A Literary Life

First up: I’m back from my boozy weekend in Cardiff. I had a great time, in which I learned a great deal and stole an awful lot of stories that will one day worm their way into my fiction. I saw a woman I was crazy about for a long time, and about whom I’ve already placed in a novel, and seeing her bought that stagnant novel back to the forefront of my mind, and gave me the ending I so desperately lacked. So thanks for that. On the train back, and during the rest of Sunday evening, I finished Patrick Rothfuss’s epic new novel, The Wise Man’s Fear, which I review spoiler-free below. I took a brief visit to Blackwell’s in Oxford where I picked up the Elizabeth Taylor novel my friend enthused about, and new book of essays from Orhan Pamuk. Nothing like a Nobel Laureate to get the brain stimulated. Oh, and I finished the teenage science-fiction pilot I’ve been working on, and that was posted off to the BBC’s Writersroom this afternoon. Now I face an agonising fe...

Today has been a productive day – and it’s still not even five pm. I’ve pretty much finished drafting the pilot of my science-fiction children’s show that is heading to the BBC Writer’s Room at the end of the week. It’s sharp, bright, funny, dangerous and sometimes a little bit mad. The dialogue zings along, and the twists and turns of its narrative will enthral kids and make their parents a little nostalgic. It’s the pilot: and I have the first season mapped out. If the BBC pass I might just turn it into a kids book. But I’d rather the BBC didn’t pass, and it opens the doors I hope it does. I hope it even makes it to series, and is shown later next year as it is set in 2012! More on this series, though, I cannot give right now. I’ve also been typing up the new 1,000 odd words I wrote by hand for my literary novel. Writing by hand? What is this, the 1800s? Well, it’s the way I like to write my fiction, long hand, in ring bound books. That’s my first draft. ...

I have been a terrible, terrible blogger. I see that this blog was birthed in 2009 and then promptly died. My new year’s resolution for 2011 was to begin again with the blog. Well, it’s Saint David’s Day now, 1 March, and I finally get around to it. First the important matters: my debut novella, “The Inheritance of Things Past” is now available for your Kindle, at the worth it price of £0.86 – eighty-six pence! – or $0.99 ! What are you waiting for? Go buy now! You don’t really have to, but if you love a good story, you won’t regret it if you do. So what have I done in the fifteen months since I last checked in: I completed writing a second novella (currently entitled “Grass and Ember”) but came in too short for mainstream publishing at 65,000 words. I began work on a third. Then a fourth. Then a fifth. I have yet to finish the third, fourth, or fifth because I began working in a shop: and that shop began to take over my life. I had one period where I worked 53 days without...