This is one of many blog posts which will run for four days from 15th-19th August, 2013, celebrating Roman historical fiction… …and there’s a prize for the most interesting comment! My novel, ‘The Serpent & The Slave‘, is set in Britannia, in 367AD, a turbulent time of invasion which hinted at Rome’s loosening grip on … Read more …
The idea was very straightforward: Buy some stock, get a small display unit/table, bring the laptop. Use a few posters. print some flyers. Find a comfortable slot in the town centre. Chat to the public. Sign and sell some books. Busking, but with books. Easy, right? Wrong. The local council said: ‘Sorry, we only have … Read more …
DCI Brendan Moran returns in the sequel to ‘Creatures of Dust’. The title is ‘Death Walks Behind you’ and the novel will be published in early 2015. In the meantime, here is the prologue … Prologue Linda Harrison wouldn’t have described herself as an outdoor type but she did enjoy her early morning perambulations, a … Read more …
Or Odius Moperandi, as my Great Uncle Quentin used to say whilst throwing liberal bucketfuls of Flash over the kitchen floor… Sorry, it must be the heat. Not used to this sort of weather in Blighty. Anyway, I digress. The question is, ‘How do you write?’. I don’t mean how as such; I mean, I … Read more …
You all know the feeling. You get out of bed and immediately feel great. One or two coffees later and you feel even better. The sun is shining, the muse is kicking in like never before and your brain is in major creative mode. Today is the day you feel as if you could write the … Read more …
Originally published on Indie author Rachel Abbot’s blog. So, you want to be an Indie Author. Where do you begin? The Beginning . . . • Write a great book in a genre that people want to read This is a really obvious one but you are making life very hard, if not impossible, for … Read more …
This is just a quickie, but boy was I happy when I found out how to avoid my Word conversion to .mobi program indenting every chapter and new scene paragraph by the ‘special’ indentation setting I’d already entered for normal dialogue indents… Here’s what to do: For each first chapter paragraph and scene change paragraph, … Read more …
Fellow author Andrew Blackman was kind enough to share the experience of his recent book launch with me, and as I am planning one of these for my new novel ‘Creatures of Dust‘ I thought it would be helpful to share Andrew’s experiences with you. After all, we all need a good launch, don’t we? … Read more …
‘I’m slipping into grey. And I was (in my way) good to you. And you were good for me. Bye Bye my love. Going to play the End Game…’ Ian Anderson – End Game The relationship between author and reader is a close one – or should be. You have created a world in which … Read more …
So, you’re writing your novel and of course it’s right and proper that you should spend time making sure your characters come to life – especially the main characters of protagonist and, if appropriate, antagonist. If the characters don’t come to life your readers will be unable to relate to and engage fully with the … Read more …