Neil's Notebook

Farewell Blogger. I have moved on. You can now find me here: www.neilthewriter.co.uk

The 26 Words exhibition – "exploring the DNA of language" – opened in London last week. Among the works on display was the piece ...

My main contribution to the gardening at home is to cut the grass and dig holes where I'm told to. But I enjoyed the ceramic flowers I f...

Where do I get my short story ideas from? Mainly I just make them up. But once in a while I'll find something like this, an item in my l...

Every year, when I take a summer holiday, the first items to go into my suitcase are always the same. I pack my notebook, a spare notebook, ...

Yesterday, I discovered that I am a highly successful novelist. It was quite a surprise. I’ve not managed to write a novel, never mind publi...

Trying to do anything creative or different is a risky business. You might end up looking stupid. Your efforts might fail in a way that make...

With the sudden death of my Mum last week, I nearly cancelled the event I'd planned for World Book Night on Tuesday. I wasn't sure ...

I was reading an interview with the author Terry Pratchett over lunch. Towards the end, he started talking about death – an event much on h...

I guess you might call this a 'found story'. I overheard a girl on the train, talking on the phone to a friend. I wrote down wha...

Now that my Limehouse story has been published (read it here ), I thought I'd set out some thoughts about where the idea came from and h...

One of my writing aims for this year is to enter more competitions. I'm off to a good start, placing second in a flash fiction challenge...

Vince Whatever happened to shameless self-publicity? I can't believe I've forgotten to post a link to this. At the back end o...

I thought I'd create a collage of some of the photos that I'm using to inspire my Limehouse project . Is this a "mood board...

Just before Christmas I took a trip to Limehouse, part of London’s old docklands. I’m writing about the area for a project called 26 miles. ...