Here's the thing.
Writing doesn't happen in a vacuum. It isn't some mystical lightning strike that appears only when the stars align, the coffee is perfect, and a violin plays softly in the background. Most of the time it happens while life is busy throwing laundry, bills, weird conversations, unexpected joys, bad news, good food, sore backs, anxious brains, and half-finished cups of tea at your head.
Stories come from all of it.
That's why this blog exists.
Yes, I'll be talking about writing. The messy middle of drafting. Characters who refuse to cooperate. The moments when every sentence feels like genius, followed immediately by the moments when every sentence deserves to be launched into the sun. The wins. The failures. The lessons learned the hard way.
But writing is only part of the conversation.
Because the person holding the pen matters.
How we think affects the stories we tell. How we sleep—or don't. How we care for our bodies. How we manage stress. The books we read. The places we wander. The people we meet, and the grief we carry. The joy we almost miss because we're too busy chasing the next deadline.
Every experience leaves fingerprints on the page.
Some days we'll talk about creativity. Other days it might be health, mindset, walking in the rain, finding inspiration in ordinary places, or why getting away from the keyboard is sometimes the best thing you can do for your writing.
Life feeds the work.
The work feeds life.
They're tangled together in ways that are impossible—and honestly unnecessary—to separate.
I'm not here because I've figured everything out. Far from it. I'm still learning. Still experimenting. Still getting things wrong often enough to keep my ego nicely deflated.
This space is where I get to think out loud.
Where I can pull back the curtain on the creative process, share what works, admit what doesn't, and maybe help someone else feel a little less alone in their own creative chaos.
If you're here because you love stories, welcome.
If you're here because you're curious about the strange machinery behind writing, welcome.
If you're here because you're trying to build a creative life that leaves room for being an actual human being—not just a word-producing machine—you've definitely found the right corner of the internet.
Thanks for stopping by.
Now let's see where this goes.
The Great Chapter Number Conspiracy...
AUGUST 2026
There are few debates in writing that have survived the centuries with quite the same stubbornness as the Oxford comma, the eternal "said" versus "exclaimed" argument, or whether prologues are literary appetizers or the narrative equivalent of making your guests stand in the hallway for twenty minutes.
Yet somehow, tucked quietly among these battlegrounds, lives another question that has consumed more coffee, more notebooks, and more collective brainpower than it probably deserves:
Should your chapters have numbers, titles, or both?
This is the sort of question that begins as an innocent thought and somehow ends with three writers passionately defending their position using examples from Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, and a fantasy novel nobody else has read.
Nobody enters the conversation intending to argue. Yet everyone leaves convinced they've been personally attacked.
The Number People insist simplicity is elegance. A chapter is Chapter One because it is, quite literally, the first chapter.
Why complicate matters?
Numbers are clean. They're unobtrusive. They don't telegraph what's coming next, and they don't tempt the author into writing something like Chapter Eight: Everything Goes Horribly, Spectacularly Wrong (Again). They believe chapter headings should behave like good stagehands: present, useful, and otherwise invisible.
The Title People, on the other hand, treat every chapter heading as an opportunity to flirt with the reader. A good title is a promise, a joke, a breadcrumb, or occasionally an outright lie.
They'll happily name a chapter Where the Crows Develop an Interest in Tax Fraud or Jerald Makes Another Decision That Future Jerald Will Regret, because if you're going to pause the story, why not make that pause entertaining?
Then there are the diplomatic souls who choose both.
They give us Chapter Twelve followed immediately by The Day Common Sense Took a Holiday, as though they're unwilling to commit to either philosophy. It's the literary equivalent of wearing both a belt and suspenders.
Is it necessary? Probably not. Does it work? Surprisingly often.
Here's the uncomfortable truth, though: readers care far less about this than writers do. Readers don't lie awake wondering whether your chapters should be numbered with Arabic numerals, Roman numerals, or interpreted through the phases of the moon. Readers care about one thing above all else: whether they want to keep turning the page.
If you've done your job well, you could label your chapters with IKEA product names, increasingly disappointed emojis, or the scientific names of mushrooms, and readers would barely notice. If you've failed to hook them, no chapter title in the world—not even one embossed in gold leaf and narrated by Morgan Freeman—will save the next page.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I should probably admit my bias.
I'm firmly in the Chapter Title camp.
Not because they're better. Not because they're more literary. Certainly not because there's a rule somewhere in the Great Writer's Handbook etched into a stone tablet.
