The Church Cut into the Ground
How I imagined a church carved down into the rock, and what I borrowed from real stonework.
Archive
All posts
Turning the Pages of an Old Book
What I learned from handling a painted manuscript, and what a scribe’s day was like.
Where I Write the Mornings
A desk by a window, a clay pot of coffee and three hours before the world wakes.
Drawing the Map Before the Chapter
Why I lay out a map on the floor before I write a single word of a journey.
A Reading Group Guide for The Salt Road
Questions, notes and a short history of the road for groups reading the first novel.
Walking the Land I Invented
A hill above the terraces, a notebook and the day I understood my own kingdom.
How Long Did a Journey Take
Working out a week’s travel on foot, by mule and by river, with a ruler and a pencil.
What a Scribe Ate for Breakfast
Small questions about food that made a whole chapter feel true.
Choosing a Name for a Place
Why Aderan is called Aderan, and the twelve names I threw away.
How I Keep Track of Four Hundred Years
The timeline on my wall, and the one mistake it stopped me making.
Newsletter
Letters from Aderan
A research letter every Monday: a source, a map, a decision and a page I threw away.