Thoughts and words

Inspiration from the past: interesting people.

Mata Hari was a professional dancer and mistress who became a spy for France during World War I. Suspected of being a double agent, she was executed in 1917. However, mystery continues to surround Mata Hari's life, her alleged German connections and her betrayal of France. In many ways she... Read more →

Inspiration from the past: outrageous people

I am often asked where I get ideas from. "You must be very imaginative," people say. Well, not really. Most of my ideas come from real life, that is - real situations, real conversations (often overheard conversations) and real people - past or present. For example, meet Cora Pearl (nee... Read more →

The importance of theme.

The theme of a novel is the heart of the story and will have a universal human appeal. Your theme must not only appeal to the reader, it should animate and inspire you if you are to spend so much time working with it. Examples of themes in my own... Read more →

Be inspired! Crush the inner critic that tells you you are not good enough!

Do you often hear a voice in your ear telling you that writing for you is a waste of time? Do you tell yourself you are a fraud, that your writing ambitions are futile? After all, look at all those rejection slips you have received from agents. Surely these slips... Read more →

Catharsis Rocks!

Catharsis is a Greek word. It means cleansing. Writing a novel, a diary or poetry may sometimes be inspired by the need to cleanse the mind of experiences. I understand this to mean that the act of writing is the means by which the writer can make sense of, and... Read more →

July 2017 - Return to the Schoenbuch Forest 4

The first photo above shows the entrance to the cemetery in the centre of Herrenberg. It contains the graves of several soldiers who are known to have been with Viktor Wagner when he died. His death and the ensuing mystery inspired my book. On the last day of my stay... Read more →

July 2017 - Return to the Schoenbuch Forest 3

This description of Joerg Eisenmann's garden was inspired by a garden I used to pass every day while living in Herrenberg between 1997 and 2000. The garden has changed a bit but I guess the people who lived there 20 years ago are still living there. The two pictures below... Read more →

July 2017 - Return to the Schoenbuch Forest - Herrenberg and the church

Herrenberg is the gateway to The Schoenbuch Forest. The author lived here between 1996 and 2000. He began work on the novel in 2001 but the thoughts behind the book had been churning away for some time before that. There is also no question that a sort of homesickness for... Read more →

Truth can be better than fiction! Lights over Bellano, the Pietro Maso case and accidental bombing

Sometimes, things happen in life that makes you think: What the hell? How on earth did that happen? It was such an incident that inspired me to write the book "Lights over Bellano." The "thing that happened" in this instance was the case of Pietro Maso. In 1991, and in... Read more →

Nostalgia 4: favourite novels that deal with nostalgia

There are many novels dealing with the theme of nostalgia. What are your favourites? You are very welcome to put your contributions in the commentary box! My own list would include: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani - concerning the lives of Italian Jews in the northern Italian... Read more →