Crime Scenes

It's important to get things right when you're writing a novel. That's why crime scene pics can be a good idea.

As Vile City opens, Shelley Craig has just got off the bus with her boyfriend Stuart. He goes down an alleyway to relieve himself and when he hasn't returned minutes later she goes looking for him. That's when she is abducted.

Thanks go to my crime scene snapper.

Here's the video.

Is it a UFO?

Today the weather has been pretty wild on our island of the Isle of Cumbrae. Howling gales and sweeping rain.

And we spotted a UFO...

Well, kind of.

Look what I found

Combing through my novel, I realise I need to end this ‘look’ and ‘looked’ obsession. It’s getting out of hand.

I also must ditch the fixation with eyes being the window to the soul when there are so many ways of telling how a character feels or reacts.   

Body language for starters - how are their shoulders, stooped, thrown back like it's the 80's and they are wearing shoulder pads, are they moving them around because they're stiff?

Brain Dead Entertainment

My first film review has been posted on fantastic site shadowlocked.com. If you are considering watching this movie, please, please read my review as you need to be warned.

If you like big breasted women who like to take their tops off at every opportunity, appalling acting and a seriously bad script, watch Brain Dead. Go on. I dare you.



One of my favourite scenes in the movie, because it killed off yet another bad actor



Ramblings of a Frustrated Crime Writer: About Me

Ramblings of a Frustrated Crime Writer: About Me: "I began contributing to magazines when I was 15-years-old and had my first piece in Jackie magazine - a piece on superstitions. From then ..."

Things not to say in an exercise video/DVD

How energising is exercise?

Trying to get fit and lose a bit of weight, so have taken to using exercise tapes.  Here are some of the phrases I have grown to despise.

1- 'Feel the burn' - usually when I am holding my abs in and trying not to topple over.

2- 'This is one of my favourites' - unless the instructor is talking about a scrumptious cream cake, I don't want to know this exercise that is killing me is one the chiselled she man or he man loves.

3- 'This will tighten you buns' - buns is an American word.  I hear it and I think of the iced bun I can't have.

4- 'You did well today' - How do you know I actually did anything?  I could have passed out from the exertion.

5- 'Looking good girl' - Naw.  I actually look like a beached whale that's just given birth.

Let’s get physical (I'd rather not)

Don’t know about you, but because I spend so much time sitting down writing away, my waistline has started to suffer.  So, I have begun a new fitness regime and it is killing me. 

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if there was a pill you could take that would absorb most of the calories from your food?  Well, when I say food I actually mean chocolate. 

Until that happens, I'm stuck with exercising.  I use the Ten Minute Solution DVDs, because ten minutes at a time is about all I can take before I'm dog tired.