-
Should you start your novel with a fight?
Should you start your novel with a fight? It’s a good idea in one sense. I read a lot of opening chapters by beginner writers…
-
How we used to write: Part one
Who remembers this? (The featured image for this post is an old Interzone rejection letter.) I’ve been clearing out my study following my retirement from…
-
Jack Wedderburn and the Manatees
It’s been over ten years since I wrote Dream London. Someone asked me about this scene last weekend, the one where Jack Wedderburn gets raped…
-
Reflections on 37 Years of Teaching and Retirement
This summer I’m retiring as a teacher after 37 years. As my wife points out, I’m only retiring from teaching, I will still be employed…
-
What is Copilot trying to Hide?
The Atlantic has a tool that allows authors to check if their books appear on LibGen; the pirated-books database that Meta used to train AI.…
-
Stevie Wonder
Last weekend I saw Stevie Wonder at the Co-op live arena in Manchester. A fantastic gig at no doubt the worst venue I’ve ever been…
-
AI Made me Redundant
Yesterday, a student asked me to help him with a program he was writing in his own time. It was an impressive project, but it…
-
Great Man Theory
Thomas Carlyle stated that “The History of the world is but the Biography of great men.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory Most 19th Century composers said that Beethoven was…
-
Under Siege
There are a lot of reports floating around on Social Media about Microsoft using customer data from Word and Excel to train its AI models.…
-
Why You Should Write Down Everything: The Power of GTD
“Have you really included walk the dog on your list?” he asked.
-
All Change!
You might notice that my websites are changing. There are a number of reasons for this, but the big one is I’ve been forced into…