I just love them.
A good chapter title is like the opening act warming up the crowd. It sets the mood, hints at the chaos to come, and occasionally misdirects the reader so completely that, two pages later, they mutter, "Oh... that's what it meant."
Some of my own favorites include:
ONWARDS TO THE EMERALD CITY OF SALT LAKE
BACK IN SUBURBAN HELL
SHITTIER PLANS
SKINHEADS TO THE RIGHT, ASSHATS TO THE LEFT
MEAT, AVOCADO, AND MAYHEM
Do they tell you exactly what's about to happen?
Not remotely.
Do they establish a tone before you've even read the first sentence?
Absolutely.
To me, that's the magic. A chapter title doesn't need to explain itself. It needs to whisper, Something interesting is about to happen. Buckle up, chum.
Sometimes it's dramatic. Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes it's just weird enough that the reader has to keep going to find out what on earth Meat, Avocado, and Mayhem has to do with anything.
JULY 2026
Living in New Zealand has given me the chance to experience traditions that weren't part of my childhood.
One of those is Matariki.
For anyone reading from elsewhere in the world, Matariki marks the rising of the Matariki star cluster (known internationally as the Pleiades) and signals the beginning of the Māori New Year. It's a time to remember those who have passed, celebrate the people around you, and look forward to the year ahead with intention. Reflection, gratitude, hope. Looking back so you know how to move forward.
As a writer, that's... pretty much the job description.
I spend an unreasonable amount of my life living inside other people's heads. Not literally—that would require either magic or several conversations with my therapist—but every novel asks me to become someone else for a while. To see the world through a different set of eyes.
And that inevitably leads to culture.
I'm British by birth. I live in New Zealand. I write speculative fiction. My stories take me to places that exist and places that don't. Some I've been lucky enough to visit. Others I've only explored through books, maps, research, and conversations. The worlds may be fictional, but they're always shaped by real people, real cultures, and real histories.
Done well, that's inspiration.
Done badly, it's tourism with dragons.
The older I get, the more I realise that culture isn't something you can sprinkle over a story like seasoning. It isn't there to make your world feel "exotic." It's the invisible framework that shapes how people think, celebrate, mourn, argue, love, and survive.
So when I write characters whose experiences aren't mine, I don't start by asking, How do I make them different?
I ask, How do I make them human?
That means doing the work.
Reading books by authors from those cultures. Listening to interviews. Learning the history, not just the highlights, but getting out of my comfort zone and asking. Understanding why traditions matter instead of simply borrowing them because they look interesting. Accepting that sometimes the answer is, "This isn't my story to tell."
It's not a limitation.
It's respect.
One of the joys of speculative fiction is that it lets us build new cultures inspired by many different influences without pretending they're direct copies of real ones. A fictional kingdom can carry echoes of Celtic storytelling, Polynesian navigation, West African oral traditions, Japanese craftsmanship, or Andean ideas about community, but those inspirations should come from understanding, not surface aesthetics.
Readers can tell the difference.
They might not be able to explain why one world feels authentic and another feels hollow, but they'll feel it. Because real cultures aren't collections of cool facts. They're living things. Messy. Contradictory, and constantly changing.
Just like people.
That's why Matariki resonates with me.
Not because it belongs to me—it doesn't—but because living in New Zealand has taught me to appreciate the value of pausing for reflection. Of remembering where you've come from before deciding where you're going next.
As writers, we ask readers to trust us with imaginary worlds.
The least we can do is approach the real world with curiosity, humility, and enough respect to know that every culture has stories worth listening to long before they're worth borrowing.
Maybe that's the lesson I'm taking into the next writing year.
Look up.
Look back.
Take a deep breath.
Then tell better stories. Hopefully, those next stories will resonate with your audience.
JUNE 2026
I had a plan.
It was a good plan.
For one glorious month, I was going to travel through Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. I was going to eat food I couldn't pronounce properly, pronounce words I could barely say, while drinking local wine, wandering ancient streets, getting pleasantly lost, meeting up with family I haven't seen in years while slowly roasting in 36 degree heat, and, for once, not spend every waking hour thinking about fictional people trying to kill each other.
The writing could wait. My brain had other ideas. Apparently, creativity doesn't understand annual leave.
I'd deliberately left my laptop at home. It was supposed to be liberating. No word counts. No deadlines, just the occasional e-mail. No guilt about not opening Wordpress "just for half an hour."
