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell exchanged candid views on literature and publishing and shared artistic and professional concerns. Charlotte also acted as a sounding board for her friend’s literary ideas. Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens were friends for over twenty years and collaborated on short stories.

With friends and fellow- authors at The Theakstones' Crime Festival, Harrogate.

Modern writers flock to literary festivals and conferences like migrating birds. Happy to be released from the solitary confinement of their gilded writing cages, they chatter like starlings while they gather information about rogue publishers; audio-book narrators and the latest developments in successful self-publishing. They share their marketing concerns and their fears about the dreaded mid-list. Virtual friendships are consolidated and promises of future collaboration are made. It’s impossible to shut up an excited group of authors who’ve escaped from the office for a day or two. My jaw often aches when I return from the Harrogate Crime Festival.

At the moment, three of my best writing buddies are reading the manuscript of my seventh book. A fourth friend, who owns a horse, has already looked over every scene where my police officers are on horseback. The girls will come back to me with an honest evaluation of the novel’s strengths and weaknesses before I submit it to my publishers for official editing. I’ve sold over 350,000 copies of my books in the last five years but still feel I need their validation. These girls are all successful Historical and Crime Fiction writers in their own right and they are my rocks. I couldn’t have done any of it without their support. And this relationship works both ways; I’m always happy to take time out from my own writing to help them.

With two of my best writing buddies, Jane Harlond and Jean Gill at the Oxford Historical Novelists' Society conference

But how can an aspiring author build up a network of like-minded professional authors? Where do you start making writerly friends? After all, Ian Rankin, Lisa Hall and J.K. Rowling won’t become your best buddies just because you drop them an email and ask them to befriend you. That approach is more likely to get you arrested for stalking.

Most unpublished, aspiring authors start off with the local writing group for peer support. It can be a beneficial experience and many writers make life-long friends through these groups but it can also have drawbacks. It depends on the group. The other writers there might not understand or appreciate your genre – and you might not like theirs. My local group leader wrote erotica and another member wrote gruesome crime novels, full of horrific murder and graphic rape scenes. While I appreciated the constructive criticism they gave me, I squirmed with discomfort when it was time to listen to their latest chapters.

A far better approach is to join an online writing group and pick and choose what you want to do and whom you want to know. I met three of my best writing friends through the now-defunct online writers’ community, Authonomy. We exchanged many emails then arranged to meet up face-to-face and became good personal friends who holiday together. They’d just started out like me and our careers have grown together. Most online writing groups also offer a critique section, and although it’s time-consuming to read and critique other people’s work, the payback is huge if you get involved. I feel I learned more about the writers’ craft from the other members of Authonomy than I would ever have learned from a master’s degree in Creative Writing. Thanks to the advice I received, I adjusted the opening chapters of my debut novel and found my first publisher.

With friend and fellow author, Kristin Gleeson, on a 'working holiday' in Gran Canaria.

Most new authors join some of the associations set up to promote their genre. I’m a member of both the Historical Novel Society and the Crime Writers’ Association. There are also more generic societies out there who provide legal and business advice like The Society of Authors. Most of these organisations have a members’ area on their websites and related Facebook pages where you can chat about your work with like-minded souls.

The fellow authors in your first publishing house are another great source of writerly friends. Some publishers actively encourage their authors to get to know each other and set up a community forum where they can share news of promotions and ask each other for help. Unfortunately, my own first publisher was a paranoid crook who discouraged any form of communication between her authors in case we found out the truth about her operation. Desperately worried that I’d made a huge mistake, I contacted several of them anyway. They felt exactly the same as me and we formed a tight-knit group which helped us to deal with her and our disappointment. Eventually, we worked together to get her to release us from our contracts and return the publishing rights of our novels. We’ve remained good friends ever since – and she’s gone out of business.

My miserable first experience of the publishing world highlights another reason why writers can’t survive in isolation. Publishing is one of the most corrupt businesses on the planet. There’s plenty of sharks out there who prey on the naïvety and desperation of aspiring authors. There’s safety in numbers and genuine consolation available if your publisher folds and disappears into the ether with your royalties. Most authors have had at least one bad experience like this.

