Robert Craven's blog

It was easy to deactivate my Twitter Account. For the past four years, I found it easy (too easy at times) to get mired in in pointless arguments - especially the toxicity of the Brexit debate. I lost sight of why I was on the platform; primarily to sell my books and engage with the writing community. I would close my laptop fueled in anger and hurt. Both on a personal level - I received threats on my time line and watching educated and...

It as been a while... I planned to take 2022 off from writing completely. A full break. And here's why - sixteen years of writing, going through the mill of pitching, getting published, watching publishers go bust and retrieving my material back for indie platforms non-stop had taken its toll, I needed to hit the pause button. I needed to stop and take stock of why I write, what compels me to rise every morning and start typing words and...

What I have learned in ten years of writing by Robert Craven 2021 The great jazz musician, Miles Davis once observed, “ Sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself, ”. This is especially true of being a writer. It’s 2021 and its the tenth anniversary of the publication of my first ‘real’ novel GET LENIN . I have often thought of taking it down off Amazon and giving it a full rewrite, but then I wouldn’t be doing it justice. I love...

Books are like the stock market, sales rise and fall over your title’s shelf life. At the mercy of fickle readership, your publication in many ways is no longer art, but a commodity, a product for sale. The trick is to bring your buyers to the stall and at least look it over. For my novel, A Kind of Drowning , I planned for the year, with one eye on the summer market and the end view of Christmas sales I marked out a calendar into three blocks...

The man standing at the funeral in bubble-gum pink hair is P.J. Crowe. His career as a detective is in tatters - he's facing dismissal, and his wife's about to leave. Lying low in a small seaside town he spots a ‘Help Wanted’ ad in the kitchen of a local café. It offers him an escape and it's where Thea Farrell worked – until she was found dead at sea. And herein lies the problem: Thea was an Olympic medallist, silver for swimming and Crowe’s...

Imperium (1993) Kapuscinski is a hero of mine, Imperium isn't a novel, but a biography of growing up under Moscow Rule and a series of essays and observations. Kapuscinski traveled around the satellite countries of the USSR post collapse of the Berlin Wall. It is the last book of the the 9 books that inspired me to write . Imperium is a travelogue, reportage but more than that; Kapuscinski takes far flung countries and weaves their beauty into...

London Rules (2018) London Rules is the 5th novel in Herron's Slow Horses series, and the first book of his I had ever read. After it, I literally bought the whole Jackson Lamb series. It is the penultimate book of the 9 books that inspired me to write . 'Slow Horses' refers to members of MI5 who have for various disciplinary reasons, are moved into Slough House, a dilapidated building in the borough of Finsbury. Its a limbo, far away from the...

Kitchen Confidential (2000) I have a framed autograph over my writing desk, signed by Bourdain. I happened to be sitting with my family in the departure lounge of Charles de Gaulle in 2013, after a week in EuroDisney. He too, it turns out ,was flying to Dublin to shoot an episode of his TV show, The Layover . They say you should never meet your heroes, but he was gracious and modest, in a certain light, he had the measured gumshoe cool of a...

Moby Dick (1851) What is left to be said about Moby Dick ? Not much at this stage, In Melville's lifetime it only sold a handful of copies. It wasn't until 1917 as America entered WW1 that the book's popularity took hold. It became a staple read with US troops crossing the Atlantic. Its revival in the early 20th century long after Melville's death earned it the reputation as one of the Great American Novels , I came very late to this book, I...

Ingenious Pain (1997) My father died on the 28th of January 1998. No matter what age you are, the death of a parent is a hammer blow; the first crack in the secure pillars of life. Also, not long after, I went through a painful break up. I needed to just get away. I tallied up that I had nearly 30 days leave to use and looked around for a package. By sheer chance, passing a travel agent along Dublin's quays, I saw a three city rail journey from...