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Hi, I’m Vanessa and welcome to my site.
In 2015, I won Bloody Scotland’s Pitch Perfect event and my first novel, Death Will Find Me, was published in February, 2019. The second Tessa Kilpatrick book will be out early next year and in the meantime, I’ll soon be launching a series of art crime thrillers.
You can find out more about me and what I’m up to by following the links at the top, and there are contact details below if you want to ask me any questions or invite me to talk at your bookshop, library or festival.
Category Archives: Writing
November’s writing – a breakthrough
As you might remember from my previous post, since Pitch Perfect I’ve been struggling a little with the rewriting of the novel. Bits of the original version were good but the plot wasn’t satisfactory and so I came up with … Continue reading
Posted in My Writing
Tagged eureka moment, writing
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Why quitting NaNoWriMo doesn’t mean you’ll never be a writer
It’s November and everyone who writes or wants to write knows that November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) time. As recent data showed that being an author is the preferred career choice for 60% of the population. I imagine … Continue reading
October’s writing – write, delete, repeat.
Back at the end of September I mapped out my writing plans for October and was feeling pretty positive. You can already see that ‘but’ looming can’t you? The ‘but’ is that the cold I came down with in September … Continue reading
Posted in My Writing
Tagged goals, writing
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Laptop and latte – the best cafes for writers, Edinburgh and beyond
JK Rowling famously wrote Harry Potter in Edinburgh cafes (although not in as many as claim to be the birthplace of Harry P. I suspect) while other writers can’t imagine in other than complete silence or away from their desk … Continue reading
Posted in My Writing, Places to go, Travel
Tagged Archerfield, cafe culture, California, Culross, East Lothian, Edinburgh, Fife, Gallery of Modern Art, how I write, Stockbridge
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Atmosphere before action, tone before plot.
One of the things that I found particularly interesting in my interview with Chris Ewan earlier this week was his advice to get the feel of a novel right before anything else. He said: “I think it’s really important to … Continue reading
Posted in My Writing
Tagged Chris Ewan, rewriting, writing
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