I’m also writing a kind of folk horror/gothic middle grade novel called The Hollows. Different vibe from a page turner adventure but nice and creepy. It’s set around where I live, so it’s quite good to turn the quiet countryside of Cheshire into a folk horror nightmare! Obviously, the kids win!
I wrote a middle grade fantasy about two years ago. I was trying to write something fast paced with world building and a central character boys could relate to. The first in a series. My old agent sent it out but no bites. Spent a couple of weeks redrafting and I think it actually might be decent!
Planned to do some writing this weekend. Instead, I drove to Derbyshire. Bought a dog. Named him Benji.
I’m writing a book about climate change. The main character - a 16 year old boy - reads books set in the future, ones that imagine an impossible or changed or different future, ones where humanity still exists. I have him reading Dune, A Canticle for Leibowitz - any other suggestions?
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Gaps
I wrote a book a few months ago called Vanishing Point (it was originally called Black Tarn Gap). It's a dystopian novel about a young man losing his freedom to a totalitarian regime, becoming a gap, vanishing. I've just been editing/re-reading my children's novel Yrtneon. Yrtneon is a book I…
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Short Story Collection
I have a collection of short stories that explores what happens when people are consumed by guilt or destructive desires. I was brought up Roman Catholic by the way. Whether they are dealing with affairs, deep-seated trauma, or life in a bizarre dystopia, the characters face…
Larissa at Mirny
My next collection of poetry, Shapeshifters, is going to be published in 2027. Here's a strange poem from the collection that used to be very different. It's about a diamond mine in Russian and, I think, a honey trap involving spies. Larissa at Mirny On the outskirts of Mirny you…
Far Shore Call
Ages ago I wrote a book called Far Shore Call. I sent it to a few agents but it didn't grab them. Shame, I still think it's a really good, fast paced book that is both a fantasy but also a little bit sneakily literary. I even started writing its sequel, The Silver Tower. The novel…
Ark Noon
When was 2007? Nearly twenty years ago. Jesus, that's a long time. In 2007, I bought some school exercise books from WH Smith and I hand wrote a novel called Ark Noon. I wanted to write my own Riddley Walker but without the complexity of distorted language. Just a story of a flooded…
I just changed the title of two of my unpublished novels - Goldy is now Nothing Gold, and Black Tarn Gap is now A Vanishing Point. So there you go!
Black Tarn Gap Chapter 5
I'm toying with a new title for this novel. Maybe just 'Gap'. Not like the clothes shop. Or maybe 'The Gaps'. I still can't find the focus of time to really dive into this and give it a fourth edit. I'm not sure if it needs it or whether it's where it should be. This…
On Waking
You wake and know that you stayed up all night waiting for phone calls. You wake and you remember that you dreamt you are a phone call. You wake and you ring off the hook. You wake and you believe you are a dog. You wake and you believe you are Laika in Sputnik flying towards oblivion.…
Ampersand
Years ago, I wrote some poems on scraps of paper on the bus from Huyton to Warrington. I wrote more while working in a soul-crushing office job. Over a couple of years I edited them into a collection. I was reading a fair whack of Geoffrey Hill, TS Eliot, Hope Mirrlees, Tom Raworth and…
Baltic Fleet
My dad left school really young and started working on the docks in Liverpool at a rice mill called Heap's. I think he was maybe 15. He was lifting huge sacks of rice with a docker's hook. His workmates were all older, seasoned rum drinkers. He told me once he became an expert rum…
That sounds like an excellent plan!
Yrtneon – 2 Chapters
In these chapters of Yrtneon, Gid becomes worried about his sister, Stacey, after he finds her trying to cut their dog's tail and behaving just really strangely. This is the point of transition from our world into the 'other' world, the point where the novel moves from a kind…
I got married yesterday! Woop!
I asked AI for advice based on my last 3 novels failing to sell or raise a sniff of interest. Gave it the synopsis for a novel I’m writing and a rough plot for a detective novel. AI’s advice was that a career writing literary stuff was unsustainable and I should write the detective novel!Cheers AI!
Is it meant to be a piss take? Or is this reality now?
Black Tarn Gap – Chapter 17
There are many betrayals in Black Tarn Gap and Callan learns to cope with them with a numb acceptance. I worry sometimes I've invested too much of a sense of defeat in Callan, that I've tried to portray him as understanding the futility of standing against a system but…
God’s Work
Here's a story about sacrifice and choices. I'm pretty sure it was inspired by The Lottery by Shirley Jackson but I was also reading a bit of grim dark at the time so it pushes more into fantasy. GOD’S WORK The hills were behind him and the river ahead of him. Here, where the river at…
An Atlas of Imagined Places
A few years ago, I had an idea to write a poetry collection where all the poems formed a narrative. Not exactly a new idea. I've always liked maps and imagined worlds, so I thought why not write a collection of connected poems about an imagined world (not so different…
Two Poems
Years ago (I think maybe 2007) I wrote a poem about cormorants. Years later I edited and edited and edited that poem until it became a different poem. Here's the first one, The Cormorants, and its mutated/improved/evolved/damaged echo. First draft The Cormorants They are being called in…
Porcupine 77
Here's a strange story about love and betrayal. It's probably inspired by the writing of George Saunders, Barthelme too. It's a pretty sad story and I suppose in a way it's a dystopian story. I'm sorry about what I've done to Brown Bear 15's life. PORCUPINE 77 I tell you, the minute…
Conan Doyle - that guy was trash!