Because I can see the end in sight for Pitkirtly XXIV, I've decided to procrastinate a bit by writing this post. It's not so much that I don't want it to end as that now that I think I've worked out a solution, I no longer need to go through all the steps to get …
Muddling Through
The River Ness in Inverness As mentioned in my New Year post, I've been focussing on the completion of my two unfinished novels, and I'm happy to say I've actually got to the end of both of them, more or less. Because 'The Elusive Widow' is longer and therefore will probably be harder to edit, …
Changes of Mind
This afternoon I published the latest of my Pitkirtly Mysteries to Amazon and Smashwords. As I write this, it should already be visible on the Smashwords site, which happens almost instantly, but the time it takes to appear on other sites always varies depending on the review process of the various online bookshops. It's entitled …
Another year, another NaNoWriMo
I've taken part in the November NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) every year since 2006. The first time I did it, I was on a mission to prove to myself that I could finish a novel in a month. It was a kind of signal that I would start to take my writing seriously at …
How can it be autumn already?
I am happy to report that I've just got past 20,000 words in Pitkirtly XXIII ('The Christmas Catastrophe') and the story is progressing more or less according to the very vague plan in my head. This is in spite of a recent blip when I realised I had written a pivotal chapter in a way …
The Identity Illusion
THE IDENTITY ILLUSION – Pitkirtly Mysteries 22 Pitkirtly XXII has now been published. Thanks to anyone who has already got hold of a copy. This is the 22nd novel in the Pitkirtly Mysteries series, set in a small fictitious town on the south coast of Fife which is definitely not Culross, though quite close to …
Towards the Endgame
At lunchtime today I reached the 50,000 word mark in 'Pitkirtly XXII' (still no title but don't panic - I've always managed to work something out before publishing, up to now anyway). This is significant because by this stage in a novel I almost always have a good idea of how it's going to end, …
It’s Almost Time!
I hope everyone reading this will be pleased to know that I've at last got to the point in what I like to think of as my writing schedule where I can start writing Pitkirtly XXII. I plan to begin a new document for this tomorrow, with the rest of today being spent re-reading two …
Writing in Lockdown
I noticed there was an article in The Guardian the other day about the difficulties of writing during the pandemic - here's the link in case anyone is interested (it focusses mostly on writers failing to find anything to be inspired by during lockdown, but there is a mention of a problem I had about …
Reaching 50,000
Thanks to NaNoWriMo, in which the target is set to 50,000 for everyone, getting to 50,000 words in a novel always feels like almost the end. Actually 50,000 words or even 60,000, which most of my mystery novels conclude at, is fairly short for a novel these days. My writing session this morning has just …