Going Dark
I’ve decided to stop posting on this blog, because I’m so much enjoying my other site, The Quack Doctor, that I’d rather divert my energies to that. In the rare event of me thinking of something erudite to say on the subject of writing, I will be sure to post it on Strictly Writing. You can still find me at my main website, to which I might add a news page soon, an

Is your writing ready to party?
. Do people still throw  ’come as you are’ parties? I rarely get invited to parties… for some reason…  so I wouldn’t know, but I remember them being the cause of much contrived hilarity in vintage sitcoms. An editing tip that occurred to me recently is to think of each sentence as a potential party guest. When the telephone call arrives from the hip ‘n’ happening hosts, is the sentence ready to step out of

Computers of the Olden Days
The youth of today don’t know they’re born. We had 256K of memory and we were grateful for it. (From the Casa Grande Dispatch, Arizona, 26 Dec 1984)

Why haven’t I read this yet?
This week’s Weekly Geeks challenge asks: tell us about a book (or books) you have been meaning to read. What is it? How long have you wanted to read it? And, why haven’t you read it yet? Top of the list is…. Redemption Falls by Joseph O’ Connor I bought this over a year ago having loved Star of the Sea, but it is still sitting pristinely on the shelf. I

Creating Mystery
One or two people have described my book as ‘gripping’ or mysterious. I’m not relating this in order to show off but because it’s about time I did a proper blog post about writing, so I thought I’d describe my process of building up tension and mystery. Plot events, however exciting, don’t create much mystery on their own. They need foreshadowing by little clues that encourage th