Research rabbit holes, genre-hopping confessions, and the odd writing-tool obsession.
Not a panic piece, and not a hype piece. Just an honest look at what generative AI is actually doing to publishing, self-publishing, and the daily working life of a novelist — from someone building tools in this space, not just talking about it.
From a mob boss guarding human cargo to an empire that has learned to measure its enemies, the antagonists I remember reading were never evil for its own sake. Here's how I try to build mine the same way.
Eighteen books in, I finally got fed up with juggling spreadsheets, sticky notes, and a dozen half-organised documents — so I built the writing studio I actually needed.
Twenty-nine years in the police, seventeen of them as a detective, taught me things about investigations that most crime fiction gets wrong on purpose — because the truth is slower, and less cinematic.
From Roman centurions to swarming beetles to a radio-host romance — readers sometimes ask why I don't just pick a lane. Here's the honest answer.
How much do you actually need to know about Roman surveying, Egyptian flood records, or Victorian beetle taxonomy before you're allowed to write the scene? Less than you think — and more than you'd guess.
Roman roads, real garrison logistics, and the maddening job of getting Britannia right — a look at how the Legions of Honour series gets built before a single scene is written.