Instead, I found myself carrying around a ten-year-old phone that seemed personally offended every time I tried to type more than a paragraph. Every note became a battle between inspiration and outdated technology.
The technology lost.
Mostly.
What surprised me wasn't that ideas kept coming. Writers expect that. What surprised me was where they came from. It wasn't one dramatic moment standing on a cliff at sunset while orchestral music swelled in the background, or it could have been the rowdy crowd of English at the bar, because there is always rowdy English at the bar wherever you go.
It was walking through streets where buildings had stood for hundreds of years. Sitting in cafés where generations of strangers had probably done exactly the same thing—drinking coffee, watching the world wander past, wondering what came next.
History has weight, and especially in Europe; you can feel it.
Every stone seems to carry the memory of everyone who walked there before you. Every doorway hints at stories you'll never know. Every city is layered with lives stacked on top of one another like drafts of a novel that was never quite finished.
As a speculative fiction writer, that's irresistible.
Fantasy and science fiction often look forward, but they're built on the past. Every invented civilisation has roots somewhere. Every empire has echoes of real ones. Every myth, every conflict, every tradition starts with someone asking, "What if?"
Travelling reminded me that the world has been asking that question for a very long time.
Spain gave me impossible cathedrals that looked like they shouldn't exist but somehow do.
Portugal offered cities where colourful facades stood shoulder to shoulder with centuries of history, refusing to choose between old and new.
Morocco felt like stepping into layers of trade, craftsmanship, colour, sound, and stories that have crossed continents for generations.
None of those places handed me a plot, but they did hand me a chest infection. Who knew smoking at cafes was still a thing? Apparently not me. Anyway, enough about the smokey haze of cigarettes.
Now where were we. Oh yeah. That's not how inspiration works.
Instead, they gave me textures. The way afternoon light changes the colour of old stone. The smell of spices drifting through narrow streets. The sound of conversations in languages I couldn't understand but somehow still felt connected to. The ritual of sitting down with good food and absolutely nowhere else to be.
Those details find their way into stories eventually. They always do.
Sometimes I worry that if I'm not writing, I'm somehow falling behind. This trip reminded me that's nonsense.
Writing isn't just what happens when your fingers hit the keyboard. Writing happens while you're wandering unfamiliar streets. While you're people-watching from a café. While you're staring at architecture that has survived wars, weather, politics, and the passage of time. While you're laughing over dinner. While you're trying to capture an entire novel idea on a phone that's old enough to remember when apps were optional.
Not every part of writing looks like writing. Sometimes the job is simply paying attention.
Eventually, I came home, and guess what?
The laptop was exactly where I'd left it. My e-mail was full, yes, with rejections, but surprisingly with acceptances.
But my stories, however, had multiplied.
Apparently, they enjoyed the holiday even more than I did.
MAY 2026
People often ask where characters come from.
The honest answer? Everywhere.
A stranger's smile across a café. A conversation overheard in the supermarket. Someone's nervous habit of tapping their fingers. A childhood memory that refuses to fade. A scar. A laugh. A fear you've carried for years. They all become ingredients, mixed together until someone entirely new walks onto the page.
That's the magic of writing.
You don't copy people. You collect fragments of humanity and breathe life into them.
At first, they're strangers.
You know their name. Maybe where they live. You have a rough idea of what they want. But the more time you spend with them, the more they surprise you. They make choices you never planned. They refuse dialogue you've carefully written. They wander off in directions you never expected, and somehow, if you're paying attention, the story becomes better for it.
Some characters stay with you long after you've closed the laptop.
They become familiar, almost like family. You know how they'll react before they speak. You know what makes them laugh, what keeps them awake at night, and the one thing they're too afraid to admit, even to themselves.
It sounds strange if you've never written fiction.
But writers spend hundreds, sometimes thousands, of hours with these people. We celebrate their victories. We worry when they're in danger. We laugh at their terrible decisions while secretly understanding exactly why they made them.
Then comes the part no one really prepares you for.
Sometimes... they have to die.
Not because you dislike them.
Quite the opposite.
The hardest characters to lose are often the ones you've come to love the most.
Death in a story should never exist simply to shock the reader. It has to matter. It has to change the people left behind. It has to leave an empty chair at the table that everyone notices, even if no one says a word.
Writing those chapters isn't easy.
I've sat staring at a blinking cursor, knowing exactly what was about to happen and wishing there were another way. Wishing I could rewrite fate. Wishing I could let them live.
