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It's happened before. Many times. When I'm feeling down, moping about in what Dorothea Brande called that 'slough of despond', there's only one tonic I can rely on to reinvigorate the creative juices, to fight off the shackles of despair and stop the old Muse from draping herself languidly over a metaphorical sofa like a pampered tart with a headache. The name of this miracle tonic? Stephen King. In tough times I've always turned to one of King's books. Non-fiction works are just as good as novels. On Writing always helps relight the fires. As does Danse Macabre . But anything from the opening passages of Carrie to the epic conclusion of The Dark Tower is usually enough to drag me from the pit of despairing writers and hoist me, breathless, onto safe ground. This latest bout of fear and self-loathing has been a pretty protracted affair (months rather than weeks or days), and even the surefire King cure-alls failed to work. But in the end, I found the pill ...

By any standards, being a writer is not a sane life-choice. It takes a monumental feat of perseverance and self-belief to achieve the goal of being published, usually over a long (sometimes considerably long) amount of time with no promise of success at the end of it, save of course for the personal satisfaction of having written and, hopefully, having been read. Whilst pursuing this crazy dream, the writer must also juggle the usual demands of a modern life: family, work, studies, and many other responsibilities; so finding the dedication to apply themselves in whatever limited free time they have to sit down in a room and write takes incredible self-discipline, especially when deep down we would really rather be relaxing, enjoying a Babycham or two, or, just for once, sleeping . But for those bitten with the writing bug the dream, and the will to succeed, is so strong that despite the madness of it all, we just have to do it. As Samuel Lover said, "When once the itch of literatu...

After a long wait, copies of my novella, The Hotel Galileo, have arrived and they are all shiny and lovely. I've been waiting for this moment for a very long time and now that it's finally here, it's ... better than I ever imagined. Flicking through a copy, it's hard to remember the hard work that went into the writing of it (three drafts and countless revisions/polishes). I just feel good about it. And I haven't felt good about things for a long while. The character of Barclay Heath, the detective in the story, has been with me for years, about fifteen years in fact, as long as I've been married. (In fact, my wife is fond of saying that there have always been three people in our marriage - me, her and Barclay Heath!) This latest incarnation just feels right now, and everything else before it was just figuring him out and finding the right story and the right universe to really bring him to life. Work continues on the next Barclay Heath mystery and I'm havin...