The Time Bubble

2024 marks the beginning of a new era in The Time Bubble world. A new era that began back in 1980. Apologies if that doesn't make sense, but that's time travel for you. The most recent Time Bubble book (Gone to the Rapture) was released in October and was very well received (4.6-star average on Amazon from 139 reviews). I was most pleased with how it turned out and consider it to be one of the best in the series yet. It proved that I can still come up with fresh concepts, even after fourteen books in the series. However, there is something that has been bugging me for some time. I feel that The Time Bubble series has become too long. Before everyone gasps in horror, in fear that I'm not going to write any more, don't panic! (as fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide might say). No, what I mean is that I feel having fourteen books in one long series makes it rather unwieldy. It leads to a situation where I can write one of my best works, like Gone to the Rapture, yet it'...

The single most important aspect of starting a new Time Bubble book is coming up with a fresh, innovative concept that has not been explored before, either by myself or anyone else. While it may be easy and tempting to churn out endless variations on the same theme, like Enid Blyton's Famous Five series, I'm not interested in taking that route. My goal is to make each Time Bubble book as exhilarating and novel as the first, even if it means waiting for the perfect idea to strike me. This waiting game means that I typically take around a year between books, as I'm committed to delivering one exceptional idea per year. While I've explored numerous ideas in the past, only a few have made it to completion, while others have been incorporated as parts of other works or have been put on hold for future consideration. Some of the alternate universes that Josh and Lauren visit in my books have been born from these unused ideas, and while others remain dormant for now, they may ...

 On Monday evening I noticed something odd happening with the rating count of my Time Bubble book on Amazon. This book has been out for nine years, selling steadily, and accruing reviews along the way. Up until about two or three years ago, people had to leave a written review in order for their ratings to be included in the total, but that has now changed. Now, if someone rates a book they have bought without leaving a review, that's included too. They could leave a rating formerly, but the only place it showed up was on Goodreads, a sister site. So accumulating reviews was a long and slow process. It is estimated that only about 1% of people who purchase leave a review, so it took a long old time for The Time Bubble to reach the milestone of 100 reviews. In recent years, since they started including the ratings, it climbed more quickly but it was only new ratings. The historical ratings seemed lost forever in the mists of time, like those long sought-after missing black-and-white...

 Happy New Year to you all. I’m writing today to talk about my new book which came out this week. You’ll note the title of the blog post is “The Difficult Second Album.” This term refers to bands who’ve had some initial early success and then attempt to try something else, which isn’t always well received by fans of their original work. This is a difficulty I believe that we as writers also face. Let me begin by saying that I absolutely love writing The Time Bubble books. I can scarcely believe I have clocked up thirteen of them in less than nine years. They have enabled me to achieve my ambition of becoming a full-time writer for a living, thanks to the strong and supportive fan base that they have built up. If you are part of that fan base – thank you! Every sale, every review, and every little thing you do to help is appreciated by me every single day and enables me to continue to write more books. In terms of writing The Time Bubble books, they are very complex. First I h...

 Today I launched the latest book in The Time Bubble series, and it can be found here:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0BD248XTQ And here it is: So, it seemed as good a time as ever to give you a little preview of what to expect, without giving too much away in the way of spoilers. The first stage in the planning of all of my books is, what is the basic premise? In most cases, it starts with an idea. For example, all I initially had for My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday was a scenario, which was what would life be like if you lived it backwards, one day at a time. Then I built the plot and the characters around it. This book is no different, however, it benefits from having the ensemble cast from the earlier Time Bubble books already in place. Obviously, you still need a story, though!  I looked back at what I had done before and in most cases, the lead characters are reacting to events around them, being lost in time, trapped, that sort of thing. What I decided to do thi...

Various news reports last week put the current rate of inflation at between 2.7% and 7%, depending on the criteria and timescales used. At the same time, interest rates rose to 1%, their highest level for some time. We are accustomed now to the idea that we are in a cost-of-living crisis, but just how bad is it? I would suggest, a lot worse than many people realise. The energy costs and fuel price rises have been well documented, and are way above the quoted rate of inflation. Surprisingly, when you think back to the fuel crisis of 2000, most people seem to have absorbed these without too much complaint. The Government has managed to divert attention from their misguided policies by apportioning blame to external factors.  A favourite scapegoat is Covid-19, but the virus itself was not to blame. It was the untold billions wasted on pointless measures in response that did the damage. If that won’t wash as an excuse anymore, then the convenient crisis in Ukraine makes a good substitu...

 Hi all, As you'll know if you've read my novels, I do like to explore alternative, dystopian futures on occasion. I have all sorts of ideas, often inspired by current affairs, that don't make it into print as they aren't substantial enough to make it into a full novel. So they sit on the backburner. What I'd like to do is explore some of these through short stories, so here is the first of what may become a series. Here, I imagine what might happen if future people in power looked back at what happened over 2020-2021 and used it as a template to pursue other objectives. Addendum (May 2022) - A year after I wrote this story, I am now halfway through writing my next novel which is going to explore this world in more detail. What you see here will be adapted into the new book, so this is now a preview of what's to come. It's interesting looking back at what I wrote a year ago and seeing what has transpired during that time. What I wrote as fiction now feels mo...

