I intend these Work In Progress blogs to be rather more than just ruminations about what I happen to be writing at a given time. They will constitute a ragbag, or patchwork quilt, or smörgåsbord, or running buffet of the thoughts and ideas that crowd into a writer’s life. They could be about a knotty… CONTINUE READING

Do you Kindle? I do. There are several reasons why a Kindle, or some other eReader, is indispensable and the first of these is travel. Books significantly add to the weight of your luggage. You don’t want to be paying excess baggage on a plane, or struggling with an obese hold-all down the corridors of… CONTINUE READING

Modern readers tend to be very cagey about what they perceive to be too many coincidences in a work of fiction and yet life is full of flukes and happenstance. You know what I mean, out of the blue you find yourself thinking about a friend you haven’t seen for years and there is a… CONTINUE READING

The all-out winner is Lincoln Cupples. His was the only 100% correct entry so there is no runner-up this time. Copies of The Swan Diptych, Come Away, O Human Child and Mr Thomson’s Diary will be winging their way to him this week. Lincoln’s research was thorough. His was the only entry to recognise that… CONTINUE READING

Very moving. The American critic for the NY Times who wrote that it is ‘the cinematic equivalent of a visit from a cherished but increasingly dithery maiden aunt’ wholly missed the point and the complexity of the film. A boy is washed up on a Cornish beach; he is rescued and taken in by two… CONTINUE READING

It occurred to me that there are a good many pubs, clubs and restaurants in my work so I thought I would list them. But which are fictitious and which have I invented? Contact me on this website to enter. Free books for the first person to get them all correct! Here goes: The Mouse… CONTINUE READING

One of the most exciting things about writing fiction is the power to create worlds. At the moment Humphrey is visiting Jack in Durham, where Jack is an undergraduate. I have only visited Durham once and loved it, arriving by rail which is the right thing to do. There is a long curve and then,… CONTINUE READING

To Burton Hathow School this morning to talk to children from Years 4 to Year 6 about the craft of writing and to read something from my work. I was flattered by the invitation, of course, but rather apprehensive about what I might choose to read to them. Most of my output is aimed at… CONTINUE READING

They say that a book stands or falls on its opening. Here are the first lines of my output so far: The Mouse Triptych (2013, 2nd. ed. 2015) ‘This will do admirably, thought the mouse as he emerged from the corner where the green carpet didn’t quite meet the skirting board.’ A Stroke of Genius… CONTINUE READING

I am on a drive to finish my second novel over the next two months. I have just completed a period of research and am ready to push on to the end. It is longer than I thought it would be and I’m sure there’ll have to be cuts in the edit. However, anyone who… CONTINUE READING