Category: On Writing
Writing and Cancer
I would consider myself to be an incredibly lucky person. I have a wonderful life. I’m about to celebrate my eighteenth wedding anniversary in June. I have two teenagers, a boy and a girl who are the light of my life. Especially when they choose to actually talk to me – that normally happens when […]
How Disaster Movies Creep Into My Writing
Hands up – I am a disaster movie geek, which is perhaps strange considering I only write romantic comedies. Part of the attraction is the element of danger, which doesn’t exist in my day-to-day life (not complaining!) My nine to five is spent at home, tapping away at the keyboard. I don’t even risk being […]
Writing About History: Truth or Dare
I was recently confronted by a reader, who took it upon herself to inform me that the main character in chapter 1 of my book, ‘Cults: A Bloodstained History’, did not exist. ‘Everyone knows that Joshua is a mythical character’, she scoffed at me. As if that was not enough, she went on to verbally […]
Books Of My Childhood
Like it is for so many others, each book that I’ve read has found its way into the fabric of my being, has helped form whom I’ve become ~ mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, teacher, writer – and who I’ve yet to become. Being the youngest of six didn’t allow for much alone time in […]
On Being Genre Fluid
My day job involves listening to other people’s stories (Spoiler alert! I’m a doctor.) Each patient who walks into my room has their own unique narrative – some deliver their ailments like slam poets, some are dramatists, others unfold like a thriller novel and a few I would even categorize as metafiction. Whatever way the […]
To Be or Not To Be a Writer
I always assumed that authors came from a very special mould. They were the kind of people who spent their childhood scribbling down stories whereas I was a bit of a geek. I had one of the first home computers, a Sinclair ZX81 so I was busy writing computer programs while those budding authors were […]
Writers and Self-Censorship
Writers should not be censored. I think everyone can agree on that. The whole idea of censorship conjures an image of stern political enforcers, combing through every line of poetry and prose with an eye to deleting or destroying anything that works against the current regime and its often hypocritical ideology. Who can create art […]
Writing About Sex (and the older woman)
Many years ago, as an experiment, and I admit a bit of a joke, I submitted the first three chapters of an erotic book to the publishers Black Lace. I read their guidelines carefully and made sure I ‘hit the ground running’; and although I must also have submitted some kind of synopsis I really […]
Fairytales
Once upon a time…how comforting is this timeless beginning, immediately sending us back to our childhoods, tucked up in bed and listening to a story. Narrative is part of the human psyche, the way we explain the world to ourselves and each other. It’s perhaps no surprise that recent research, published in the Royal Society […]
A Lost Literary Foremother: Constance Fenimore Woolson
About the time I was trying to decide if I could be a writer I started to wonder, when did women first have the nerve to commit themselves to careers as serious authors and to say, despite few female role models to follow, I can succeed at this as well as men? I wondered because, […]
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