An Author in the Classroom

What you do need in order to work with primary age children is an open mind, a curious nature and be able to pass on your love of writing, and stories to children. You need kindness and an understanding that all children bring a different quality

‘Stop Thinking and Just Do It!’

Isn’t it interesting how words echo back at us down the decades? They seem to come from a random source, triggered by some thought process we are unaware of.

The Big Ship Sailed

This is a playground song from my childhood and it came to mind this week as we approach the end of September. I remember a life changing event on the last day of September a decade ago.

Seeding a Story on a Blank Page

I am about to start a new book and the blank page is daunting. There is a long way to go from a thought or an idea, maybe a theme or a character, to finished novel. I use a three-step process to build a novel from story seeds

School’s Out For Summer!

It is the end of the school year and my work as Author in the Classroom has ended until September. So, back to the day job of being an Author and guess what I am writing about? Quite by coincidence, my next publication will be a Non-Fiction book for writers called: How to be an Author in the Classroom

Writing Scenes

How being a filmmaker influences my novel writing. Whether we read or watch or even listen to our stories, they all start with words on a page.

Morning Pages and My Creative Process

Morning Pages is part of a process and not a product: I write without fear because no one will ever read it, except myself, sometime in the future when I might rummage around my hard drive for the nuggets of gold. It is a place where stories emerge, plot twists are resolved and ideas explored.

Hold The Fronted Adverbials

The fear of getting it wrong is prevalent amongst children in many of the schools I work in. It stifles creativity, curiosity and engagement. And disengaged children don’t learn very much at all.

My 2020 Writing Life

Some may say that 2020 has been rubbish and in some ways it has. I have been able to explore new skills and new audiences for my work.

Do You Use Real Locations in Your Fiction?

Here at Bookends, we recently did a Vodcast about asking questions. Gerald Hornsby asked me random questions from my workbook: 100 Questions for Fiction Writers. (Coming Soon) One of them was; Do you use real locations or do you make them up? And it made me think of the use of location in our books. Are they real