Kill your darlings is a common saying to writers. It refers to those times in the editing process when you identify that something is not required in your story and, even if it is a lovely piece of prose, you delete it. Yep, you kill your darling. I recently got to experience that in all its truth. I have a story of which I’m really proud. I wrote it deep in my recent period of non-writing nearly two years ago. Before I wrote it, it constantly haunted me. On the bus, it was t

I haven’t bothered to write down any New Year’s resolutions this year. I didn’t come close to attaining last year’s goals so figure what’s the point in recycling them, or worse, adding to them? I don’t need that pressure. Clearly, I need to do something different. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t go totally off the rails in 2025. I wrote a little bit, I exercised fairly regularly, and I mostly ate sensibly. I just didn’t do any in the volume or with the regularity I hoped I wou

One thing I’ve really learned from knowing so many authors is that luck plays a big part in getting published. You submit exactly what the publishing house is looking for at the right time, you bump into that agent at a conference when they are in the market for new authors, you tap into the zeitgeist at just the right moment. Sure, you have to write an engaging story that is a good read, but there are millions of those out there without a home. Luck is the final bit of magic

Okay, so I’m going to out myself as a freak here; I don’t have any streaming services. Even more weird; I watch free to air TV. Now those admissions are out of the way, I can share that I binged a TV show last night. Difficult to do with the restrictions I admitted to before, but while I may watch free to air TV, I don’t watch it in real time. I record everything on a PVR (like a VCR but digital, why it’s not called a DVR I don’t know) so I can skip past the ads. Anyway, I