The Blog
The latest witterings
British Novels About Men’s Mental Health in Middle Age
Ask a British man of a certain age how he’s doing, and you’ll receive one of three answers: “fine,” “not too bad,” or “mustn’t grumble.”…
Continue reading →The Longest Anyone Ever Took to Write a Single Novel
Somewhere out there sits a writer who has spent longer on their manuscript than most marriages last. Not longer than a mobile phone contract. Longer than an actual human relationship. They will…
Continue reading →The Roads Not Taken (and Why the Other One Probably Led to a Cul-de-Sac)
Everyone keeps a private museum of the lives they never lived. Mine has an entire wing devoted to the version of me who stayed in the property business, drives something German and expensive, and…
Continue reading →Books Like A Man Called Ove
Every so often, a book comes along that persuades millions of readers to fall head over heels for a man they would usually cross the road to avoid in real life. Fredrik Backman managed it in…
Continue reading →Holidays Before easyJet (When a Fortnight in the Sun Meant Sleeping in a Tent)
There is a whole generation of British adults who genuinely believe a holiday has always meant tapping a phone, paying £34 to a Hungarian airline and standing in a queue at Luton at half four in…
Continue reading →How Long Does It Take To Write a Book?
You have time to write a book. You just have to be honest about it. I built the little calculator below so you can run your own numbers. Tell it how many words you can realistically write in a…
Continue reading →Do Authors Choose Their Own Book Titles?
I’m an indie author, so every decision relating to my novels is mine and mine alone. However, in the traditional publishing world, when an author signs a contract, they’re giving up…
Continue reading →Why Nostalgia Makes the Past Feel Better Than It Really Deserves
Somewhere in a loft in Surrey sits a cardboard box, and inside it lives 1983. There’s a Panini album three-quarters full, a copy of BMX Bandits on VHS, and the memory of a Saturday morning…
Continue reading →Books Like The Rosie Project
There’s a particular kind of novel that hands you a hero who cannot read a room to save his or her life. The Rosie Project is the gold standard. Don Tillman, a genetics professor who runs…
Continue reading →The 1990s Gadgets We Thought Would Change the World
Every decade reckons it has glimpsed the future. The nineties reckoned it harder than most, and did so while wearing a fleece and a pair of Global Hypercolour trousers that turned a damp shade…
Continue reading →How Many Drafts Does a Novel Really Go Through? (And Why the First One Belongs in a Drawer)
Readers tend to assume a novel arrives the way they find it: tidy, finished, sitting on the shelf looking rather pleased with itself. I wish. The version you buy is the well-behaved child…
Continue reading →The Real People Hiding Inside Famous Fictional Characters
Every author fields the same question sooner or later, usually from someone leaning in slightly as if requesting classified information: “Are your characters based on real people?”…
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