Mike Murphy's writing diary: May 2021

Saturday 1 May 2021

So much happening

The Short Story anthology is on its way to Ingram Spark for publishing, I have laid out the basic plot for my new novel and started writing the first chapter today.

I have also started reading again after a long spell of not feeling like reading, and my first books were by my two favourite authors, Felix Francis, writing in the vein of his father Dick, and Michael Robotham, who told me to keep writing at a time when I felt I was wasting my time.

The new novel is not autobiographical but is the story of a man who lives a very similar life to the one I am presently living. It's a balancing act between borrowing from real life as I am experiencing it and making my protagonist's thoughts and reactions as different as possible from my own.

I had one of those highlight moments recently when the end to the novel came to me almost in a dream. I knew what had to happen but not how, and certainly not how the ending would tie neatly back to the beginning. And then it came to me. A good feeling. Can't wait to be writing that scene.

Authors I like

Anna Jacobs

A mentor in my early writing days and still one of my favourite authors. Her sagas about family life in Lancashire are among my favourites but she is a prolific writer and it's all good.

Michael Robotham

Michael urged me to keep writing when I was in a depressed period after another publisher's knock-back. He is basically why I kept writing and turned to self-publishing. I've read all his books and I'm always waiting eagerly for the next one.

Dave Warner

I only recently discovered Dave as a writer after having had his Dave Warner and The Suburbs album since it was on vinyl. It's interesting having another writer who sets his stories in Western Australia.

Dick Francis

I've read all his books at least twice and sometime more often. He's the writer I always return to when I need to feel totally in my comfort zone. Good stories, tight plots, easy writing style. I'd love to know if it really was his wife Mary who wrote them. His son Felix is doing a great job of keeping the family business going.

Leslie Thomas

Ever since Virgin Soldiers I've been hooked on Leslie Thomas and his Dangerous Davies series are among my all-time favourites.

I am because I write

I come across a lot of people who would like to be writers and I often wonder why. For me there has been no question. Since a very young age I have been a writer. Certainly not a famous or even successful one but while other people were doctors or teachers or sportspeople, the thing I did best and was most comfortable doing was writing. For some reason I had a natural flair for it and that raw talent was honed when I became a journalist and learned that what bubbled out of my head was not what was needed. I had to to be able to write to order. One of my earliest lessons came from Bob Duffield, a reporter who took the story of the closure of Perth's Roe Street brothels and wrote different versions of it for convervative, sensationalist, religious and sociological publications. I learned that writing was a craft to be learned, and I have spent many years learning not only the craft of writing, but of story-telling, which is an art in itself. Whether it's a poem, a short story, a novel, my family history, one of my blogs or web sites, I will always be writing something. It's simply who I am and what I do.