Author of the Princelings of the East fantasy and Viridian System scifi series
Snapshots is my book review for this Saturday in the A to Z Challenge. I’ve already read a lot of titles beginning with s this year; I’m glad I continued and read this one. It helps me towards my reading
Roddenberry; Gene Roddenberry. Where would we be without him? Do you think that today’s culture would be better or worse if we had not had Star Trek? Can you imagine a world without Star Trek? Would we have had Star
The Quest. It’s such a common element of fantasy writing, if not most writing. Whether it’s for an object or an ideal, most of us end up writing some variation on the quest. Types of quest I remember reading some
People I knew in the Past is a pretty weak subject for P in my A to Z of inspirations, but then, the past does make you who you are, and sometimes the people who are gone and forgotten come
Other writers and bloggers inspire me, so I thought I should give them due deference in my A to Z Challenge this year. Inspiration comes in different ways: sometimes it’s the topic a blogger picks, sometimes (often) it’s the struggles
Norfolk is the focus for my writing inspirations today. You may think that I did Norfolk for H when I talked about Hickling, Horsey, and the Broads. People say Norfolk is flat. The Broads are flat. How Hill is about
My Animals and Other Family is a clever play on the title of a Gerald Durrell book, for which the author got permission from Durrell’s family to use. The author is Clare Balding, a UK National Treasure. She went from
L is for Fritz Lieber today, but I’m using him to represent the incredible array of authors I first read when I was a teen. They certainly influenced my thoughts of how our future ought to be, giving insights into
Kenneth Grahame wrote The Wind in the Willows. Most people know that. If you know me, you also know that I often cite The Wind in the Willows as one of my inspirations for The Princelings of the East. I
Journeys make me think. Or dream. Or in just gazing out of the window at passing scenery, my brain goes into another place to imagine a new story. I know I’m not the only one to whom travel has this
Imperial Airways conjures up pictures of sleek silver-clad aeroplanes with rows of propellers and sometimes lots of wings. Rich people in furs and pearls (well, the women) and cloche hats smiling at the camera as they wait to climb up
Hickling Broad and Horsey Mere combine to make an area in Norfolk that inspires my ‘marsh’ for my Princelings of the East series of books. And since my A to Z Challenge theme is ‘my writing inspiration’, I thought I’d
A Grand Old Time is my book review for Saturday of the letter G. I always do a book review on Saturdays. It doesn’t exactly fit my theme of writing inspirations for this year’s A to Z. Yet all reading
F is for Fred and George. These two guinea pigs walked into my life on 26th July 2007, and changed it completely. They are the inspiration for all my fiction, since I had no idea I could write (in fact
Epping Forest is a most amazing space, completely wild in places, and close enough to London to get there by TfL. It’s a remnant of Henry VIII’s hunting forests, and given in perpetuity to the people of London by Queen
D is for Dereliction of Duty as well as Dylan and Dougall. I’m derelict in my duty to post the Insecure Writers’ Support Group post here today, since my theme is inspiration and my letter is D and I can’t
Castles are common in the UK. Stockades built by the Celts against the Anglo Saxons, or Saxon fortifications to ward of the Vikings, now crumbled away, or great stone towers by the Normans in the 11th Century, most are ruined
Brothers are my inspiration. I didn’t think they were. I thought other people inspired my lead characters. Let’s explore this a little… The Princelings of the East series My princelings who inspired the whole series are Fred and George. More
Again? I thought I Articulated I wasn’t Addressing the A to Z Challenge Again this year. Well, blogging through the Alphabet each April Appears to be Addictive. It’s April 1st, and so we Advance on our Assault of the Alphabet,
Subway | Palliatopia is a new YA book from S W Lothian, and looks like it could run into at least a sequel. I got an ARC from the author, who was one of the most inspirational of the authors
Humphrey Goes East was last seen in the A to Z Challenge in 2013. I’d already written this as the prelude to my then book 8 in the Princelings series – which is now book 10, the last one. This
My reading challenges are already one quarter of the way through. Three months has flown by, but I have read a lot of books: Goodreads tells me it’s now 16 and I’m five ahead of schedule. I’m not sure how
Death by Adverb is out this week! Thursday is launch day for Rebecca Douglass’s latest in her Pismawallops PTA cozy mystery series. It’s number three, and it’s the best yet! Check out the excerpt at the end… Death by Adverb (Pismawallops
Beneath the surface of my life I am paddling like mad trying to keep up. One of my targets was to submit short stories to a number of anthologies, and I have done one, and identified two more. I ended
Hello, hello and welcome to the 2018 A to Z Great Theme Reveal post. All over the world bloggers are posting their theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge in April. You don’t have to have a theme,