Category: Writing

    • Saturday, 30th May 2026

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      Greetings from the edge, A day late..? Yes, a dollar short..? Also yes. However; The weather persists, very hot. You know it’s hot when you go to pee and pass steam. I have been plugging away at my first novella, The Echo Man, chiselling away a word at a time. I remember reading that Michelangelo…

    • Step 12: Appeal directly to machine spirits.

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      Greetings from the edge, One of the peculiar side effects of working from the broom cupboard is that during winter, between my body heat and the NASA-like array of monitors and assorted electronic nonsense around me, it becomes wonderfully warm and cosy. In a heat wave, however, those exact same factors transform it into something…

    • Wednesday, 20th May 2026

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      Greetings from the edge, Quick update from here in the broom cupboard. I got an email the other day asking me to apply for a job opening at a local-ish library. It’s only part-time, so I’ll still have time to write, and with the commute I’ll probably even get more audiobook time out of it.…

    • The 5-Minute Idea Test: Is This Worth Writing?

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      Greetings from the edge, Every writer eventually gets asked the same question. Not the one about when you’re going to pay the bill, sir, but the other one: where do your ideas come from? There’s a well-worn trope about “the muse.” Stephen King famously describes his as a gruff, middle-aged man who smokes, drinks bourbon,…

    • Saturday, 9th May 2026

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      I’ve taken a short hiatus from writing proper for the last ten days or so, but I’m pleased to report that the wheels are turning again, and I knocked out a treatment and plot outline for my new short story, Rare, last night. It’s about a chef at a vegetarian restaurant who gets bitten during…

    • Everything You Need to Know About Writing (According to Star Wars)

      Greetings from the edge, It’s that time of year again. The good geeks gather, bathed in the glow of their extraordinarily expensive lightsaber replicas, to celebrate all things Star Wars. No matter your feelings on the prequels’… ambitious love story, or the sequels’ enthusiastic habit of resurrecting old villains like some kind of Force-powered game…

    • Tuesday 21st April 2026

      Greetings from the edge. Been digging through some old short fiction that has been mouldering in my lowest, darkest desk drawer, and, as it turns out, there is a very good reason I never came back to them.  I mean, I stand by the central ideas for some of them, but out of a dozen,…

    • Sunday 19th April 2026

      Greetings from the edge, It strikes me, dear reader, that I have been exceptionally lucky when it comes to books. I have never read a truly awful one. I’m not just saying that as a mediocre writer trying to defend his brethren, although I am doing that as well. I think every single thing ever…