I have eased off writing now. I’m redoing a short story I wrote years ago and making it into a full blown novel. It is completely different to anything I’ve endeavoured to do before and as such, is tremendously exciting. But I’m not writing that story to any schedule. That's because I need to catch up with myself, so to speak. Over the short period I have been writing I’ve tried a couple of different approaches towards it, but all in all, at my age, seventy-four, I think ten books since 2013, plus all of my poems, is not bad at all. By catching up I mean, doing more interviews like this one and marketing the novels I have already— out there. None of which is easy. We all love to write and as for the other stuff, well, someone else can do that. Right! I think that approach can work, however, as the writer you owe a responsibility to find the right person to do what you don't want to do--- and the right one is hard to find.

I was lucky to have a father who had an event-filled war! He came through all the battles in North Africa and Sicily, ending up in Italy when that country capitulated before Germany surrendered. He was promoted to the rank of Captain and put in charge of a field unit to interview captured Axis troops. At the end of the War in Europe, he was posted back to the UK to work in the War Department. In both those positions, he came across enough stories to fill my head with colourful antecedents. Sadly he died when I was still quite young and I doubt we covered a tenth, or more, of what he heard. I had better say that none of what he told me was ever classified as top-secret, but to me, over fifty years from those days when I started to write, they were the seeds of my writing life.

Not being able to write, but thankfully I have never suffered from it. If I had experienced 'writer's block,' the only thing I can think of to get past it, would be-- to write. Write anything. An article in a blog, a poem, a review, not necessarily on a book but something you may have purchased from Amazon. Write on your Facebook page asking for ideas. Does a friend need help with a project? Read a book then write a short critique for it, if a review is not possible. On Goodreads, there is a 'Word Association topic.’ The idea is someone writes a word and others follow on by writing a single word they associate with it. I do this first thing in the morning before I start my writing. It wakes up my brain.

I don't read reviews now. I used to read them, and I had bad reviews so, ergo, I read them. The one or two I did see I hated, they hurt. But there was nothing I could do other than see if there was any truth to what was said. At the end of the day, it's just a person's opinion,--- move on and forget them. I decided not to read any reviews.

Being distracted. For the last 5 years, or so, I have lived alone. The nights are quiet but by then my eyes are too tired to write. During the daytime my phone rings and I can't turn it off in case it's important. The doorbell rings with deliveries. I have a carer who does everything, but she is always distracting me. I say--"I bet Stephen King doesn't have all this to put up with," to which she replies-- "I bet he pays his help better than you do." I have no answer to that!

Read it over and over each night when you finish, then, when you write those two words The End, put it away for at least two weeks, then read it again—from start to finish. When you are satisfied you've done your very best work, send it to the most reliable proofreader you have found. Ask other writers for recommendations. It will cost money to have it proofread but it is the best money you can spend. If you can afford an editor then send a copy of the proofread manuscript to them before you ever think about having it published, or publish it yourself. I don't believe you need an agent, or a publisher to get started, but your book must be proofread. If you’re lucky enough to have a publisher who offers an in-house proofreader and editor—great, but for me—- I still send my manuscript off to be proofread before I submit it to my publisher.

Put yourself in the book. How would you react to the situation you have just written? Or, write some friends into your storyline, and use their mannerisms or habits. Try to think of places you have been to and what you have seen in your life and use your own experience to fill the plot line. I have always had a beginning. Perhaps, not the finalised beginning, but certainly a beginning I can work with. I think I must have been lucky because my mind won't stop there. I work the middle of the book from the beginning. I have only once had an ending to a novel when I started it. That way, I think, the end should come as much as a surprise to any reader if it did to me.

I have written ten books and my favourite is the one I never wrote.

I always have a storyline or storyboard. It keeps everything in the right chronological order. It keeps the names spelled correctly, and those correctly spelled names in the right places at the right time. The spelling of names is especially important if those names are foreign. A storyline/storyboard is similar to the same thing that's used when a serious crime has been committed in a film or in a tv show. The leading detective, you as the writer, pins photographs on a board and then looks for a connection to the crime. That's your role as the writer to connect the clues to what your characters have been doing, but not to show 'who did it' until you're ready.