The One and Only

One of the nicest things about being published in magazines is seeing how a story has been set out and illustrated. I am always keen to know whether the characters pictured will match up to how I imagined them when I was writing. They are sometimes quite different, but I am never disappointed.

In the latest People's Friend Fiction Special, I am especially lucky that alongside my story, 'The One and Only', is a short piece about the man who illustrated it, Mike Italiaander. Thank you Mike! I really enjoyed reading this fascinating 'Meet the Artist' slot. It's also a reminder that it takes the skills of many people to bring a story to the page.

My writing continues to plod along at its current slow pace. My submissions are right down as a result, but I am enjoying allowing myself more time to think hard about each story. One of my problems is that I have too many ideas. Maybe some people wouldn't see that as a problem. But I have spells of feeling very frustrated that I cannot use every single idea.

Because of the number of ideas that overwhelm me, I tend to try and use too many of them in one story. Taking stories more slowly has made me realise that I don't need to throw in more and more ideas. What I need to do is go into the original idea more deeply instead of flitting off at a tangent. We're always learning, aren't we, which is one of the reasons why I don't think I will ever be tired of writing.

Here's me, gazing philosophically into a river on a freezing February day!