But, on a more positive note, when all your scribbling works out and your precious stories start to sell, writing for a living is still the best, most rewarding job in the world. Writers really do live the dream.

Provided, that is, you’ve got some mates by your side.

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Article: The Real Stephen Lavender

13/1/2017

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THE REAL STEPHEN LAVENDER

(TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION)

Thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web, there is always a risk when you use real-life characters from history in your fiction that someone, or something, will pop up out of the ether and surprise you.
Real-life people, like my Detective Stephen Lavender, have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And I knew that if Lavender's descendants ever decided to research their ancestor on the Internet, the chances of them stumbling across my novels was high. This thought actually made me a little nervous because although I’ve used Lavender’s name and two of his real cases in my novels, I knew hardly anything at all about the man himself. I used a lot of artistic license and imagination to flesh out the details of his personality and family life.
I focused on information I gleaned from reference books and contemporary newspaper articles about his work as a Principal Officer with Bow Street Police Office and just made up the rest. I didn’t even know how old the real Stephen Lavender was when he went up to Northumberland to solve the mystery of the stolen rent money from Kirkley Hall in Ponteland. And when I introduced this hired private detective to my readers in Catching the Eagle I made him a mature thirty-year-old man.

Kirkley Hall, Ponteland, Northumberland

I’d often wondered if any of Lavender’s descendants were still living and if so, what they would make of my fictional representation of their ancestor? Would they like him and approve of the bookish, educated and slightly-introverted character I’d created? Or would I be facing a court case for defamation of character? As a cheeky, writer friend once pointed out, “the phrase ‘loosely based-upon’ can be very useful in times like these, Karen.”
I finally got my answer in December 2016 when I was contacted by several of Stephen Lavender’s descendants. Thankfully, the first message that landed in my inbox from Australian, Richard Kinch, began with the words:
'Thank you for making my ancestor famous!’
Richard’s delight with novels about his ancestor clearly out-weighed any concerns he had about historical inaccuracies.
The contact from Richard was quickly followed by more messages from other Lavender relatives including Lesley Morgan, another Aussie descendant. In fact, it turns out that Australia is teeming with Stephen Lavender’s relatives. He had nine children. Two of his sons, and one daughter, emigrated to Australia in the 1850s. There are Facebook pages and online groups all over the southern hemisphere dedicated to connecting the Lavender relatives and exploring their genealogy.
Lesley, in particular, was incredibly helpful and informative. She told me about the real-life background to my character and explained the family history to me. She also put me in touch with a British relative, Alister Palmer, who lives in Bristol. We exchanged many emails and a fascinating picture of the real man began to emerge.
I already knew from my research, that several other members of Stephen Lavender’s family worked for Bow Street Police Office in the early nineteenth century but I didn't know that his father, Edward, was a clerk there. In my novels I've given him a father called John and a Church of England vicar for a maternal grandfather. Also in my fictional character's background is a Grammar School education and an unhappy year spent at Cambridge University studying law. From Lesley I learnt that after starting an apprenticeship in 1803 with the horse patrol, Stephen was created a Principal Officer in 1807.

