When I started blogging about healthcare issues over a decade ago, my motivation was to shine a light on the failings I had witnessed in over a decade working for an NHS ambulance trust. I managed that and was grateful for the opportunities it gave me to raise the alarm Read more…
It’s been several months since I finished my novel. It feels like a lifetime, but I have little to show for it aside from the satisfaction of having written a whole 85,000-word metaphysical fantasy story that almost no one has read. By finished, I mean a third draft including feedback Read more…
It’s hard to know what to say on a day like today. My nephew Michael would have been 18. After spending the last year writing about him in a fictional sense, it’s difficult to come back to the reality of his absence. I prefer to imagine. I imagine I’d probably Read more…
It’s World Book Day. At least, I hope it is, or I should probably expect a concerned phone call from my kids’ school after they went in dressed as Alice in Wonderland and a Nazgul from Lord of the Rings. It’s also high time I wrote an update to my Read more…
I’ve just realised it’s been nearly two months since I blogged about my novel progress. It’s funny, over the weeks I’d thought of plenty of things to share about the experience so far (and honestly thought I had), but I suppose I was worried it would be a waste of Read more…
When I decided to plunge naively into attempted professional authordom, I had originally intended to write a weekly blog to report my progress. However, it is only now, at the end of week three that I’ve found the time and the energy for the second edition. It’s been an unexpectedly Read more…
It’s been a week since the kids went back to school and I’ve been able to resume my ambition to write a complete novel. It’s a running joke among writers that we are world-class procrastinators easily distracted by- ooh, squirrel! And have you seen this hilarious photo… What was I Read more…
Life. We’ve all got one. Until we haven’t. A succession of challenging life events has brought me to a tipping point. The last decade has seen the end of my ambulance career due to back injury, the death of both my parents and my 15-year-old nephew, and most recently the Read more…
This is my personal review of Elite Dangerous Odyssey, and I make no apologies that it is unambiguously positive. For me, Elite Dangerous has been revitalised and revolutionised by the addition of first-person gameplay to what was previously a vehicle-only experience, and I’ve had an absolute blast for the last Read more…
Mallory watched as the man died. He wasn’t as old as his haggard face looked, but his 37-year-old body had been broken by the ravages of their forsaken existence. Each gurgling breath was weaker, less perceptible than the last. His misshapen chest rose unevenly, fell, and then paused. She waited Read more…