There is no getting around it. Very soon I will have to get on my knees like everyone else in the world and beg for scraps at the feet of Emperor Bezos. As much as I would love The Book and the Blade to be 100% indie... only available in small shops with quirky cafes … Continue reading All Hail Emperor Bezos and Bow Down Before the Amazon Overlords!
Category: blog
I will eviscerate you in fiction!
Every pimple, every character flaw. I was naked for a day; you will be naked for eternity.Geoffrey Chaucer (sort of) One of the fun things about writing a book you think pretty much no one will read is putting all your friends and family in there and ending their lives in new and imaginative ways. Not … Continue reading I will eviscerate you in fiction!
Ask me anything… (sort of)
Well, ladies and gents, I've managed to get this website up and running and I've made sure all the links work (and go precisely where they're meant to). So far, it's all tip-top and shiny. So, I wanted to draw your attention to a couple of new links I added just now. These two... That's … Continue reading Ask me anything… (sort of)
A spanking new website!
Things are happening, folks! First of all, the countdown to the book release is on. At the time of writing, there are 149 days left! I also had an exceptionally cool meeting with my amazing editor yesterday but I can't really dish the goss on that one yet other than to say she is a … Continue reading A spanking new website!
Judge a book by its cover!
It has no doubt become abundantly clear to anyone who saved this website (and there are a few of you - sorry) that I'm absolutely rubbish at keeping it updated. Well, here's one for you... The Book and the Blade has a cover! Remember, beautiful people... sharing is caring
That was some year! (written in June 2021)
It has been just over a year since I woke up one morning to an email from some lovely people in The States who told me they wanted to publish my little book. A year! 2020. Nothing much happened there, right? Just an ordinary, boring, humdrum kind of year. So I thought I'd let you … Continue reading That was some year! (written in June 2021)
It’s easy to get a publisher, right?
It turns out I keep this online diary almost as consistently as I keep my personal diary, i.e. hardly ever. This is quite normal for me. I seem to work in flurries of madness separated by long periods of nothing. Well, I say nothing, but the old noggin is always ticking over. It's like a … Continue reading It’s easy to get a publisher, right?
Before The Book and the Blade
I wrote six books before I started work on The Book and the Blade. They were not great. One, two and three were terrible in fact. Four showed some small promise but floundered (drowned) in the middle. Five was a present for my kids that I'm still happy with, and six was a silly thing … Continue reading Before The Book and the Blade
Where have you been?
Years ago I ploughed my way through Frank McCourt's books because one of my students was reading Angela's Ashes and raving about it in class, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I read the same book, loved it, and decided to read everything else he had written as well. Somewhere … Continue reading Where have you been?
The Idea
I had the idea for The Book and the Blade nearly 20 years ago and it hurts me to write that! When I was 18 I started University in York and one of the drawcards for the city was the rumoured 365 pubs... one for every day of the year. There's a famous street called … Continue reading The Idea