THE FAMILY You are what you do, Stephen Fry says. We are verbs or nouns: a doing thing or a thing. We are all doers. Me, I write, when I am not doing other things, like fixing bloody AGAs for example. You build, look after others, provide a service, give your support, your time. Me? I write. Why? I can’t not do it, it’s in me, from me, by me. It’s what I do. It’s why we are here tonight, I say conceitedly. It’s what YOU can do, because everyone can write. You write ever

A momentous day indeed as a crate of boxes (on a pallet indeed!) of The Family and even more boxes of The Father arrives at GlenanCross. They'll stay in the stone byre for the meantime, I just hope the rain doesn't come (the roof leaks). They strike a handsome pose on the stone floor where they'll stay until they head out into the world of literature with my blessing (I hope they are enjoyed). I must say it is gratifying to see your work in print. Thanks to McNidder and Grace

A great day at Edinburgh Book Festival, then to some old Edinburgh pubs of course (as you do), where some great luminaries imbibed: Milnes Bar, Sandy Bells, etc (Hamish Henderson /Christopher Grieve etc etc), into the Cafe Royal just to show class (great toilets!), then to The Lauriston on the way home, great!

To London, to wallow in Orwell, bask in Beckett, hangout like Hemingway. Book four Killing Father is in my head but it needs fleshing out, outlining, plotting, structuring. Where book four will take Rooney has still to be established. I know what is going to happen, but I don’t know how or where it will happen; but, as in book three, it needs to be gripping and it must be a departure for Sean and Jackie, something radical, different. So I’m off to London for some inspiration

In August 2016, the Publishing Association said it needed a 'clear plan and timetable to provide certainty'. It said one in four publishers surveyed said that securing a speedy exit from the European Union to increase business certainty was the most important step the UK should take in its negotiations to leave the EU. I wonder what it is saying now! Is Brexit a crime, what is its plot, who is the villain? What about a plot by a supranational body conspiring to break up union

Just had to share the first paragraph of the first chapter of Shadowplay: "Out of the gathering swirls of mist roars the hot black monster, screeching and belching its acrid bilious smoke, a fetor of cordite stench. Thunder and cinders, coal man and boilerman, black cast iron and white-hot friction, rattling on the roadway of steel and olden oak as dewdrops sizzle on the flanks. Foxes slink to lairs. Fawn flit and flee. Hawks in the yews turn and stare." Now that is descripti

https://theresbeenamurder.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/october-2014-up-and-coming-crime-author-of-the-month-with-tom-odgen-keenan

I write because I just love doing it. For me, it’s not like work, I’ve done that! Not that I don’t plant myself in front of my computer each day and try hard to produce something worthwhile. It is pleasurable, it is fun, and it is bloody hard and infuriating a lot of the time, but most of the time it is enriching and satisfying. I have written just about all of my life: text books, novels, short stories, plays, songs or poems. I write because I just love putting words togethe

​Got a back molar, a wisdom tooth I think, out. A periodontal problem, so Mr Ali the dentist said. “Get it out, it is too toxic to remain in your head.” This was to be a metaphor for my writing: ‘Get it out, it is too toxic to remain in your head’. This was an eventful day in the life of this aspiring crime writer. ​It started eventless with a trip on the Glasgow underground from West Street to Partick. I had been in Glasgow for a few reasons; one, to get my tooth out; two, t

A bit overawed by that microphone!