I am launching my new novel at Parisot Library in France this Saturday, 16 November 10.30am (in case you are in the vicinity). I will be talking about my various strategies for getting from 0 to 90,000 words, which, in the case of this novel involved salt lakes in the Camargue, chapels in the Pyrenees,…
Category: Writing
Starting to write: Old and new beginnings
My new novel, Love’s Knife, a medieval murder mystery, was published last month. I started writing it 10 years ago during a month-long writing residency in the Pyrenees. It’s been a long time brewing. I just came across a series of blogposts from those weeks of having the initial idea for the novel and am…
Beyond the Writer’s Block
I used to think writer’s block was a nonsense, until my publisher went into liquidation and the COVID 19 pandemic disrupted my usual sense of momentum and planning for a couple of years. I went through a looo-oong period of writer’s block. I had written and published five historical novels and a lot of other…
Library Love
Hurroo! Hurrah! Very excited that my mum has just bought me a stay at Gladstone’s Library for my Christmas present. Just over the England/Wales border, Gladstone’s is the UK’s only residential library. I will be attending an event on deaf history. A character in my new novel is deaf – so I will value discussing…
Planning a Novel 3: Sleuths Galore
I’ve been looking at other novelists’ sleuths – medieval or otherwise – as part of my current work on a series of medieval murder mysteries. The novel I am writing features a Catalan female troubadour and is set in 11thcentury Toulouse. Other sleuths I’ve been studying include Ellis Peter’s Cadfael, Donna Leon’s Brunetti, Lee Child’s…
Medieval novel playlist
I’m currently undertaking NanoWriMo November – aiming to write 50,000 words of my new novel about a female troubadour (or trobairitz). NanoWriMo asked for a playlist for my novel so here it is: The working title for my novel, A Morsel of Love’s Bread, is taken from a line in the troubadour poem, ‘Ab la dolchor…
Rambling vine
I am a guest on Alison Morton’s writing blog today, talking about how living in France inspires and affects my writing. ‘I fell in love with the pace of village life, which gives me focus to write.’ ‘My writing is inspired by material culture—objects in museums, archaeology, illustrated manuscripts—and by sensory experiences of places.’ ‘I…
Text is material
‘For all writing, you need to be nosy.’ ‘To me, text is material in the same way as stone or paint are.’ ‘A pen is like a prosthetic for me. It’s like a visual artist needing a sketchpad always to hand, or a sound artist needing to record on their phone.’ ‘The first thing with…
Writing on performance art workshop
Gresol Art in Girona and La Bonne in Barcelona are collaborating to present a new performance and performance art workshop by Esther Ferrer as part of Intangible Environments. The performance is on 26 October 2019 at La Bonne. The workshop takes place 27-31 October 2019. I am contributing a session on writing about performance. I last engaged…
The Garden of Earthly Delights
I am starting an artist’s residency next week at Matadero in Madrid as part of the Microhabitable project, co-organised with Serpentine Galleries and INLAND. I’m intending to explore human and non-human entanglements through twitter fiction and a publication. I will build on my previous published and installed texts – Meanda, The Water Age, Ink Tourettes. I’m interested to…
