Sticky patches

This week has been tough. Not so much because of all the distractions going on in my day-to-day life (I’m having my kitchen replaced so, at the moment, I have no downstairs plumbing and there are boxes and bits of kitchen unit everywhere) but because work on Age of Oppression has become hard going.

[…]

Aaaaargh!

Oh, I wish I was a graphic designer!

Okay, so I’m sure that’s not something you expect to hear from a self-publishing author every day but I’ve had the MOST frustrating afternoon.

As you may recall from one of my previous blogs, as well as writing The Bremmand Chronicles I’m also writing bespoke children’s […]

Place of inspiration

This week I’m writing my blog in France. I’m on a singing holiday with a group of friends in a lovely little town in the Languedoc. It is still and calm and beautiful. This part of France is a place a love to come and write. There is a feel to it that is […]

Colouring in the background

When writing a novel, there is a lot of work that goes on in the background. Things that the reader never usually sees. This is even more so for a series like Bremmand Chronicles where, as well as having backstories and context, you also need to maintain continuity between books.

It is easy to […]

Hiding in the shadows

Of all the books in the Bremmand Chronicles – including the ones still to be published – Balance of Betrayal is the one with the most unexpected characters. I don’t mean that they are strange or behave in peculiar ways (although maybe some of them do!). They are unexpected because, when I started planning […]

Humanising the enemy

Of all the books in the Bremmand Chronicles – including the ones still to be published – Balance of Betrayal is the one with the most unexpected characters. I don’t mean that they are strange or behave in peculiar ways (although maybe some of them do!). They are unexpected because, when I started planning […]

Why? Why? Why?

Last week, Balance of Betrayal was published. Of all the books in the Bremmand Chronicles – including the ones still to be published – it is the one with the most unexpected characters.

I don’t mean that they are strange or behave in peculiar ways (although maybe some of them do!). They are unexpected […]

The unexpected hero

This week, Balance of Betrayal is published. Of all the books in the Bremmand Chronicles – including the ones still to be published – it is the one with the most unexpected characters.

By unexpected I don’t mean that they are strange or behave in peculiar ways (although maybe some of them do!). They […]

The unconscionable act

I did something unconscionable recently. Not in real life, you understand, but in Balance of Betrayal. I drove someone to their death.

I’ve killed characters before – soldiers falling in battle, disease carrying away whole families, murders, war crimes, all sorts of death – but this was different.

In this case an essentially innocent […]

Getting into print

Someone asked me today, “How did you get published? Is it expensive?” These days, there are so many different ways to get your book into print that I thought I would share the publication methods I use. It is worth saying, from the outset, that I am one person, using a couple of the […]