I’ve just returned from a great week’s holiday in France. As a teacher, I’m lucky enough to get the full six weeks in the Summer; flying away to somewhere that’s hot and isn’t your hometown is the perfect beginning. Over the final day of the jaunt, though, it struck me that holidays, rather then being […]
I’m currently revising what is officially the third draft of my first novel. In truth, because this is a work that is being completed during stolen hours at ridiculous o’clock, it’s probably a fifth or sixth draft. Anyway, here is the revised opening chapter as a taster while I pester a few agents! *** Chapter […]
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in square holes. The ones who see things differently. Steve Jobs There is a boy called Michael. Michael is willowy, pale; he walks with long, low strides, arms straight down by his sides as stiff rods of iron thrust down […]
I am the weekend. I stand, open-armed, at the close of your week, absorbing your joyful sobs whilst placing a glass of something much-needed in your hand. Come dawn, like a lover, I whisper sweet birdsong nothings in your ear, occasionally relinquishing to let you slip once more into reverie. I rouse you with a […]
It was me: I had killed you. I had turned it over and over again in my eight year-old head, useless thoughts like wet laundry flopping in the final throes of a drum. What if I hadn’t said this? What if I hadn’t done that? Why, dear God, did I ever join in with the […]
Like many, I seem susceptible to impromptu attacks of introspection from time to time. Last Saturday I had little excuse. I was taking an afternoon train into the beautiful city of Bath to meet old friends. These are the kind of friends that are like old sweaters you lose down the back of a wardrobe: […]
A grey-haired man, Harry, sits before the television in a modest home, one eye on his newspaper, the other on a tennis match unfolding before him. The sound of a key rattling in the lock of a front door is heard, and a woman, Jill, appears, carrying various carrier bags and sundries. Jill: Breathless. There’s […]
