Author of Creative Fiction Writing, Books and Stories
Incredibly proud of my eldest son today, who has just released his fifth album aged just 20 years old. He’s a musical storyteller, and goes all wild west with this one. If you’re looking for music to write your Western-themed novel to, try this one …
“The brightest and best of you,” says Mrs Holloway, clapping her hands with palms flat and fingers pointing upwards, so that each clap is a prayer of thanks. And so begins the Annual Parade…
In which impetuous Mab Thatcher ignores everyone’s advice about being the new priest’s first confession in Blackwood, and lands the village in a whole heap of trouble…
There would be nobody I knew. None of my friends were going. Not even an enemy. In a pocket on the side of my rucksack was a tiny amber bottle of Rescue Remedy my brother had bought for me last week. I wondered if I could get it out and take a few drops without anyone on the bus seeing me but didn’t have the nerve. It made me smile a little; I didn’t have the nerve to take the potion to reduce my nervousness. Stupid.
In which Jo receives a mysterious photo from her friend and has no idea what it is…
In which the derelict farmhouse that sparked my historical fantasy, ‘Foxfires’, on a wintery walk many years ago suddenly appears online for sale, and I spend the day wishing it was mine, all mine!
The jars of pickle were kept at the back of the cellar. Of course. They wouldn’t be conveniently positioned at the bottom of the stairs. That would be far too easy. I’d already heard the jokes about the ghost. The one nobody ever saw, but everyone had heard…
We do not know why the king went into the cave. Was he hiding? Seeking solitude? Was he meeting a lover? Or an envoy of his neighbour to negotiate a transfer of power? Was he fed up of being a king? I once asked my nursemaid and she told me it was better not to know. I disagreed with her. It’s always better to know…
His moustache wriggled like a caterpillar when he laughed. Florence hated it. She hated the moustache, she hated the high waistband of his tweed trousers, the way George cleared his throat all the time – huh-hummm. The protruding mole by his ear, the smell of stale pipe tobacco, the way he kept his fingernails so long that they cut into the skin of her arm now as he gripped her. She shook her arm, but he held it all the tighter. And while his mouth smiled, she saw anger in his eyes…
When I’m writing a larger piece of work, one of the fun parts is the conjuring of odd snippets to add to the history or background of the story. Sometimes these snippets end up in the book and sometimes they initiate a complete change of direction…
Jo Danilo | Writer 