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

For me, the new year starts when I go on leave from work. That was over a week ago. In that time, I’ve been seriously mulling over what I want 2025 to look like. The echoes of similar wishes for change last year hang over me like a guillotine and I feel like time is running out; I’m getting older.     But then again, I felt like that when I turned 30. And again at 40. In reality, we only ever have a moment  of time and that moment is now. I had now back then and I have now… w

I haven’t worked on my short story for just over two months. It is sitting at 2,222 words exactly. The numbers-weirdo in me likes that figure, perhaps that’s why I left it there? Or perhaps I know I’m butchering the story and I don’t want to keep inflicting more damage?   I can’t even bring myself to open it and read it. I can watch the movie of the story in my brain at will, and it is great in the fully immersive experience of my imagination. But the written version is like

Every now and then Einstein's definition of insanity wafts through my brain in a pungent reminder that this Groundhog Day of my life is of my own making; doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is insane. So, I’ve decided to make 2024 the year of doing something different. Lots of somethings.   This month’s folly was to attend a Crime Writing workshop. I expected to sit in a room of mostly middle-aged women and get told a bunch of things I co