The Marrakech Express – bring on the camels

Even writers need a holiday. With a certain regret at leaving a warm keyboard, especially at a time when my US agent is shopping my new novel (hopefully first of a series) ‘Old Habits Die Hard’ and I am getting interest from actors to come on board my proposed TV drama ‘The Forest’, I revisited [...]

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Marketing, HarperCollins, Authonomy and the sock puppets

I was having a good time on HarperCollins’s new peer review online slush pile, Authonomy. Writers upload chapters or whole books and the community of writers comment. Later, readers came on stream. My book, ‘Old Habits Die Hard’ rose to number 12 (first five actually get read by editors) and was virtually number one in [...]

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Vote for ‘Old Habits Die Hard’ on Authonomy

Would you all like to back my book on www.authonomy.com? It would be great if you did. You can comment on it and finds loads of other books to read and review. You have to register to do this but it’s simple. Go to this link.
So enjoy the exploits of Mike Delaney and Lucius Gynt [...]

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Take a deep breath

It’s time for a second wind. I’ve been somewhat diverted of late. Living in the country I spend a lot of time collecting logs from the Forest of Dean to chain saw into fuel for the fire – given the rising cost of oil. And, I’ve had to do what most of us are doing [...]

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Authonomy, YouWriteOn and others

I must have been inspired in some subconscious way by my attendance at the Winchester writers festival because I found myself doing something I have never done before – joining fairly high level writers groups online. But I reckon Authonomy (run by HarperCollins) and YouWriteOn (Arts Council) are probably at the top end of the [...]

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Discovering the video trailer

One positive thing about attending a writers conference was a few moments of inspiration. Or, it might be that I’m just catching up with others and possibly shrugging off the tidal waves of bad news about oil prices, possible recession, credit and other crunches, global warming and all the other debatable crises facing the planet.
I [...]

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Winchester Writers Conference – a virgin’s report

It was the first time that I had ever been to a writers conference. I hadn’t realised just how many writers there are out there. When you consider a high percentage of the 500 or so delegates at the Winchester conference would be trying to get their books published by an increasingly challenged and stretched [...]

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Naked Pierce Brosnan – why the interest?

It’s funny. I put up a post about a time many years ago when I co-wrote a Celtic rock musical for the Edinburgh Festival that starred a naked (and young) Pierce Brosnan. Since then, the post has been by far the most popular on this blog – despite all the other stuff happening on the [...]

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Film option for thriller novelist – press coverage

Film producer Matthew Raymond is to acquire film rights to novelist David Callinan’s as yet unpublished suspense thriller ‘Confess Confess’ (booktrade.info).

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Whatever happened to all the wild young children?

I am watching a TV programme about ‘Wind In The Willows’, the all-time classic children’s tale of the river bank with some of the greatest quotes of all time. Kenneth Grahame based his mythical story on the Thames side village of Cookham, where he lived as a child.
The programme made the point that as a [...]

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