Home

 

 

 

I am published by Diamond Books, an indie, whose focus, determination and passion is to introduce new crime fiction and new voices to the marketplace.

Why I do it.
I love telling stories. For a long time I worked as an actor –  film, tv, radio and theatre. It tested, exhilarated, excited and terrified me all at the same time. I played, depending on size – mine and the part’s – policemen, villains, best friends and any other character I was offered that I thought would be interesting and fun. Sometimes even second/third/fourth director’s choice but who cares? An actor’s ego is a thing of endless change and amenability: at least, mine was.

I loved the social side of it all, the challenge and, on rare occasions, the praise. Then I stopped enjoying it and lost confidence.  I  moved to production and writing, still storytelling. I had written poems and stories since I was 12 but never really made them public, They were about simple emotional reactions and this is what still interests me; people, what drives them to do things, the strength of the human spirit.  I wrote scripts and screenplays and found I could do it and, to my surprise, sell them.

Having been an actor, though, helped hone dialogue and structure. Once I had laid the foundations of the story, the ongoing development would be collaborative and more sociable than sitting on my own, trying to create story perfection.These little bursts of paranoia, struggle, criticism, debate and, finally, acceptance, broke up my screenwriter seclusion.

I had thought many times of writing a novel but was too frightened to start the lonely and long journey. Until, at last I found a spark of courage, took a deep breath breath and wrote the first words of the first sentence of the first book. Now there were only another seventy thousand or so to go. Siena began as an idea for a film but it felt more suited to be a story in novel form. Single Cell and Timeslip begin as novels but all three have film potential. So I will adapt to screenplay when I have time and perhaps a little financial interest to stimulate creativity.

 

I write in a shed in the garden, a wonderful space that calms, encourages and empowers when words are distant or make no sense.