The WordPress elves, monkeys or whatever they are, have produced some rather generic reviews of the year for all my blogs, which are more of interest to me than to anyone else, although I've posted one on another blog just to see what it looks like. This blog post is more specifically a review of my …
A Christmas Treat
A Merry Christmas to all my readers, and please welcome my guest, Matthew Drzymala I think if you read on you’ll see why it’s particularly appropriate to post my interview with him today, Christmas Eve. Our writing has something in common, which is that we write stories set in places that haven’t quite got themselves into …
When I’m not in Pitkirtly
I would quite like to spend all my time in Pitkirtly. It seems a pleasant enough place, apart from all the suspicious deaths and the weather, and once you get used to the people they are fairly friendly. I've always wanted to live by the sea as well, at least when I haven't wanted to …
The Marination Process
No, that isn't a novel title, although having said that it looks a bit as if it could either have a cold war spy theme, or be some sort of bio-thriller. I just thought I would say something about why I always have to leave my writing to lie around doing nothing for a while once …
Pitkirtly VIII takes shape
As usual, 'Pitkirtly VIII' is taking a slightly different shape from the one I expected. One of the characters - a new arrival - has decided to do something very silly. Of course that in itself isn't all that surprising. If characters didn't do anything out of the ordinary then novels would be extremely boring. I'm just …
Newsflash
I bring two pieces of (I hope) good news this morning. After a spell during which I did everything about as quickly as an arthritic slug - my excuse is that the weather was hotter than I am used to! though I expect if we had had a very dark, wet June and July I would …
Recharging batteries
I'm spending the morning recharging batteries. Not my own, for once. I feel well and truly recharged after my Nordic tour, though as usual it's anybody's guess how long that feeling will last. I'm just preparing to go away for approximately 36 hours so I thought I'd better make sure my Kindle(s) and phone were …
In between times
After a week in which I spent every evening in the black cavernous space behind the scenes in a theatre, and during the preparations for a week in which I will travel across Europe by train, tunnel, train, ferry, train, ferry and train, give a paper at a conference and return by very nearly the …
A post from the rain-forest
The rain-forest is creeping closer to the conservatory where I usually do my writing. However there is nothing tropical about the temperatures around here, and I am still not sure if it's really spring or not. It would be nice if I could spend the whole day sitting here watching the rain on the roof …
Spring or not?
I'm still not entirely sure that it's spring - the heating is still going on every morning, and at least one cat has gone back into hibernation this week. However, the apple blossom is more or less out so that's something. I've now written just over 38,000 words of 'The Coronation Quest' so I must …
Cecilia Peartree - woman of mystery 