Notes from the peninsula

Thoughts on writing, literature, film
and living a creative life

An older man looks at himself drinking a glass of whiskey in the mirror

The Broken

A mirror falls off a wall during a party, releasing cold-hearted döppelgangers from a mirror world who begin to replace their counterparts.

Read more

Cover of The Complex

The Complex

Michael Walters

My debut novel, The Complex, available direct from Salt Publishing, from Amazon in the UK, and of course BOOKSHOPS.

A line of men on horseback holding torches along the horizon of a field.

The Cursed

Kelly Reilly plays another mother, this time on a remote estate in nineteenth-century rural England, and is visited by a ‘pathologist’ instead of Poirot. A curse is made, werewolves ensue.

Read more

Venice from the air.

A Haunting in Venice

I started this year’s #31DaysofHorror with a classic whodunnit mashed with a ghost story. Kenneth Branagh plays around with spooky children, Viennese masks and fish eye lenses to fun effect.

Read more

Two book covers, partially hidden.

Envy

Picked up Brother of the More Famous Jack. Barbara Trapido is an incredible writer. Nagging envy made me put it down after the first five pages.

Read more

An abundance of apples on an apple tree with a greenhouse behind.

Worth and work

I’ve been reading more this month. I decided to read a novel for thirty minutes uninterrupted at least once every day. I had to dig around to find the motivation to do that because I’d fallen out of love with reading (again).

Read more

Three distant dark figures on the lawn of a bright garden.

Duality

I’m deep into my summer break, which has not gone to plan. We’ve cancelled our holiday to care for a sick parent. Ironically, I’m feeling better than I have in a while. Life can be both.

Read more

Sunset

Eastmouth and other stories

Intricate studies in helplessness and despair, by Alison Moore. The characters, shackled by the environment and language, are slowly crushed by a variety of things.

Read more

My groaning to-read shelf

Pick something

In the bookshop I let my eyes drift over bright modern covers and serious-looking classics. I didn't buy a book. I have books. My problem is I can't choose one to read.

Read more

Poster for Meg 2:  The Trench

Meg 2: The Trench

Teeth and tentacles chomp, devour, squeeze and rip through submarines, boats, research stations, and eventually a holiday resort. People die. Lots of people having fun die.

Read more

Blue skies

Open roads and blue skies

I’ve arrived at an approach to posting online that I’ve been resisting for years, but has become inevitable with the slow death of Twitter: one place for my stuff, that I control.

Read more

Moody shot of empty tree-lined street

Go gently

I hit an emotional wall a couple of weeks ago. Looking back, it’s been coming for months, but when you’re in a storm for long enough it begins to feel normal.

Read more

Sunset

Angles, curves and spin

I’ve always loved the curve of a golf ball through a landscape. Tennis gave me a similar thrill. Angles, curves, spin, and the laws of physics.

Read more

Exterior of an Everyman cinema

Everyman

Heat. During the final chase, I could feel the rumble of planes in my stomach, and my wife now has the hots for nineties Pacino. He’s a very sloppy kisser on a big screen.

Read more

Sunset

Bluesky

A fellow writer on Twitter sent me an invite — it’s still in a pretty combustible beta — and I immediately felt much more at home there than on Mastodon.

Read more

Sunset

Author speculation

I’m reading Cinema Speculation, Quentin Tarentino’s non-fiction celebration of key American films of the seventies—Bullitt, Dirty Harry, Escape From Alcatraz, The Funhouse...

Read more

A dalmation giving me the side-eye

Inspiration

With everything going on in my life, the only way I’m going to write is if I have a clear purpose and a plan. This is always true I suppose.

Read more

Attractive building in Swansea

Walking with ghosts

An elegantly dressed woman is with me and a man on a balcony in a nightclub. The man is very drunk. She whispers to him that they should go on somewhere else.

Read more

Sunset

Puzzles

At the start of the day a deployment of code went awry and at the end I was a go-between over my still-hospitalised father’s boxer shorts. Life can be ridiculous.

Read more

Sunset

Matrix

If I’m stuck in a matrix, what sort is it? Writing? Capitalism? Our budget spreadsheet is a matrix. Reality? (There’s that word again.)

Read more

Sunset

Hospitals

My father is in hospital again. Both his legs are swollen, symptoms of heart failure, but one of his arms has also swelled up, and he’s out of breath doing the slightest things.

Read more

Sunset

Content apocalypse

This is the tipping point. I’m fifty in two weeks. I’ve watched fifty percent of the 800 films I own, and even less of the books. I'm not solving the time-activity equation.

Read more

Grey waves on a sombre beach

Emotional weather

I’m staying with Dad for the weekend, and because he’s having some new health problems, it’s quite hard work. My mother was always the anxious one. Now it's me.

Read more

Scene from a table with people in a cafe

Writing jiggle

I’m pleased with how consistently I’ve posted to Patreon, but I feel guilty that I’m not giving enough value to people, so I’ve jiggled things around.

Read more

Sunset

Elisa Gabbert on why writers write

Twitter shines at surfacing what I need, when I need it, in this case Elisa Gabbert’s 2022 book list, within which a link to an essay she wrote, Why Write?

Read more

Christmas tree reflections on wet streets

Bedrock

Going into the new year I’m going to do some gentle excavation into my beliefs about writing, because I’m realising I’ve lost touch with what fiction means to me. If there’s no meaning, there’s no purpose.

Read more

All the films I watched in 2022

Adieu, 2022

In time-honoured fashion, here are my favourite discoveries of 2022, in chronological order of publication or release.

Read more

Sunset

Love and breakages

I’ve just broken a wine glass. I’m at my father's house, and it feels auspicious, although I don’t know why. He has cheap glasses because we are his only wine-drinking visitors.

Read more

Sunset

A dream with Bob Dylan

I don’t remember my dreams that often anymore. When I’m particularly anxious, or there’s a lot going on, they tend to stick.

Read more