Welcome to my site.
I am a self-employed writer, which means I’m working for an idiot who doesn’t pay me enough – but the holidays are great.
Ex many occupations, from the respectable ‘career ladder’ to disreputable “somebody’s- got-to-do-it”. All a good way of seeing someone else’s point-of-view. Best job, apart from writing, was dispatch-riding on a motorcycle in the ’70s, though I’ve also enjoyed teaching, librarianship, counselling and helping to run a community centre. Worst job—you really don’t want to know, but it was in a processed food manufacturer’s factory—put me off bacon, sausages and quiches for a long time, and made me look at pet food in a new way.
Sometimes I’ve looked respectable in a suit, other times a bit more wild and woolly (though still stylish) as a biker. It’s strange how differently people treat you, depending on what you’re wearing. A suit means I’m sometimes addressed as ‘sir’, but in motorcycle leathers I’m always referred to as ‘mate.’
In America
Rumours that I’m a Christmas superhero may well be true, though it was a salutary reminder of the passing of time to realise that I was aged enough, and sufficiently portly and trustworthy to play the role.
I’ve been writing since I was eight when I penned a story about a desert island and attempted to compile a dictionary—which made me realise quite how many words there are. I’ve written for magazines under a variety of pen names, ghostwritten a couple of biographies and had a column in a local newspaper.
I used to concentrate on non-fiction of an informative, how-to instructional nature, as I’m a firm believer in the dissemination of knowledge to enable people to do things for themselves. Knowledge is power, and in these troubled times of economic downturn and increased intrusion into our lives by government agencies, it’s vital to know how to get through. My fictional stories also show people coping and finding ways to survive.
I returned to creative writing in 2013, since penning 45 titles, including short stories, novellas, poetry and song lyrics. I initially published these on Smashwords and Amazon, but in 2019 I suspended these accounts and went over to Draft2Digital.
In 2015, I began writing a series of crime novels featuring a Cornish CID officer, Detective Chief Inspector Neil Kettle. I completed the fifth story in 2018 and will be self-publishing Book 1, Who Kills A Nudist? in the summer of 2019.
I’m based in a Celtic nation, the county of Cornwall or Kernow. I’ve been here for twenty-five years, and have lived all over the country, as well as abroad—in France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and the USA.
Almost like the Mediterranean
If you’re a writer looking for a supportive online community of like minds, I recommend The Colony, which is to be found on Litopia, a website established by literary agent Peter Cox of Redhammer Management.