Bow Street Magisgrates' Court & Police Office

But the biggest surprise was that the real Lavender wasn’t born until 1789. This means that he became a Principal Officer at the tender age of eighteen and was barely twenty when he was sent up to Northumberland to solve the mystery of the Kirkley Hall robbery. I know his investigation in this instance was meticulous and thorough – I’ve seen the court case documents at The National Archives in London – so he must have been a real child prodigy in the Regency world of policing. I wonder what thirty-seven-year-old Jamie Charlton, whom Lavender accused of the Kirkley Hall robbery, made of the situation when he was arrested and charged by a young man who was barely shaving?
I’ve always known that the London newspapers adored Stephen Lavender and zealously – and sometimes inaccurately – reported his cases and forays into the seedy underbelly of the crime-ridden capital. In 1818, Lavender solved the mystery of the vicious attack on an elderly man, William Sculthorpe in Northamptonshire (the basis for my novel, ‘The Sculthorpe Murder’) and this case was extensive reported by the London press. I wonder if his fresh-faced youth helped to make him so popular with the newspapers of the time?
Lavender, and his young family, left Bow Street in 1821 when he took up the position of Deputy Chief Constable in the industrial northern city of Manchester. Sadly, he died there in June 1833 at the relatively young age of forty-four. I’ve found his obituary written in over thirty British newspapers. He really was a celebrity in nineteenth century England.
So, what happens now? I hear my readers ask. Will you chop a decade off Lavender’s age, remove his fictional education and his gorgeous and exotic Spanish wife in order to bring the fictional character back into line with the real man?
No. I intend to carry on as before, ‘loosely basing’ my detective on the life of the real man and occasionally dipping into the archives to find more of Stephen Lavender’s cases to flesh out into an intricate plot. I hope to continue to share information with Lesley Morgan and Alister Palmer for the benefit of all of us who are interested in this fascinating man.
And anyway, I’m not sure that my mystery-reading public is ready for a detective barely out of his teens.

In this instance alone, the truth is definitely stranger than fiction.

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Article: Thoughts about book covers

23/10/2016

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'PLAGUE PITS & RIVER BONES':
BOOK COVER MUSINGS...

One of the most enjoyable things about writing a novel is playing with ideas for the book cover. Usually, by the time I'm half-way through a manuscript (which is where I am at the moment) I've some idea about what I would like on the front cover of the finished book. For me, it's always about the location of the story.
My publishers don't ask me for ideas until I've handed over the manuscript. The book cover design usually runs concurrently with the editing. APub use a very talented designer, called Lisa Horton, for my novels and I love everyone of them. Lisa rose to my challenge and created a fictional Northumbrian pele tower for 'Heiress' but I was more helpful with 'The Sans Pareil Mystery' and gave her pictures, pulled from the Internet, of the original Sans Pareil Theatre. Last year, I walked along the Market Harborough canal tow path and took photos of all the old bridges to help her with the design of the book cover for 'The Sculthorpe Murder.'

The River Thames was always going to feature on the front of 'Plague Pits & River Bones' because it's the river mentioned in the title. Originally, I toyed with the idea of using the stretch at Greenwich with the Royal Naval Hospital in the background. However, I've now changed my mind and decided that the old Westminster Bridge and the old Palace of Westminster will grace the cover of this new novel.
Both the bridge and the parliament buildings have been rebuilt since 1812, the year of this novel. Fortunately, there are plenty of paintings from the period to show us what it used to look like - many of them are painted by Canaletto. They're fascinating. I cannot get over how empty the banks of the Thames were two hundred years ago - and how wide the river seems to be without skyscrapers looming over it. Once upon a time, London was a city with a big sky.
Anyway, have a look at the inspirational paintings below and see what you think.

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Article & Book Review

29/3/2016

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Revisiting The Widowhood

I don’t often mention my late husband, Chris, or his untimely death from cancer. And I try very hard not to moan.

Three years ago, I mentioned it a lot. To anyone who would listen. In fact, I didn’t just mention it – I screamed my anguish from the rooftops. Many of my friends and family received late-night, alcohol-induced phone calls and emails in which I railed against the cruelty and injustice of his terminal diagnosis and my fear of a future without him. After he died, I sobbed on the shoulder of anyone who would hold me. In the street. In a café. Or in the pub.

So why the change? Why did I stop discussing Chris and showing my grief? Have I ‘got over it?’ Moved on? Or have I simply changed?

May 22nd, 1993

No, we don't get over the loss of our lovers and soul-mates – ever. We can move on, yes, but the loss changes us too and only those who have walked in our shoes can really empathise. Fortunately, very few people experience the untimely death of their relatively young spouse. This is great for the wider world in general but not so good for those young widows or widowers who are left rattling around in an empty and exclusive club that no-one wants to join and very few people really understand. As one of my closest friends pointed out, I was the first in our friendship group to bury their partner. Even my parents still have each other.