But stories, much like life, don't always offer the endings we'd choose.
Loss shapes us. It shapes the people who remain, and sometimes it shapes the reader too. The characters we remember aren't always the ones who survive. Often, they're the ones whose absence echoes through every chapter that follows.
That's why we create them with such care. Not because we know they'll live forever. But because, for a little while, they become real enough that saying goodbye hurts.
And perhaps that's the greatest compliment a writer can pay a character. If their loss breaks your heart just a little, then maybe they were alive all along.
Second Book Syndrome
APRIL 2026
Shit… writing a second book really is hard.
Before I published my debut novel Road Trip Z in 2019, I had a fairly neat set of publishing plans worked out. I mapped out release windows years in advance like I was running a very small, very fragile publishing empire of one. Book two would land in 2023, book three not long after, momentum would carry me forward neatly in a straight line.
And, if I’m honest, I was a bit overconfident about it. I’d cracked the big time—at least that’s how it felt. I’d published my first book, and it did fine. Sales were good, but nothing outrageous. I wasn’t about to retire on a yacht or anything. Still, in my head, it all looked like the start of something that would just keep moving.
It didn’t.
Writing the second book turned out to be exactly as difficult as people say it is—second album syndrome. I understood the idea of it in theory, but theory and lived experience are different beasts entirely.
After Road Trip Z came out, I also wasn’t prepared for how much space it would take up in my head. Reviews mattered—needed, even—but I never really had the reach or audience that makes them come in steadily. Still, I persisted. You have to. Even when it feels like you’re shouting into a fairly empty field.
By the time I reached 2023 and what was meant to be book two, I had multiple manuscripts on the go, all half-speaking to each other, none quite committing to being finished. Everything felt like it was in motion, but nothing was actually arriving.
Eventually, I got stuck in that strange creative holding pattern where you’re always writing but not really landing anything.
What pulled me out wasn’t forcing another big novel—it was short fiction. Smaller pieces, tighter turns, things I could actually finish. Somewhere in that process, the inspiration came back. A bit battered, maybe, but enough to feel like a second lease of life. Enough to realize there is another novel coming.
And this one… it’s darker. More twists, more blood, characters you’ll either love or hate—and sometimes both. You never quite know who’s safe, or who’s going to make it to the next chapter. Hell, even they don’t know.
What I’m trying to say is this: persist. Try something different. Pull yourself out from under that comfort blanket, even if it feels easier to stay there.
Because sometimes the thing you haven’t tried yet is exactly the thing that unlocks everything else. And you never really know—until you do it—what’s actually going to work.
MARCH 2026
There should be a medical term for the phenomenon where your brain refuses to solve a plot problem for three weeks... only to yell the answer at you at 3:00 a.m.
Not 2:47.
Not a civilized 7:30.
Three. In. The. Morning. Yip, you heard me!
Your brain waits until you're unconscious, barges into your dream like an over-caffeinated intern looking to step up, and screams:
"I FIGURED OUT WHO KILLED THE MAYOR!"
And now you have a choice.
Option A: Ignore it and gamble that you'll remember this earth-shattering revelation in the morning.
(You won't.)
Option B: Crawl out of bed like a Victorian ghost, trip over the cat, (I have a very fat cat), blind yourself with your phone screen, and type something that vaguely resembles English before collapsing back into bed.
The next morning, you open your Notes app expecting literary brilliance.
Instead, you find:
"She's allergic to Tuesdays."
"The baker is lying."
"Make the goose angrier."
"Blue door = emotional damage."
"DEAR ZEUS, NO CANDLES."
Past You has become an unreliable narrator.
The truly unfair part? Sometimes these sleep-deprived fever notes are exactly what the story needed. That ridiculous sentence about an angry goose?
It turns out the goose wasn't the point. It reminded you that your side character had no motivation. Somehow. Writer logic is held together with caffeine, vibes, and the occasional subconscious hallucination.
I've become convinced our brains spend the day pretending not to work while secretly holding a midnight board meeting.
Agenda:
Create anxiety.
Remember that embarrassing thing from 2009.
Fix Chapter 14. 16. 18. 32.
Refuse to elaborate.
It's the creative equivalent of IT telling you they've "restarted the server" while you were asleep.
So, fellow writers, I have to ask:
How many of your best ideas have arrived at an hour when decent people are asleep?
And more importantly...
What's the weirdest 3 a.m. note you've ever found on your phone that somehow turned into an actual story?