I've
been asked to take part in a blog chain in which I have to answer
four questions:
- What am I working on?
I
always have several projects on the go. I like to keep my short story
submissions to magazines up-to-date. I also have a children's novel
which I'm submitting to various agents.
- How does my work differ from others of its genre?
In
my women's stories I hope to bring a new angle just by having a man's
outlook and sense of humour. My children's novel is an attempt to get
back to old-fashioned adventure stories.
- Why do I write what I do?
I
enjoy writing. It gives me the freedom to work for myself. Writing
for magazines gives you a relatively quick turnaround time on your
stories and the opportunity to try different themes – romance,
crime, twist-in-the-tail etc.
- How does my writing process work?
This
varies. Sometimes I just get an idea and work on that. On some
occasions my wife has given me a challenge to make a story out of
something she has seen. When the ideas dry up I have to revert to the
standard creative exercises of flow writing and mind mapping.
Thanks
to Wendy Clarke for inviting me to do this. Wendy is a prolific
writer for The People's Friend, Take a Break and Woman's Weekly.
Carrying
on the chain next Monday, January 6th will be my friend
Helen Ellwood:
Helen Ellwood was born in London in 1958. She was a keen writer from an early age, winning a school poetry competition aged ten.
Helen suffers from
a chronic neuromuscular disability which limits day to day life
severely. She uses voice recognition software to enable her to
write.
Over the last ten
years she has had two plays staged, been a member of the script
writing team for two BBC funded docudramas and has had two short
stories broadcast by the BBC. Helen is the co-author of Taranor, a
fantasy trilogy for young adults of all ages.
Her latest book,
an autobiographical account of her time spent on an uninhabited
desert island in the South Seas in the late 80's, is currently being
read by a literary agent.