# "..when you try to see the world beyond your front door..." # - Ed Robertson (Barenaked Ladies)

These are exciting times despite having just come back to work after a long bank holiday weekend and recovering from a sore throat which caused me to almost lose my voice. Exciting times because I get married in a few months and hopefully this week I'll have my own website for my writing registered and set up! It's all a bit hush-hush and strictly on the qui vive but watch this space and I'll keep you informed of it's progress. The creative person desiging my website is going to be another Chris who likes to be called "Twig" - go to www.phluff.com to see Twig's design talent...

Back to myself, this post is really just to give an introduction about what I've written before and where I'm heading with my writing in the future. On the aforementioned website, there'll appear my complete and unabridged short story efforts since begining my writing life about 10 years ago, but if you can't wait that long, here's a couple of links to whet your appetite:


http://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/macguffin/kingofthejungle.html - this is one of my first stories ever written in adult life and it's still one of my favourites. (I was quite inspired at the time by the Shawshank Redemption storyline if you can't tell!)

http://www.theraider.net/community/fanfiction/short_stories/chris_allan.doc - you'll need Word for this one. It's an Indiana Jones fan fiction story which I won third prize for in an online competiton. This was written just last year (about 10 years after King Of The Jungle) and so probably shows some similarities in style but hopefully also some progression in voice...

From those two stories, you can probably tell that I like adventure writing. I've just finished a two-year MA in Creative Writing at Northumbria University and my time on that course helped me realise, from the characters, themes and situations I created, that my writing was heading in the direction of that of a children's to early teens audience. I love a good mystery, as I mention in my intro to this blog. I like writing about people and places I've known for years - their history and connections to one another. And I find that my writing voice has developed to bring all of those things out most fully when writing for a younger readership. But that doesn't mean I'm not searching for a blockbuster "crossover novel" that will attract adult fans as well as kids - I'm just quietly confident that Moon Crater which is the working title for my current novel will do just that...