What's your writing mood? Mine is a controlled frenzy.

Mrs Ruby says I'm an oxymoron. 

How do you create? 90% inspiration and 10% perspiration, or the other way around?

I like to write in a relaxed setting. I'm a Peacemaker – scented candle or incense, Buddha Bar on the music system. Pilates exercises performed with control and precision, establishing the inner core. Elsewhere in the house family rampage at a safe distance, out of earshot. Writing flows from the spirit. Characters talk aloud and their dialogue falls upon the keyboard. At least that's what I thought until I was invited onto The Undercover Soundtrack by Roz Morris. 

When I examined what had gone on during the writing of The Baptist I discovered Peacemaker isn't really my default mode. I'm a Moodmaker. John and Mary rampaged through the asylum and rural Ireland to the tune of controlled craziness. When Alice appeared on the scene things became frenzied and uncontrollable. Their lunatic love, however, took on soft romantic jazz and blues tones as they circled each other and moved in for the kill. 

Head on over to The Undercover Soundtrack, turn up the volume, read and listen to the full story of how Melody Gardot and Nick Cave guided me through the moral and murder maze of The Baptist. I ain't gonna lie to you, it gets weird ;-) P.S. There's an e-copy of The Baptist to be one for one lucky commenter.

Many thanks to Roz Morris for this eye-opening opportunity!

Note: no brothers, mental health patients, trainee doctors, obese tourists, degenerate aristocrats or car mechanics were actually harmed in the writing of The Baptist.

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Confession time - I'm a little bit Country

I used to play finger picking bluegrass guitar in an Old Time country band name of Big Stone. Guess which one is me? We only played songs by dead artists so you can imagine our excitement when Johnny Cash passed on. I was never a huge Country fan, to be honest, but I did make a pilgrimage to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville last year.
These days I stick to ballads. From a musical muse perspective, I follow the fantastic Declan O'Rourke and, of course, Nick Cave's great Murder Ballads. And what is a novel, if it isn't a ballad? It has a beginning, a challenge to face and an end. All things move towards their end, of that you can be sure.

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