 Every store you shop in, every product you buy is a brand. The biggest brands are recognisable the world over, from the red and white of Coca Cola to the golden arches of McDonald's. Any professional business needs clear and consistent branding, and books are no different. When I started writing my Time Bubble books in 2014, I had no inkling that seven years later I would have eleven of them on the market. When I started, I had no great marketing plan - I was learning on the job. I realised early on that I needed my covers to match, so I had the hourglass on the first few, but over time, I deviated away from that. There was nothing wrong with my old covers - they served their purpose, but I realised over the past year that I needed to upgrade them. Some of them were looking a little tired, and dare I say, even a little gloomy, so I got together with my cover artist and we came up with a plan to relaunch the range with a bright, shiny new selection of colours. My idea was straightf...

Hello everyone, What a year it’s been. Where to start? Well, I won’t dwell on the virus, lockdowns or any of that, because millions of column inches and tweets have been devoted to that elsewhere. You didn’t come here for that – you want to hear when the next Time Bubble book is coming out! I’m pleased to say that the answer is soon. I have faced a number of challenges this year which have delayed progress. Firstly, I had to home school the children for three months earlier in the year. Secondly, and I won’t go into great detail on this as I am not one to whinge about health issues, I am waiting for eye surgery which I hope to have in the first few months of next year. As things stand, I can still write and work, but I have to go slower than before. This is also the reason you have not seen much in the way of posts from me because I have dedicated all my time to getting the book completed to the standard you both expect and deserve. I am very happy with the end result, provisionally ti...

I watch a lot of TV - probably more than I should since I got Netflix, but hey, it's winter and the sun sets ridiculously early, and I've got 91 episodes of Orange is the new Black to get through, amongst other things. What do you think about teasers in TV programmes - in particular those that give a hint about what's to come? I'm talking about something shocking and unexpected in the pre-credits sequence that's going to happen much later in the show. After the opening credits you get a caption along the lines of "Three Days Earlier" so you know you'll be working up to what you saw before. Personally, I've always liked this, and the literary equivalent is the Prologue. I used to feel that my books started rather slowly so I gave it a try in Class of '92 , my last book, which opened with a dinosaur rampaging through Oxford. I think that got people's attention. For my new book, I've decided to go down the same route and opened the ...

What an awesome night out I had in Bicester last Sunday - significantly better than many of the ones I had when I was actually living there. I think this is one benefit of moving around - you make new friends wherever you go but the ones you made where you were before welcome you back with open arms when you return. The pessimist in me might suggest that people were only so pleased to see me because having been absent for almost two years they might have forgotten what a pain in the arse I am! The optimist in me hopes that's not the case and I am not actually one of those people who gets gets described as "alright in small doses" behind their back. I'm sure there is an element of absence making the heart grow fonder but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I had chosen this particular Sunday to revisit my old stamping ground after receiving an invitation to a Christening. My friends, Anne and Mark, had recently had a new baby, something that in itself had been ...

We're enjoying a well deserved break down in Devon this week and I do feel justified in saying well deserved. It's a phrase I see bandied about rather a lot but everyone in the family has worked really hard this year at work and school to move things forward and we really have earned this trip. I know I haven't posted endless details of what we've been doing all over Facebook but seriously who wants to see all that constantly anyway? I could post endlessly about how well the kids did at parent's evening, how well my latest book's doing and all that gubbins, but honestly, do people really want to see all that stuff? Too much of that gets you unfollowed faster than you can #hashtag your latest check in of where you're having your dinner - yes we get it - you're eating out tonight whilst the rest of us are at home. Good for you. This is why I rarely post to Facebook at all now, let's be honest it's all getting a bit old hat. I'd far rather c...

Since my last post, Ross and I have been working away getting the Time Bubble script to the point where we are now confident we can bring the book to life. One of the most common questions I've been asked by fans of the book since I announced our plans is "You're not going to ruin it by changing everything are you?" The short answer to that is - no. Obviously we have to make a few tweaks to take into account that a book and a film are two very different mediums. These are for the most part very minor details that you'll barely even notice. Other than that this will be a pretty faithful adaption of the book you know and love. You're read the book... ...now be part of the movie! Most of the changes are largely cosmetic and don't impact on the plot at all. For example, I've made the teens eighteen rather than seventeen - primarily because it gives us the scope to cast some older actors. It should also avoid any criticism of the fact that these te...

Apologies for the lack of recent posts but it has been an incredibly busy, yet rewarding few months on the writing front. Firstly, I finished and published Class of '92 on the 30th December. This has been an incredibly successful launch, with several hundred copies sold already and a massive boost to the rest of the range as a result. This has meant that January has been my most successful month to date. To be at a point where I have more income coming in each month than I had in my last full time job feels pretty special. I'm so glad I didn't listen to those early doubters with their "don't give up the day job" advice! It hasn't all been wine and roses and I have to say that there were times when I was writing Class of '92 when I had my doubts (we creative types all have them). But I knuckled down to it and burned the midnight oil, or more accurately the midnight Merlot on more occasions than I can remember as I was determined to get it right. The...