Here’s a third extract from People of the Forest, the new novel I am writing. Meet Len and Samir, a couple of Trackers, law and order officers charged with keeping an eye out for people’s movements, especially criminals and dissidents.… Read more
… and what about the girl?
If you read my last post, you will know a lot of the writing on my new novel has been done in the forest. Should it rain while I’m out walking, and that seems likely as the weather has changed for the worse, I can always shelter under one of the arches of the funicular (see above) to write.… Read more
The birth of a new novel
As I reached the end of the draft of my latest novel, Stories People Tell, I was concerned that no idea for a new book sprang to mind. Normally I have to put a brake on the new ideas that jostle to be heard as the current book nears completion.… Read more
When real-life settings meet fiction
One of my delights in writing Stories People Tell has been discovering how I can embed my story in real-life places and how that juxtaposition of the real and the imaginary adds power and presence to the story. Within the limits of my knowledge of the places used, I have tried to respect the confines of the contexts chosen.… Read more
Climactic finish to Stories People Tell
I have just finished the first draft of my eleventh novel, The Stories People Tell. A hundred and twenty four thousand words written in two and a half months. Details of all my novels can be found here.
Right up to the very last chapter (the one hundredth), I had no idea how the story would finish.… Read more
A new novel
For some time, I have been struggling to put a damper on a new novel which was clamouring for my attention, but Sunday, two weeks ago, I gave in. Whole scenes were running through my mind demanding to be written. So temporarily abandoning Forget Me Not which was nearing completion, I began a new novel with the working title, Stories People Tell (tentative cover above). … Read more
Reading at Payot
I found it hard to choose what to read at Payot. My allotted reading time was only three minutes. I thought of reading the beginning of In Search of Lost Girls when the ageing author is beset with troubles, not the least of which is one of his characters giving him a hard time.… Read more