Not only do I have an article in the July issue of Writing Magazine, which the editor attributed to ‘womag expert Patsy Collins’, my blog for writers has also been heavily quoted in this article in Press Gazette.

It’s said there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but I’d rather be known for my actual fiction writing than the process of creating it (or not!). If you’ve read and enjoyed any of my short stories or novels, please help spread the word! If you’ve not read any yet, you can find lots of them here. You may like to start with a free one, such as this mini mystery, or this little collection of short stories.

No, we’re not on another trip, and I haven’t run away from home. The office fitter (Simon) is back. You can glimpse his white van in the photo and he has two sugars in his tea, so you know he’s the real deal! Hopefully Sharps will finally get it right, and send the worktop we ordered, so Simon can finish the job.

The kettle, teapot and tea bags are always on board. I brought in milk and a cup from indoors (it’s bigger than the van mugs), so if I don’t get any work done, I’ll need to get creative with my excuses.

When writing, it’s important to choose the right point of view (POV) from which to tell the story. That’s something I’m currently trying to decide on for book 5 in my Little Mallow cosy mystery series. Yes, I know I’m supposed to be writing book 4, and I am – but with a series you have to plan ahead.

Here’s an illustration of what I mean by POV, and how picking the wrong one can spoil a story. Gary and I are currently on Islay. It’s our first visit, and we enjoy travelling on ferries, so you can imagine how excited we were seeing this view from the mobile writing retreat – our campervan called R’ten.

The story just then would have been the same from R’ten’s POV.

Gary and I then went to explore the ship (the Isle of Islay), have a yummy cooked breakfast on board and enjoy the scenery. It was interesting for us, and included details I’ll probably eventually use in fiction.

R’ten might have guessed what we were doing, but she didn’t know, wasn’t able to join in and all she could see the whole time, were the bow doors inches from her nose. That wouldn’t have made a great story, would it?

I don’t tend to get up really early, unless there’s a good reason, such as taking a sunrise shot of the lighthouse on the Mull of Galloway.

That was quite a few weeks ago (we’ve been so busy exploring, photographing and writing that I’ve found it hard to keep up with blogging). If I’d done it today it would have been much easier, thanks to it now getting light later, plus the clocks going back. I don’t think we’d have had such good weather though.

We’ve slept our thousandth and first night in the ‘mobile writing retreat’ along the Ayrshire coast. Those nights have been spent in England, Scotland (and many Scottish islands) Wales, both northern and souther Ireland, and France.

I’ve not kept a record of precisely what has been written in the van, as opposed to home. It’s probably not over 1,000 individual stories, but the figure will be in the hundreds. Large parts of some of my novels were also written in the van, usually parked up in the location that part of the story was set. When Arnold from my Little Mallow series went to France, I of course went too, just in case he forgot any of the important details!

Of course I don’t just write, there’s also lots of exploring and photography – which in turn inspired my romance Leave Nothing But Footprints, which involves two photographers and a campervan.

Here’s a selection of images taken on our trips. 

I was interviewed on Soundart radio by my friend and regular presenter Anne Rainbow – talking about my cosy crime series and all kinds of writing related stuff. If you missed it, you can listen here.

I’ll be on Soundart Radio on Monday morning (10 – 12), talking to my friend Anne Rainbow about different aspects of writing including my cosy mystery series, travel, and probably other things too. There will also be a selection of songs which we like and feel tie in with my work, or our lives and writing in general.

Anne has a Facebook group associated with her show. If you’d like to join that you can post questions for her to ask me live on air (eeek!) You can find out about her other shows there. Her guests include artists of all descriptions.

The photo is of us when we ran a residential workshop together a *few* years ago.