And the other devastating discovery made by youngish widows is that there is no handbook on the shelves of W.H. Smiths to tell you how to cope and survive your tragedy, the ensuing loneliness or the survivor’s guilt. Counsellors, family and friends do what they can to help, and are brilliant at dealing with practicalities, but ultimately you are on your own with your insomnia, the nightmares and the angst at 3 am in the morning. You have to work through it by yourself.

As the uniqueness of my isolated position dawned on me, I started to feel like a freak. A very damaged freak. I made a conscious effort to stop talking about Chris and my bereavement and to deal with my heartache in private. Whether this was a good or a psychologically damaging thing to do to myself, I have no idea. Only time will tell if the pressure will eventually erupt in some form of mental breakdown. But I also had my heart-broken, teenage children to consider and they didn’t need a wailing, sobbing mother parading her grief in public. They needed a calm role model to help them get through the loss of their amazing father.

With Chris, Beth and Ross on Beth's 18th Birthday

Besides which, I didn’t want to be defined by my widowhood even though I know I will always be one. There is far more to Karen Charlton than just a ‘grieving widow.’ With the love and help of close friends and family; a great counsellor; a bottle of pills and copious amounts of alcohol, I sought solace in writing my cosy mysteries and did the ‘moving on’ thing.

However, there have been many times when the isolation of my situation has led me to reach out to others in a similar situation. For a while I was a member of the ‘widdahud,’ an online forum for widows and I was a very needy member, too. I did get some support, for which I am eternally grateful, but I found myself unable to give it back. Chris’ death left me blank, numb and sometimes downright crass when faced with the misery and despair of strangers. Embarrassed by my own lack of empathy and uncomfortable with just being a ‘taker’ rather than a positive contributor to the discussion boards, I abandoned the forum.

In addition to this, the widows’ forum lacked humour. This seems a strange thing to write, I know, but occasional flashes of ghoulish humour and irony make an untenable situation slightly more bearable. Sometimes these tiny moments of light are the only things around to help drag ourselves through another miserable day; we would go mad without them. Death and grief are an ugly business and the very antithesis of romance. A flash of bizarre humour helps with the healing.

It was the humorous title that eventually attracted me to a self-help book for widows by the American author, Catherine Tidd. I had never read a true-life ‘misery memoir’ before and normally shunned the genre as depressing but I couldn’t resist The Confessions of a Mediocre Widow. It brilliantly summed up how I saw myself three years ago – and how I still see myself today. I am that Mediocre Widow. I enjoyed (is that the right word?) Catherine Tidd’s account of her husband’s sudden death and how she survived (again, is that the right word?) and stumbled through the aftermath. I especially appreciated the gentle humour that lifted the pages of this book and made the despair bearable.

And this week I discovered another gem in the same ilk: ‘Life After You’ by Lucie Brownlee. Lucie is a young widow from my own area of North East England. Her book was an Autumn Read for the Richard & Judy Book Club. And what a stunning book it is. It’s a must-read for anyone struggling to cope with the sudden or untimely death of someone they love. Her honesty, anger and humour took my breath away and kept me reading late into the night. It’s a warts-and-all account of the sudden death of her husband, Mark, yet somehow it ends with hope and never becomes ugly (as I fear my own memoir might become.) Her insight, bitterness and humour resonated strongly with me. I loved her powerful language and imagery. She doesn’t waste a word and portrays the full range of human emotion experienced by young widows in a way I can only envy.

Like me, Lucie is determined not to be defined by her widowhood and has branched out into mainstream fiction. I sincerely wish her the best and look forward to reading more from this very talented author.

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Article: 16 Things I would say to my younger self

19/3/2016

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'If I could turn back time...'

