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Life from the Heart My very first novel, outlined in a 4-page frenzy one night in 1989, while a student working for IBM in Germany. Completed it the following year and then, me being me, spent another few years tweaking it. LOL. My Director of Studies hated it, my elder sister loved it - which was so unusual I thought a unicorn had landed. |
Love & Death A collection of short stories, from 1993 onwards. My Name is Sapphire was written in relation to my psychotherapy studies - after escaping someone who just had the psycho part. London Fling was a runner up in the London Short Story Competition, in the 1990's. The original title was Room 814. Crane Island is a dystopian world's end murder story. Ania's Song is a fairytale of rescue, written for an OCD girlfriend who once tried to take my shirt off so she could iron it. Dark Water is cosmic, Happy Christmas one of my favourites - not going to spoil either by saying more. As for the Gift, sometimes it's hard to say goodbye, especially when we don't want to go. Dar |
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Dozy Wayster How many of you writers out there got told to get a real job or that you're wasting your time? Back in 1993, I was certainly feeling that pressure. Rather than get annoyed I flipped it into something positive and created the character of Dozy Wayster - village lazybones, who also happens to be the luckiest man on Earth. Unfortunately for him, the universe needs balance so he is also ugly, with breath to peel wallpaper, still living with his parents and his mum's concrete cooking. While every casino in the land has banned him, the casino of the gods has taken an interest in him. As a target for assassination, for a bet, and the Mighty God of Righteous Doom has just accepted the challenge. |
Screenplays Being a visual writer, have drafted a TV series screenplay version of Nuclear, with episode one called: Fireball. |
Welcome
My characters would be upset, probably angry to discover they are not deemed real.
They have hopes, dreams, ambitions and desires. Sometimes they're scared. Sometimes lost and don't know what to do. But always they pick themselves back up, with a drive and urge that keeps them going. Keeps them fighting against the terrible situations they get put in, as does their hope for the greater possibilities. Sometimes they don't make it. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they deserve to die. What ever their outcome, their impact on the story remains and they live on in those whose lives they touch.
Would I like to be one of my characters? No. If I was I wouldn't be the writer, with knowledge of their futures and of them - except for the secrets they keep from me. Part of the joy is when characters present possibilities or directions of travel had not thought of. Am not into micro management so if a character presents a new option, generally I run with it. Or rather they do. I don't run. I'm firmly parked in a cafe, surrounded by people I don't engage with yet enjoy their presence - sometimes catching the odd snippet of conversation or glimpse of characters that are perfect for someone in the book. Make no mistake, writers are the original vampires - immortal too, through our work. Or at least the known greats are.
Whether they make us laugh, cry, ponder or quiver, stories are part of being human. Part of our shared dreaming, our education and wondering of things we don't yet know. How many others, over the millions of years of our evolutionary existence, have stood gazing at the stars and wondering what's really out there? It's both humbling and exciting to live in an era when we are sending craft towards other stars. It is also quite concerning to live in an era where business greed and military ambition is fuelling the AI race, at a speed none of them have the foresight or understanding to control. The concept of Skynet in the Terminator films quite possibly nailed it rather too well. Just hope it has a Robocop end for those responsible.
"You're fired!"
Only Human Saga
Set in England in 2045, the saga was inspired by the 2016 signing for nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset - originally for £25 billion, now closer to £48 billion and they still aren't finished. In 2025 do we learn? With strong winds and hot summers now our new norm do we invest in green systems to use this? Seems not. We instead pour £billions into more nuclear reactors, even though we will also need to pay £trillions to store the radioactive waste for 100,000+ years (not a typo). As Julia's world falls apart she runs away - determined to get those who took Jake. She doesn't know how, she just knows she has to. Jake would do the same for her. When we meet Julia, she has no idea about sister Fusion or any of this. She is just young, innocently feeling her love for Jake grow and looking forward to another day together. That was Friday.
By Saturday they will be worlds apart, hunted by death.
AI was in the mix from day one, in this case starring Fusion in a catsuit, on a mission to take over the world. Current AI is getting closer to her abilities, which is both topical and frightening.
For the main protagonist, wanted someone unlikely - not a James Bond or a Jack Reacher. Chose a 15 year old teenage girl, Julia - vulnerable and troubled by daily life. She lives with her dad, her mother in prison for domestic violence. Like every troubled teen, there needs to be an escape and for Julia that comes with her best friend, Jake - someone she's known since she was two. Imagine the impact if Jake, her source of happiness and escape, is taken from her. He is.
Alone on dark streets she is found by a recruiter from Faith, a militant group who also want to fight back. From there, she gets embroiled in a journey that changes her life in ways she could never have imagined. But she won't give up. Not even if she has to kill. Not even if such killing includes her own mother.