Writing
We don’t need another hero
I'm wary of heroes, modern ones anyway. The classical type are fine. They’re flawed, miserable, doomed creatures, nothing like the too-perfect marionettes you meet on occasion today. If you’re thinking about writing about one of the latter – you know the kind, great teeth, perfect hair, indefatigable,
Revising a manuscript – three strikes and you’re out
You’ve been wanting to finish that book for ages. Finally, you’ve just typed the last page. Yippee! Now what? Do you reveal your MS to the world, or at least an agent or editor you’d like to woo? No. By which I mean NO! The key to
The shaky start to my semi-illustrious career
Thirty years ago I was sitting in business class on a JAL flight from London to Tokyo, a glass of champagne in hand, a fat stack of three hundred or so A4 printout pages on the table in front of me. They amounted to the latest and, I’d decided,
Pick a name, any name
How do you decide what your characters in your story are called? Carefully, I hope. If your book works, that choice will live with you for years. My stories usually take place in foreign countries and often with local characters. My first published book, finished thirty years ago this year,