Aged 18, with my best friends, Lynn and Jackie

I have been musing today about what advice I would give to my younger self, should I ever have the opportunity to go back in time and meet me. Not that the teenage Karen James would ever have listened to any advice. But it was a fun exercise anyway.

Stay true to who you are. Don’t let anyone steal your sparkle. Recognise that there are those who will try to do this – and learn to avoid them.
Take that cigarette Joanne Parrish offers to you behind the bike shed when you are twelve. Yes, it will make you vomit but it is far better to be sick on your socks and put off from smoking when you are twelve than start the habit at sixteen and become a life-long nicotine addict.
Boys, lots of boys, will come and go. Stop obsessing over them; there’s far, far more to a happy life than men. You’ll be amazed.
Hesitate and think carefully before using the word ‘should.’ Steer clear of those who repeat it like a mantra.
Get on a bloody plane and do the travelling you always dreamed about.
Your may think your education will finish at twenty-one but you will never stop learning. Embrace the changes in technology as they arrive. This new-fangled thing called the Internet will make your fortune.
Please remember that you don’t lead a charmed life. Don’t use rope swings or climb onto the back of motorbikes when you are drunk.
Your love of reading is what makes you into you and is the foundation stone of your future career. Don’t let anyone stop you reading.
Put aside at least fifteen minutes every day to practise your writing – and don’t let rejection put you off. Scribble, scribble and scribble some more.
Never give up on your dreams. They can, and will, come true.
Enjoy being young, pretty and confident but remember that skinniness doesn’t last for long.
Your mistakes are good; you will learn from them. All 100,000 of them.
Parenthood is an exhausting slog – but it is the best, most rewarding thing you will ever do in your life. Seriously.
Friends will come and go, but that’s okay. You will still be making new friends in your fifties.
Money is good – not bad – and it should be horded. Save money instead of spending it. Avoid credit cards like the plague and remember that banks are NOT your friend.

Buy shares in a company called Google.

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Artical: Writing Habits

27/1/2016

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Spring Clean

The Inner Sanctum (after a good clean.)

Feeling very proud of myself today. I've just filed away all my 'Sculthorpe Murder' notebooks and tidied up my desk and office. It needed it. While I had my head immersed in the edits and rewrites of ‘The Sculthorpe Murder,’ my study started to resemble the bottom of a hamster cage (minus the poop droppings.)

I was surrounded by torn scraps of paper, a mountain of reference books, random piles of notes and the lingering smell of rotting food. Evidence of absent-minded snacking and my coffee addiction were everywhere. I found dirty crockery behind my thesaurus, an unwashed spoon in an empty yogurt pot and a mouldy pear festering at the bottom of my over-flowing waste paper bin. If I’d harvested all the white fluff on its surface, I would have had enough penicillin for the Fever Ward at the local hospital.

IMHO housework and the intense concentration needed for novel writing are not natural bedfellows. While deeply immersed in my fiction, I don’t see the rubbish mushrooming like a wild organism around my work space or the thick layer of dust settling on everything that doesn’t move. And as my cleaner is scared of damaging or moving something she shouldn’t in my inner sanctum, it rarely has a thorough clean. Fortunately, a bit of muck never did anyone any harm.

Anyway, today I’ve emptied the bin and wiped everything down with damp cloth. I've got 'Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits’ playing in the background and a Ylang Ylang candle burning on the window sill to mask the lingering smell of rotten pear.
I also made a brand new job list and itemised all those boring admin things I need to do at this time of the year. I wonder how far down this list I will get before I abandon it and start writing another book?

But for the moment, I’m clean and efficient. I’m ready for the rest of 2016 and whatever literary challenges this sparkling New Year may bring.

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Article: Musings About Writing

21/12/2015

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Heaven...on a canal towpath

Today has been one of the most satisfying writing days I have ever experienced.

Last August, a dramatic finale for ‘The Sculthorpe Murder’ started to form in my mind. The full scene was sketched out with the help of my Dad out on his garden patio one hot, memorable night. We’d both had a bit to drink and giggled and laughed our way the process.

