My Blog

After hours of wrestling with sentences and chasing plot twists, I throw in the towel and decide to get some fresh air and enjoy an autumn walk.
I’m red-green colour blind, but even I can appreciate the crazy shades of autumn leaves without needing to label them as red, orange, or green. Showers of golden yellow leaves are no problem.
The sky looks a bit moody, but there are no rain clouds. No need for wellies. The crisp scent of leaves hits me as soon as I step outside.
The hedges are still stuffed full of bright red rosehips and blackberries, and a few prickles catch on my coat, telling me to slow down. Plenty of leaves on the footpath, but they’re soft, no crunching.
Overhead, a flock of starlings are doing a better job of teamwork than my characters can manage at the moment. They’re not bothered about plot holes either.
But as I walk, even my inner critic starts to enjoy himself. Tangled thoughts begin to unravel. There’s only a gentle sigh of a breeze, like a long exhalation. A gentle brain massage.
The bark of a muntjac deer makes me smile. Perhaps he’s courting. Walking by the lake, a couple of swans float by with all the time in the world. Reminding me to take things slow, let ideas come when they’re ready, and the plot will look after itself.
Sometimes, all it takes is a walk in the autumn countryside to remind me that stories, like leaves, drift down in their own time—no need to chase them too hard.