Me, it seems. My thanks to Vicky Bottrill for the questions. In another section of today's Ham and High, there's a snippet about our forthcoming Gaslit Vices event. Apparently, according to the reporter, A Gentle Axe was written by some guy called Wilson. Well, apart from getting my name wrong, the piece is factually correct in almost every detail.

There's also been another writer's life video, this time by my Writeword pal, Nik Perring. Nik says you should blame me if his turns out boring. I hardly think that's fair!

I thought I invented a new word the other night.

Read Full Post

Me, it seems. My thanks to Vicky Bottrill for the questions. In another section of today's Ham and High, there's a snippet about our forthcoming Gaslit Vices event. Apparently, according to the reporter, A Gentle Axe was written by some guy called Wilson. Well, apart from getting my name wrong, the piece is factually correct in almost every detail.

There's also been another writer's life video, this time by my Writeword pal, Nik Perring. Nik says you should blame me if his turns out boring. I hardly think that's fair!

I thought I invented a new word the other night.

Read Full Post

Whole worlds appear to be converging. The book is halfway done, & I’ve reached the place where the modern world setting flows into an alternative reality. Well, it was originally set underground, so it could be just about anywhere anyway – this world or any other. What this basically means is that I’m further along than I thought. All I need to do is write about four completely new chapters & the rest is more or less all rework.


Read Full Post

Supermum Lawyer Writes Debut Novel - shrieks the headline. And there's my photo grinning inanely, a copy of Damaged Goods clutched to my heart.
I sigh.
Most mothers are delighted to find time to juggle work and kids but supermum, Helen Black, wrote her habulous new novel...
I sigh.
I look around the train wreck I laughingly call home. The twins were up til 4am projectile vomiting with a force and intensity of which Linda Blair would be proud.
Qulits, carpets and curtains are splattered. The only things not covered in the contents of my childrens stomachs are the bowls I left seide their beds 'in case of emergency'.
I sip a cup of hot water ( we've run out of tea bags ) and wonder if other parents let their children play football in their PJs. In the living room.
Having scored a hat trick Twin 1 bounds towards me. He's clearly recovered and waves his get out of jail free card - a letter from the school nurse prohibiting the return of pupils to lessons within 24 hours of the last 'episode'.
The phone rings. It's my publicist, Kesh.
'The post want an interview,' she says.
'Great.'
'This morning,' she adds.
I survey the devestation. 'Great.'
I turn to the kids and solemly tell them that if they help me clear up they can eat ANYTHING they want for breakfast. Naturally they're fluent in the internationally recognised language of junk food and begin to take down the goal posts.
'Chuck everything in the didning room,'I bark.
And with the flexibility of autistics they fling anything that is not nailed down. Lego starships, dirty socks, a music stand, all hurtle through the air.
With similar accuarcy I throw myself in a (cold) shower.
The kids demand their reward.
I proffer a packet of raspberry crunch cookies and wonder if counts as one of the five a day.
Twin 2 shakes her head. 'Fluffernutter sandwiches.'
For the uninitiated thisis the food of kings. The King, in fact, as Elvis would not have lived as long as he did if he'd discovered these babies.
Plastic bread ( what else ) smothered in peanut butter and topped with a liberal amount of marshmallows.
As the journalist and photographer arrive my children scurry to their room, fists clamped around their coronary inducing prize.
'So tell me, Helen,' asks the nice lady from the newspaper, 'how did you get to be such a supermum?'

Two of the very few poems I've written as an adult are sonnets. They're not good (none of my poetry is, and I know how much work it would be to make it better) but in working on them I discovered something I hadn't known about how writing happens. When you're writing anything creative, you have, by definition, to put words in an order they've never been put in before. But our sense of what words go well next to each other is mainly based on sense, on logic, on combinations of words we've heard before, and so getting beyond that, to wherever truly new things come from, is hard to do.

One of the most interesting 'how to' books I've ever read about writing isn't about writing at all...

Read Full Post

Back to the grindstone today. That’s the trouble with having a day off in the middle of my working week – it makes going back deeply confusing. And it’s as if I’ve never been away – we’re still in meeting muddle and I am juggling minutes, bids and yet more meetings with increasingly desperate intensity. I really have no idea what’s supposed to be happening and I’m not convinced anyone else does either. Sigh. Even those who might – if I shine a light in their eyes – have some inkling of what’s going on have fled to the hills. Ah well. We struggle on ...

Read Full Post

'Happy New Year.'
I don't answer. The beaming presenter is calling out to her listeners, not me.
I've been asked to go on the radio to discuss the new book and read a piece. I'm so excited I trip over a cable snaking its way across the studio. The presenter gives me a look that would freeze medusa - but then I have just probably broken a piece of equipment worth thousands.
'Have I got a treat for you,' she chirps. 'A brand new novel that's gritty, gritty, gritty.'
I take a deep breath and try to put on the mammoth headphones.They slip down under my jaw but I'm not about to complain.
'This is gritty stuff. Gritty, gritty, gritty so don't read it at bedtime.'
I relax. At least she loves the book.
'And I don't know about you guys but can't wait to hear from the author right after this tune.'
I smile as she hits one of the buttons on the bank to her right. This is going to be great. No doubt she'll have some penetrating questions and we can discuss the story's themes.
'Listen, love,' she pushes away her mike. 'I haven't read it.'
'Ah,' I keep my rictus smile intact.
She sniffs. 'Not my cup of tea to be honest.'
As the music fades we are live on air.
'So, Helen,' she trills, 'tell us all about your book.'
'It's a thriller.' I gulp down my panic. 'About a lawyer who's client...'
'I bet,' she interupts. 'It's gritty, gritty, gritty.'
'Yes,' I say. 'Gritty, gritty, gritty.'

I simply could not believe it when I woke up this morning with yet another cold! What is going on? I had my flu jab like all good asthmatics should and yet, here we are, two weeks into January and I am full of cold! Anyway at least it didn't rear its ugly head until today because on Saturday, we went to meet the latest addition to the family. He is just teeny - with the most unruly mop of almost-black hair you can imagine, and the darkest eyes which have clearly not yet adjusted to the harsh bright light outside the warm dark comfort of his mother's womb! I really cannot temember First Grandson or Grand-daughter being that little, but I suppose they must have been. Grand-daughter went from being the baby of the family to every inch the big sister in one leap! She even looked so much more grown up than when we saw her just after Christmas!


Read Full Post

A double Thorn in the Flesh delight today! First of all, I popped into Godalming Museum where the launch will be held at the end of February, and met the utterly delightful Diane, who helped me plan the evening, fill out the form and generally mopped my fevered brow. Which needed a fair amount of mopping, I can tell you, after yesterday's traumas. Anyway, it's all sorted and all I have to do is turn up and bring some books to sell. Or as near as anyway ...

Read Full Post

Harper Collins sent me away for a week to help me write. It was the last act of desperate people. Chris, my editor, asked me where I wanted to go.

“LA,” I told him.

He blinked. “I was thinking more like Cornwall, or perhaps Torquay.”

“I find the locale very inspiring. The palm trees bring something out in me.”

“The palm trees are all fifty feet high. No one looks at them.”

Read Full Post