Back in the 80s I became obsessed with thoughts of decay, and these later developed into my first novel, Dry Rot. I was so much taken by novel writing that I tried it again – Killing Time was written while I was a student in London, so I could get the feeling of the place I was writing about.
A few years later I returned to Manchester and wrote The Turn of the Century Party. I was now living with Andy (who I met at the South Manchester Writers Workshop) and our son Jack, and finding it increasingly difficult to actually use the computer myself. I produced another couple of novels, Mrs Johnson’s Cavalier and Camp Mary which is the sequel to Dry Rot. As the century turned I realised that several things about my writing were going to have to change. It was originally Andy’s idea to begin publishing my work ourselves – we started with my Newsletter RAW MEAT in 1999, which is still going strong as an Online Monthly.
Without hesitation I decided that the first of our digital publications would be Dry Rot, which I’ve always felt to be my best and most powerful novel. I later wrote a screenplay version of Dry Rot, because I always thought of Dry Rot in visual terms, and this has become especially true now that I’ve lost my eyesight.
In 2001 I went back to university to do an MA in English, and the subject I chose for my dissertation was Oscar Wilde. Brewing in my head at this time was the idea for a series of novels, which I’m currently working on. I’ve completed one of them, The Spark, and I’m now nearing the end of The Space Between, which is also the working title for the whole series.
Although novel writing continues to grip me, I’ve also produced many short stories, a few of them even autobiographical, which was quite a departure for me! We’ve recently published some of these under the title The Complete Ziggy Collection, but I always intended this to be a mere test, paving the way for my REAL writing – that is fiction. So my first novel, Dry Rot, is now available to order, as a Digital Book along with The Complete Ziggy Collection which is also published in this format. For more information about me and my writing, please visit my website.
Nicola's website
Nicola’s Online Newsletter
