Happy 2017! This post is for anyone who’s made a New Year’s resolution to be more creative, or to write more – which feels easy to do at the start of the year but can be tricky as time rolls on. You can get a bit stuck sometimes. I’ve written here before about ways of … Continue reading
Where does your inspiration come from? This is the most popular question I get asked when I visit schools. Actually that’s not true. The most popular question is this: Where did you get your night vision goggles and grappling hooks from? Just to explain, I turn up at schools dressed as a cat burglar. Please don’t think I’m … Continue reading
I’ve been really struck this week by how as a writer one is flipping all the time between inner and outer worlds. Perhaps this is because I have recently had my head down working on a first draft for a new book. Last week I spent the whole week at home, at my desk, staring … Continue reading
When Alice Jones: The Impossible Clue first came out, I wrote a short post on my top tips for writing a mystery for the Chicken House Blog (you can find it here). My last and final rule was to ‘play fair’ with your reader. It’s no fun reading a mystery when the author keeps a big clue … Continue reading
This is a heads-up about something that’s happening on Monday 14 November. It’s a SUPERMOON! It’s going to look about 30% brighter than normal as it swings by us at just 356,509 km away. The moon won’t be this close to the Earth again until 25 November 2034, so you might want to catch it … Continue reading
Writing a book is very complex. There are so many things to thinks about. Characters, plot, dialogue, tension. The list goes on and on. Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about setting. Setting is where the action of the book takes place. I like to research settings and locations to make sure I get the … Continue reading
October is Selective Mutism Awareness Month, and so I wanted to talk today about Situational or Selective Mutism (or SM as it is often known) and add my voice to those tweeting and blogging about SM this month to try and help raise awareness. As some of you may already know, Tessie, in my book … Continue reading
I’m always interested in other people’s writing processes, so I thought I’d write a post on how inspirational places have affected my novels, in the hope that you’ll then share some of yours! Whenever I write, I’m inspired by my surroundings, and that’s why seascapes and rural West Cork have become so important in my … Continue reading
I went to Jakarta to visit my son, who has moved to Indonesia to teach English, and now I need a head twice the size of the one I’ve got to store the swirl of sights and sounds and tastes and smells and people and places … Jakarta view Beautiful bamboo Astonishing carvings Chickens that … Continue reading
I am thrilled, chuffed, amazed, excited, over the moon, high as a kite, dancing on air, a bit pleased, that my second book Gaslight will be published by Firefly Press next April. Thankfully the notes from my editor say that there is a typo on page two and that’s all that needs adjusting. We are good … Continue reading
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