Blackwater Lake Back from his idyllic life in Crete, Matthew is somewhat disinclined to spend time at his family home – with a house chock-full of junk and rubbish, his mother’s hoarding habit holds only negative memories. Inevitably, he can’t avoid it forever, but discovering his mother is dying, turns out to be only the…
Author: colingarrow
Paperback Writer – Making Books
While thousands of Indie authors get published via the eBook route, thousands more are venturing into the world of paperbacks. Over recent months I’ve been seeing more and more blog posts about one of the popular options – Createspace – so I thought it was time I found out a bit more… Createspace is an…
The Mangle Street Murders by MRC Kasasian
The Mangle Street Murders When March Middleton goes to live with her guardian, the ‘personal’ detective Sidney Grice, she is faced with two problems: firstly, how is she ever going to live in the same house with a man so annoying, so irritatingly contrary and so stuffed with self-importance that she can barely get a…
First Drafts and Other Hurricanes
Ernest Hemingway once said, “The first draft of everything is shit.” Maybe it is, but it also depends on what you term to be a First Draft. As my approach to writing has changed a bit over the years, I no longer write and edit as I go along, but instead, simply write until I…
Stand Up and Write!
Some years ago, I hosted a writing course with the above title. I forget why I worded it this way, since the course was certainly not about standing up to write, however, this post is about that very activity – writing standing up. Ernest Hemingway famously wrote standing up. Even though he apparently had a ‘tower workroom’ which…
Amelia Dyer – the Killer Character
Looking for a plot for Book 2 in my mid-range children’s series ‘The Christie McKinnon Adventures’, I happened on a bunch of Victorian villains. One that stood out from the others was Amelia Dyer – baby killer. At first glance, maybe she wasn’t ideal material for a children’s adventure, but I reckoned she’d be good…
Sequel Schmequal – What Should I Do With My Characters?
Finishing one novel is fine, but how easy (or difficult) is it to start the next one? And more to the point, should the novel stick to the same formula? Having just finished the second book in my ‘Maps of Time’ series, I’m now back to working on the second one in the ‘Christie McKinnon…
Please Release Me – Dates
A recent blog post from sci-fi/paranormal novelist Allan Krummenacker, highlighted his decision to postpone the release of his latest book, “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home”. Why did he do this? Simple – he had the good sense to realize that pushing the proverbial boat out and burning the two-ended candle just wasn’t going to…
‘Storm Ring’ by Stephen J Carter
Storm Ring Stephen J Carter’s “Storm Ring” is the 1st volume in the “Zero Point Light” Sci-Fi series. The story opens on the starship Arcturus 4 when the ship’s computer wakes up its human cargo. Rather unhelpfully, the initial scenes reminded me of ‘Alien’, but this feeling quickly passed as the story progressed. The six-strong…
Night Shift by Stephen King
Night Shift Though some of the short stories in Stephen King’s first collection were familiar to me, I’m amazed I haven’t read this book before. Some (like ‘Strawberry Spring’), were first published in the late Sixties, but most appeared between 1971 and 1978. Only four, including ‘Jerusalem’s Lot’ and ‘Quitters Inc’ were previously unpublished. While…
Colin Garrow 