An update to the previous post: I see Camp NaNoWriMo is going to run in June and August this year, so I may have to bring forward the planned Pitkirtly novel to June - or put it back to August. Just in case I decide on June, I've now started on the first phase, which …
Chapter 24 and other stories
Chapter 24 has been annoying me for some time, and on the train back from London the other week I decided I would have to re-write it completely. Now that I've done it, I feel cautiously optimistic about the whole novel, and inspired to complete the rest of the edits as quickly as I can. …
Cover stories
There are individual stories behind some of the covers for my quirky mystery novels, but the big story as far as I'm concerned is that I use my late brother's photographs of Scotland as the basis for all of them. He was a very keen photographer who spent much of the final year of his life …
Different voices
I'm now getting right down to the final edits of 'Death at the Happiness Club'. The most difficult part about this is getting enough distance from the novel to read it as if you'd never seen it before. I did manage this past week to look at the first chapter in this way and I …
Trains, boats, planes… cars, buses, camper vans…
It didn't occur to me until I was editing 'Death at the Happiness Club' but there is an awful lot of transport in it. People frequently hop on buses and go to the next town, or see a Porsche zipping past, or get on and off planes and boats. One of the most exciting scenes in the …
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Naming names
Until someone mentioned the name Amaryllis in a review this weekend, I had almost forgotten about the trauma of choosing names for characters (thanks for reminding me, Chris G!). In some cases, a first name arrives with the character and it's impossible after a few pages to imagine using a different one. Several of the Pitkirtly crowd …
Characters in a landscape
I don't know why it's taken me so long to understand this, but I now realise that when I go wrong in my writing it is usually because I start from the setting for a novel and not from the characters. The setting, no matter how lovely or sordid or exotic or homely, has to …
Developing characters – how far to go?
I'm in the middle of editing my fourth novel in the Pitkirtly mystery series, and I just wonder how far I can go in developing the characters. I don't want them to change beyond recognition (and see also 'A Reformed Character' which rehearses some of my own views on this before coming down firmly on …
A New Year message
Happy New Year! I had some idea of doing a review of 2011, but I've left it a bit too late for that and I really prefer to look forward, so here are some predictions for 2012 in Pitkirtly. Maisie Sue McPherson is due to have a more exciting life than she ever planned. Christopher …
a visit to Agde
The opening scene of 'Murder in the Midi' takes place in the small town of Agde, on the Languedoc coast not far from Beziers. Just beyond the town, the Canal du Midi joins the Bassin de Thau, one of the large lagoons in this part of the world. The train line runs between the sea …
Cecilia Peartree - woman of mystery 