A few days later in Leicestershire, on another glorious summer day, I took a long walk down the tow path of the canal in Market Harborough. I sat in the soft grass beside the still, green and opaque water watching the ducks and the narrow boats pass by and decided to commit the first tentative words of this scene to paper.

Saunt's Bridge, Market Harborough Canal Arm

Today, the shortest and darkest day of the year, was the culmination of this creative process and a day I’d been looking forward to for months. I ignored the gloom outside and surrounded by three notebooks, with numerous Internet webpages open on my computer for further reference, I sat down and wrote 2,500 words, the final version of this momentous scene.

It’s dramatic, action-packed and scary. It’s wonderful to finally release the tension, write something that has formed and reformed in my mind for so long and wind up the two sub-plots I’ve threaded like embroidery thread throughout this novel.

But it’s not quite ‘The End.’ Not yet. Lavender’s final words today were: “I think it’s about time we arrested the murderers of William Sculthorpe.”

And that, my friends, is what Detective Stephen Lavender and I will be doing tomorrow.

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Article: THE PLEASURE OF THINKING

25/4/2015

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THE PLEASURE OF THINKING

“Sometimes I sits and thinks, sometimes I just sits.” – A. A. Milne

Thinking is one of the greatest pleasures in my life. I can spend forty minutes at a time with my chin on my hands just staring into space. I’m usually lost in thought during a walk on the beach and when I’m driving. Sometimes I have no recollection of how I got from A to B. These day-dreaming sessions are as important to me as regular meals and sleep. Without the daily opportunity to disappear into the quiet recesses of my mind, I can become cranky and agitated.

This is where my stories come from. These periods of reflection are the springboard from which my creativity leaps. Plots twist and unfurl in those quiet minutes, characters evolve and settings are enriched with detail. While some authors do mental gymnastics or writing exercises first thing in the morning to wake up their brains, mine has a far lazier more thoughtful start. I have no particular structure or routine. From the moment I get out of bed, my imagination has a free rein to wander wherever it likes, whenever it likes. Maybe into the work in progress; maybe not. Sometimes it wanders all day and doesn't come home.

I write when I've got something to write about and not before. And I have to wait patiently for my wandering thoughts to start to make sense. It can be months after the last novel has finished before I know exactly where I’m going with the next. But when that moment does come, it comes fast. Suddenly my brain clicks into a higher gear and with amazing clarity it shapes a myriad random thoughts into the outline of a full-length novel. This is my ‘Eureka!’ moment - and I have had one with every book. Those disjointed, half-formed strands and ideas now make a whole and I have a credible plot and characters with purpose. It’s a wonderful, satisfying and exhilarating sensation. I know I am lucky I am to be able to take my time, indulge the roaming nature of my imagination and work through this process at leisure.

Sadly, quiet reflection time for their work is not something that everyone is allowed. It is my perception that thoughtfulness is generally undervalued in our society. There is hardly any time to pee in most modern workplaces, never mind to sit and think things through. Our society is obsessed with 'DOING.' Every moment has to be accounted for; every second filled with action. Reflection is regarded as an unnecessary indulgence and day-dreamers and thinkers are viewed with suspicion as lazy wastrels who don't pull their weight in the office. Many professions talk blithely about the importance of evaluation and reflection but they rarely give their staff the time to do it before the next project comes hurtling through the door.

The Internet mirrors this act-now-think-later attitude so pervasive in our society. A quick Google is all that is needed to confirm that the most powerful tool on earth is full of platitudes about the dangers of over-thinking and the importance of doing rather than thinking. These clichés far outnumber any quotes about the value and satisfaction which comes from reflection. In fact, if the internet is anything to go by, the only people in the entire history of the world who seem to share my pleasure in this pursuit and recognise its importance are philosophers and other artists.

Yet quiet reflection is essential to creative problem-solving and the success of projects in every sphere of life and work. How much more creative would our nation be, I wonder, if people were simply given more time to think?