General thoughts

Imposter syndrome and the question "Am I good enough?" sit in the same place for me. They show up at the same time. They feel the same in my body. They arrive every time I publish and every time I start something new.

I decided at Christmas that I wanted to write full time, give up the main job. Retire. At first I didn't frame it as writing. I framed it as retiring. That is what I told people I was doing and being able to retire ten years early is a wonderful thing. Those that know me will tell you I wasn't going to slow down, rest and retiring didn't mean what it should. That will come later I'm sure but not right now.

Rugby is a world built on values. You hear them often — tradition, loyalty, honour, respect — but you only truly understand them when you see them lived. So when I began writing Die Trying, I faced a question that mattered deeply to me: How do you write crime fiction inside a world built on honour — without breaking the very values that make that world special?

Being welcomed into that world, I realised something important. Rugby is hard — physically, emotionally, historically. But it is also gentle. It is built on values that are lived, not spoken: tradition, loyalty, honour, respect. I saw those values in the people I met. I felt them in the way I was welcomed. And I carried them with me when I sat down to write Die Trying.

There’s a point in every writer’s journey where you stop waiting for permission and start stepping into the identity you’ve been building. For me, that moment arrived somewhere between releasing Don’t Die For Me, Argentina, and publishing Thai Die: How a Year in Thailand Turned into a Thriller Novel from the new The Story Behind My Stories series and preparing the pre‑order for Die Trying. That is when I found the courage to leave my job and a 34 year career in IT to be an Au

Today feels like one of those days where showing up matters, not because everything is tidy, but because it isn’t.

Retirement is supposed to come with a sense of closure. A handshake. A thank you. A moment of recognition for the years you’ve poured into a business, the clients you’ve supported, the problems you’ve solved, and the growth you’ve driven. But sometimes life doesn’t hand you the neat ending you deserve.

A new series called The Story Behind My Stories. It sits alongside my crime fiction, but it isn’t fiction at all. It’s the real-life thread that runs beneath the books: the places I’ve lived, the work I’ve done, the people I’ve met and the moments that quietly shaped the stories long before I ever wrote them down.

I’m in the final few days of this Crete stretch, and as usual, the end creeps up faster than I expect. One minute I’m settling into a routine, the next I’m counting backwards from three and trying to work out how much I can realistically get done before we start the long drive home.

And then there’s the other world — the one I built quietly, in the early mornings and late evenings, in notebooks, in half‑formed ideas held in my head. The world of stories. The world of DI Matthew Goodwin and Penny Stock. The world where I get to decide the pace, the stakes, the silence.

On Instagram, TikTok, and Threads, there’s a constant stream of posts urging people to “support indie authors,” “drop your books below,” or “share your links so I can boost you.” It sounds wonderful. It looks supportive. It feels like a chance to be seen. Except… most of the time, nothing happens.

There are moments when life feels like it’s handing you a metaphor with a bow on it. Last Friday, somewhere between Dijon and the Italian border, we had one of those moments. We’d pumped up a flat tyre the night before, hoping it would magically behave itself for the long drive. It didn’t. Of course it didn’t.

One of the constants in my writing life is that real experiences are fundamental in my fiction. Sometimes it’s a location I know well. Sometimes it’s a conversation I once had, or a character trait borrowed from someone I met years ago. It’s never a direct lift, and it’s never the whole story. But on The Story Behind My Stories, there isn’t that same layer of distance. When I talk about what inspired a scene or why a character behaves the way they do, I’m talking about the re

People often assume writers know the ending from the moment they begin. As if the story arrives fully formed, waiting to be typed up in a neat, linear line from Chapter One to The End. But that’s not how it works. Not for me, and not for most writers I know.

And when I write, whether it’s crime fiction, travel‑infused adventure, or the behind‑the‑scenes stories that shaped them, those places come back to life. They remind me who I was, what I felt and why the story mattered in the first place.

Lately, my writing life has stopped behaving like tidy shelves labelled “fiction” and “non‑fiction”. Instead, everything seems to be talking to each other — ideas crossing over, themes echoing, one project nudging another awake. And honestly, I’m enjoying the chaos.

a good review is worth its weight in gold. Not because it feeds an ego or ticks a box, but because it represents something far more meaningful—a reader who connected with the story I poured my heart into.

The last two weeks have been a lesson I didn’t expect to learn this year, how to stop. I went into surgery knowing recovery would take time, but I underestimated just how much my body—and especially my head—would insist on complete stillness.

So yes, the fervour around KU and AI is real. But my response is simple: I will keep writing from the raw, unfiltered truth of my own experience. Because that is the one thing AI can never replicate.

Thai Die is a strong start to my series, and visibility matters. Getting it into the hands of readers is the ultimate goal.