This year I’ve been a bit disappointed in the quality of my reading material. Usually I’m able to pick out one or two good fiction and non-fiction books to recommend. Obviously, this is subjective and personal tastes differ. I’ll talk about non-fiction here and fiction next week. I found the three big new books with […]

Having talked about deadlines in last week’s blog I’d like to stress the importance of setting and acknowledging milestones. Writing is a lonely occupation that often dents confidence. Hence the need to pat ourselves on the back when we meet deadlines. In the planning stage these may be set by a publisher or self-imposed. If […]

Distractions are the enemy of every writer. Now that we mostly use online devices to create our muses, there is always the temptation to do some unrelated research, shop, check social media or the football results. Before we know it the time to write has passed and no progress has been made.  How can we […]

Whenever there’s an election I always think of Screaming Lord Sutch, the eccentric founder of the Monster Raving Loony Party whose policies included the abolition of income tax on the grounds that it was a temporary imposition during wartime. He was also a musician whose most famous song, Jack the Ripper, supported the widely held […]

This week I recorded the second part of my podcast on the Rees/Hopkins family. This all began with John Rees, the only contemporary who supported the claim that the Jack the Ripper victim Mary Kelly lived in Wales. He identified her as the daughter of a marine store dealer from Llanelly who once worked for […]

This week I’ve been researching a couple of pieces with a historical setting, one fiction and one non-fiction. In an attempt to understand how people felt at the time I used contemporary sources. Many voices from the nineteenth century, a period of particular interest to me, survive. Often the texts are available in digital format […]

Halloween is a good time for horror writers. Tales involving ghosts, graveyards and strangers offering candy to children have inspired us for generations and hopefully terrified readers. Over the years traditions from different cultures have merged into the customs we know today. This year I’m pleased to be one of the contributors to Halloween Horror […]

At a recent garage sale, I found some volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Nobody wanted it because they get information online.  First published in 1768 it was the premier reference work, before giving up print in 2010. The online version competes with the larger and more popular Wikipedia, which is generally considered less reliable. The […]

This week a post on the Jack the Ripper Forums asked if people thought there were too many coincidences in the case. I don’t, but it got me thinking about coincidences in writing. Some fiction and television shows use coincidence as a plot device and are considered unrealistic. Yet coincidences do happen in real life. […]