Writer for Animation, Film, Television, Books, Comics and Audio
“Something followed me out of my dream. No, not some thing. Some one. Someone followed me out of my dream. He’s watching me now from the end of the bed. He’s called Scissors.” I’ve just finished a short story for the National Literacy Trust for their Premier League Reading Stars programme. Scissors is a creepy …
“Here’s the challenge, Niel: you’ve got a month to do the next draft of The Death of Goldilocks. Thirty three chapters in thirty days. Are you in?” This is the voice in my head, always challenging me, always taunting me, except when it’s singing songs I hate, or deleting important memories and replacing them with …
Tomorrow there’s a partial solar eclipse happening over Great Britain! It’s been about sixteen years since I witnessed the last one, but I remember it clearly. (You can see one of the grainy photos I took of it, above.) The oddest thing was the birds falling silent as the sky darkened, as if they were …
Stories can be slippery devils! Sometimes an early spark of an idea can shift, turn and evolve in ways you never expect. That’s how it was with my latest project, currently titled The Death of Goldilocks. It came to me during the winter of 09/10 when we had some very severe temperatures and heavy snowfall. …
Years have a funny way of creeping up on us, don’t they? We think we know exactly where they are then some time around August they hide behind our backs, jump out and whack us in the face with a fist full of December. BAM! The year’s out. Done and dusted. And all those ambitions …
This happened today!
A few people have asked me what I’m working on right now. It can seem like a long time between book releases for the readers (and the writer) and it might appear as if nothing is happening. You might imagine I’m spending the summer lazing about the garden, topping up my tan and sipping mojitos …
Since I became an author there are some questions that have come up again and again. They’re often to do with the writing process, how and when I write, where the ideas come from, how I got published, that sort of thing. But there’s one question that has nothing to do with creating books at …
It’s here at last! My second book is officially published today and it feel so much different to when my first book, Sorrowline, came out. Last year we marked the day with a trip to York and champagne in First Class – I even bought myself a ukulele! That was January last year. This time …