Update on The Purging

It's been a while. When I finished the silencing, I suggested what I thought was a generous time frame for the drop of the sequel, the purging. I knew what was going to happen in the second part of the trilogy, and I knew how long it would take me to write and edit a …

Self Editing

Editing. Sigh. I love the writing, the creating, the crafting of worlds, plot and character. The editing - not so much. The thing is, though, it's just as important as all the fun stuff. In this post I'll tell you why. I'll delve into the gory details of my editing process; the whats, the hows, …

A New Novel – The Silencing

Adrift at sea. No power. No rescue. No law. Back when I dropped my last novel, Dark Island, in 2019, I lamented the astronomical gap of nine months between that and the prevous novel. You can imagine how I feel now the gap is three years. What can I say? Life, lockdowns and work got …

Apocalypse Research: Wild Camping

Spending much of my time thinking about the apocalypse, dystopia and other nightmare worlds, I run a lot of desperate scenarios through my head: the zombies; the totalitarian governments; the environmental disaster; the infrastructure breakdown... You get the idea. A common thread through many of these themes is the ubiquitous 'bug out'. Pack up everything …

The Purging: Unveiling England’s Dystopian Descent – The Silencing continues

Finally. Apologies to those who have waited patiently. This novel has taken me longer than any to write, edit and publish. Not becuase it's been a particulalry difficult novel to write - real life has just been very persistent in its ability to produce challenging situations for the past few years. But, it's done. In …

How do I Outline my Novel?

I've outlined one novel. So what I'm going to describe here isn't going to be the best way to outline a novel. It may be the worst, but I hope not. Who knows? What I'm trying to say is, this post is simply my experience of outlining. I have tried to encapsulate the broad points …

Writing a New Novel. To Outline or not to Outline?

Work has started on a new novel. Well, I say started. 'Underway' is more accurate. The seed of a new idea emerged two months or so ago. From there I decided to do something I've never done before, and that's plan the novel, from start to finish. Using real three act story structure and everything. …

A New Novel – Dark Island

Hello all. It's been a long time coming - or at least it feels that way. Maybe 9 months isn't that long between novels, but it's been a frustrating journey. Dark Island only took me 3 months to write, but has taken about 6 months to edit. Maybe I'll write a post about the horrors …

How to Write a Novel

How the hell am I going to follow up on a title like that? Bare with me. The thing is, there is no secret sauce. There is no magic, and there are no cheats. You write a novel by writing one, simple as that. There is a fantastic book called The War of Art by …