Woohoo! Three pieces of flash fiction published in one month, my all time best! Today I have a new story published on Tim Sevenhuysen’s fantastic fiftywordstories.com, it’s called A True Story, and it is in fact based on an event in my childhood. Please have a read of my story, and check out the other great […]
Tag: Fiction
Flash Fiction March 2016 Part II- “The Poke”
This is just a quick night post to proudly announce that one of my flash fiction stories has been published by Richard Hearn at Paragraph Planet, a brilliant creative writing site that has published one 75-word story every day since 2008. I’m very pleased to have my story featured as the 27th March entry! Please […]
My New Flash Fiction site – Strippedlit500.com
My day job has just got a lot busier; I’m involved in business readiness for a large transformation IT project at work for the next few months. So what do I do? I create a new writing website! My timing seems atrocious, but I think under the surface I am becoming more confident in my […]
Flash Fiction March 2016 – “Wireless”
This is just a quick post to proudly announce that one of my 100-word stories has been published by John Xero at 101fiction.com. Please check the site out, now in its sixth year online, it has some fantastic flash fiction. My story’s title is “Wireless” and it is published in the March 2016 issue. The […]
8 Foods of Ulster featured in “And The Buntings Flew”
I recently read a great article in the Guardian Food in Books series by blogger Kate at The Little Library Cafe; – you can read the latest article here. Kate writes about the food that features in some of her favourite books, and she often recreates recipes for foods as described in such classics as To […]
Banshees, Birds and Synchronicity in the Creative Process
I try to ensure I always have the means of making a note close to hand; Evernote on my phone and tablet, a notebook and pen in my bag, a voice record option on my phone. Post-it note pads everywhere. You never know when a great idea will spring to mind! But sometimes circumstances prevent me […]
Robert Harris Goodreads Q&A January ’16
![Cesare Maccari [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/margaretmcgoverne.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/512px-maccari-cicero-1.jpg?resize=512%2C319&ssl=1)
Would an enormously clever and talented, but relatively humble orator like Cicero rise to the top echelons of government today, or as in the time of the Roman republic, would that require huge financial backing? Has much changed?
What I Read in 2015 and My 2016 Reading Challenge
Firstly, I’d like to belatedly wish my readers and fellow bloggers a very happy, healthy, successful and productive New Year! I read a great post today by Donna at a little bird tweets about reading lists for this year and last; I decided that I need a similar challenge for 2016, so here’s my list of what I did […]
My 2015 Writing Review (and plans for 2016!)
When I was younger, I heartily disliked New Year’s Eve; for my mother, it was a time of looking back and rehashing old tragedies, old regrets. She cried without fail, and to younger me this was painful and put a real pall over the end of the year. But I’ve learned that like Janus, the Roman […]
How to Read Kindle Books without a Kindle
This post sort-of follows on from my last one (Are ebooks changing the way we read and write novels?) With apologies to those tech- With apologies to those tech-savy types for whom this is all old hat, I had a surprising conversation recently with a colleague who was asking how my book will be (eventually) published; when […]
Are Ebooks changing the way we read and write novels?
As far back as I can recall, I’ve had an immoderate appetite for two things; sweets, and reading. One of my favourite childhood pastimes was to combine both; lying on my bed, or in the park, or lolling on the sofa with a large dog-eared paperback and a bag of American hard-gums, was my idea […]
Sowing the Seeds: What Being a Gardener Has Taught Me About Writing
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. (Robert Louis Stevenson) It’s not an original idea, just a homely little blog post, but I keep thinking about how becoming a gardener who can actually grow things is a useful metaphor for how I’m becoming a writer who […]
25,000 words…
“When I write a novel I’m writing about my own life; I’m writing a biography almost, always. And to make it look like a novel I either have a murder or a death at the end” (Beryl Bainbridge) That’s it, I’ve clocked up 25,900 words as at the end of last night, which is just […]
Novels That Explore Growing Up in Northern Ireland During The Troubles
I’m currently writing up chapter six of my novel, And The Buntings Flew, and its taking a long time; too long. I plan to end the chapter with the first major plot development, but I’m stuck on a descriptive section; something about what I was writing was bothering me, making progress slow. I’ve had to undertake quite a bit of research for this chapter, including remapping […]
It’s Been a While… News (And Micro Fiction Published!) Update
Dear Constant Reader, Firstly, apologies for this blog being a non-event recently; I’m only just recovering from a particularly long-winded chest infection during which writing of any form dwindled to nothing as my constant phlegmy cough precluded everything but itself. But I’m back in the saddle – I’m finishing off chapter 6 of And The […]
And it started with “And”
““And it stoned me”“(Van Morrison, 1970) The title of my novel in progress is And The Buntings Flew. It’s a title I agonised over for a long time, so I’m not surprised when some people ask me, why does a self-confessed Grammar Prig have as the first word in the title of her first book, such a […]
How Low Can You Go? Novels, Novellas and The Renaissance in Short and Micro Fiction
“It had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist!” (The Shrinking Man) I’m starting to flex my writing muscles now! As well as working on my novel, And The Buntings Flew, the past few months […]
My Name Is? Character and Place Names in Literary Fiction
I was introduced early on to the importance of names in literary fiction, being a young fan of Dickens – nearly all of Dickens’ character names feel relevant, even if we can’t place our feelings about some of them. Compeyson, Magwitch, Pumblechook, Orlick – these names are all from one novel, Great Expectations. Other memorable […]
And The Buntings Flew – Free excerpts from Chapter 1
I‘ve created a taster PDF which I’m quite pleased with; it contains the synopsis and selected excerpts from chapter 1 of And The Buntings Flew. Please do have a read and let me know what you think and if you would like to read more excerpts; more importantly, if you would buy the book! And The […]
And The Buntings Flew… on Pinterest
I was reading author J.F. Penn’s newsletter today (check out her excellent site by the way!) and discovered how she uses Pinterest to great effect by having boards for her upcoming novels pinned with pictures which provide tantalising hints to readers of where the stories will take them! Without further ado I headed over to Pinterest, and […]
