Blog
Review: Curiosities of London Life
From Goodreads: http://goo.gl/wwIMS Curiosities of London Life by Charles Manby Smith My rating: 5 of 5 stars Regular readers will be aware that I value non-fiction for its research merits, but not every factual book is made equal. The ones I hold in particularly high esteem are
A writer’s holiday in Snowdonia
Tryfan: the nursery-ground for generations of British mountaineers A week ago, I jumped on a train and headed west, with a simple intention: to spend a few days in the Ogwen Valley of Snowdonia, to spend my nights under canvas, and to recharge my batteries by revisiting some of my
Aerial views of London from 1891
The Strand in 1891 a key setting for my work Image credit: http://goo.gl/7J1CP Although I have never lived in London and only visited on rare occasions, the sprawling Victorian metropolis plays a vital role in my work. Many of the leading British climbers of the era lived
Review: FIVA: An Adventure That Went Wrong
FIVA: An Adventure That Went Wrong, by Gordon Stainforth My rating: 5 of 5 stars Warning: spoilers! When Gordon Stainforth asked me to read and review his new book, I jumped at the opportunity. His true story of an adventure going sour, and in the mountains of Norway no less,
Social media update
(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js#xfbml=1”; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’)); I have a new Facebook page! http://goo.
Review: Hazard’s Way
From Amazon: http://goo.gl/qIubg Hazard’s Way by Roger Hubank My rating: 3 of 5 stars I feel like a bit of a traitor as I write this review, because I’m going to do the unthinkable and not give this book five stars. I first read it
It’s time to write a blurb
I’ve been working very hard this week and I’m that bit closer to publication. The next stage in the journey is to come up with a usable blurb: something short and punchy I can use as both a description and a selling tool. My initial attempts, which largely
I have a cover design!
Ta-da! Thanks to the swift and very talented work of John Amy, I have a cover design I’m happy with! Creating a cover for The Only Genuine Jones wasn’t an easy order. The design has to convey genre and tone instantly, even at thumbnail size. It has to
Some thoughts on constructing a plot
The trusty m500 doing what it does best As I write this I am sitting in a cafe in Skegness (thanks to the marvel that is mobile broadband) and trying to make sense of the tangle of notes in my ‘plot ideas’ folder. These files have accumulated over several months
Switzerland (oh to be there in the summer!)
In the steamy, stuffy Midlands, ‘neath an English summer sky, When the holidays are nearing with the closing of July,And experienced Alpine stagers and impetuous recruitsAre renewing with the season their continual disputes–Those inveterate disputesOn the newest Alpine routes–And inspecting the condition of their mountaineering boots:You