May I begin by thanking the new readers who clicked through and read all seven episodes of Flight? Last week my blog hits were at an all time high since I initially began blogging at MorehouseSongs five formats and six years ago. MANY people were kind enough to email me at the conclusion of Episode Seven. Some enjoyed the elusive ending and others were upset not knowing how it ended. Most, however, wanted more. More 50 word episodes; easily read in a scant minute of spare time.

At noon today I finished roughing them out and ...Read More Here


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“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
Frederick Douglass

So today is International Children’s Book Day.

Ten or more years ago, and in a former life, I made educational programmes – many of them focussing on literacy – for young children. I loved writing scripts and songs and stories, and working with marvellous animators to bring picture books to life. Whilst making ‘Rat-a-tat-tat’, I immersed myself in everything from Julia Donaldson’s The Gruffalo to Jill Murphy’s books and to Quentin Blake’s illustrations.

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It's been a while since my last post but I've been quiet for a reason. After experiencing my first full rejection of Delve, I've been working on a major re-edit of the manuscript taking into account the feedback from said agent. And in doing so I've now transformed what was a steady 127,000 word manuscript into a much faster, pacier manuscript coming in at just under 95,000 words.

So how did I go about it and what did I learn?

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Aparently, there's a "rule" that you shouldn't start a sentence with however, which is as clearly nonsense as the one which says you shouldn't start a sentence with but. As I was unpicking in the context of that bizarre stuff that gets peddled about not using was, this is typical of the rubbish that gets spouted by those who teach rules not by what's actually going on, but by spotting "signals" which are a possible symptom of something not-right, not the cause of it. For a start, there are plenty of times when starting a sentence with 'however' is entirely, formally correct.

However conscientiously you keep them, rules shouldn't be rules but tools, or possibly guidelines.

However, that doesn't mean you don't have to know what those tools/guidelines are.

are both wholly correct by any grammatical measure you care to apply - and I'd argue that the title of this post is, too. Next comes the one the rule-bound get antsy about, with a little more reason:

I want to go to the fair. However long it takes me to get there. I shall ride the helter-skelter as soon as I arrive.

There are two reasons for suggesting that this sentence should be re-cast.

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The seventh and final 50 word episode of Flight is posted today. A heartfelt thanks to everyone who shared the journey with me this week. For those folks who may have missed an episode or are just seeing this for the first time you may start from the beginning right here. Enjoy.

Flight Episode VII The Finale
My running shot echoes back. We dash into a coppice as...Read More Here


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You may go back to the first episode here. Enjoy.

Flight - Episode VI
…claws rake across my belly. Entrails drag the ground as they nip heels to keep me running, rolling, twitching until
...Read More Here

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Flight – Episode V
Carrying her two miles tires me to exhaustion. She’s in shock and needs to stay warm. I cover her with dry sphagnum. Jennifer rasps in her sleep as ...Read More Here

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I enjoyed reading the Lewisham Library Crime Reading Group's choice for March. It's a shame I missed the discussion because the book raised issues worth talking about. The meetings are lively, and this is a thought-povoking book about the random killing of a family in a remote Kansas farmhouse.

Having recently read James M. Cain's 1934 novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice the group were familiar with depression-era drifters and the notion that chance encounters could lead to mayhem. You could argue that the murder committed by that story's anti-hero was as much a crime of passion as a act perpetrated for material gain. In the case of In Cold Blood, however, the motive, one might say, was purer : in 1959 a pair of ex jail-birds follow a tip-off about a wealthy landowner who keeps a safe in his house. But the safe doesn't exist. Much of the drifting after the crime is motivated by the wish to evade capture. Capote's detailed journalistic style is ideally suited to telling the tale, switching at first between victims and criminals and later gruesomely fascinating in its descriptions of life on Death Row


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It's not often that an off-west end theatre could be called smart, at least not the ones I usually attend. 'Efficient', yes, 'welcoming', usually, but 'smart verging-on-glamorous' is definitely unusual.

Given the location, perhaps it's not so surprising. A three- minutewalk from Warren Street tube station, it lies on the other side of Euston Road, in a newish area of high-rise offices called Regent's Place. It's not far, either, from Regent's Park tube.

I sipped a cider in the sparky wine bar among a crowd of fashionable young office-workers, with fashionably loud voices. The two sitting next to me, though, were actresses, evidenced by their gossip about auditions. It's usual for supporters to turn up on press night, so I wasn't suprised. I just hoped they wouldn't try to orchestrate a standing-ovation at the end of the play. (They did)


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The river masked the blood scent but the gash on her thigh is infected from the jagged glass. Everything those bastards touch is gangrenous within...Read More

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