Piano Revisited Looking back through this blog I see that in Part 33 from February 2023, I noted, “…something on my bucket list is to play the piano for the public in a railway station. We have pianos in stations here for anyone to sit down at and entertain the public. I thought doing a … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 171
One Hundred Thousand Words A milestone has been reached in this blog series. After publishing I always cut and paste a copy of my latest post into a word document as another backup. That word document containing all the posts from Inside the Fiction Factory to date, now amounts to a little over a hundred … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 170
Croatia I took time out to head over to Croatia, staying in a small place called Mlini. It’s a beautiful place on the coast and a half hour boat ride from Dubrovnik, which was my main reason for the trip. The television series Game of Thrones used Dubrovnik as the main filming location for King’s … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 158
In Between The Gaps I was lucky enough to receive an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this new novel by T.L. Dyer. These ARC’s feature towards the end of the writing process, shortly before the novel is due for publication. They act as a final sanity-check for the author before the public at large can … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 157
2024 It’s been an odd year. I worked on a couple of novels and blogged a good deal and by the end of November I took a break from putting words down on the page. The publisher I was with shut up shop and the rights to The Kill Chain reverted back to me so … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 132
St Andrews I decided to take in part of the East Coast of Scotland and opted to begin in St Andrews before heading down the coast and around what is known here as the East Neuk. I visited St Andrews on countless occasions, but always look forward to it. There is nothing to compare with … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 131
500 Subscribers When I logged onto WordPress this morning, a popup appeared alerting me to the fact five hundred people have now subscribed to this blog. I didn’t imagine making that milestone and I’m so grateful to everyone who has taken the time to have these random posts delivered to their in-box. Thank you. This … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 129
Writing Update October 2024 Ove the last couple of months I’ve been catching up on my blogging. There was a bit of a backlog, and given the number of places I visit, it’s been a challenge keeping my blog up to date. This push to document what I’ve been up to has meant that little … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 128
Sherlock Holmes I took time out to go and see the statue of Sherlock Holmes in Picardy Place, Edinburgh. This is in tribute to the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was born close to this spot on the 22nd May 1859. I think it’s a fitting tribute, as a writer, not to have a … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 122
One Hundred Having reached a hundred posts in this series, I thought I would put down some thoughts to mark this milestone. It’s not my intention to give you history lessons. All I’m doing is outlining a couple of the basic facts as background to the places I visit as you can easily google them … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 100
The Fiction Factory 