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About this blog

This blog is a place for my non-fiction writing.

There will be posts promoting my writing, in all its areas. I will talk about my writing in general, the inspiration behind it, my writing process and several of the issues I’ve faced writing. It will also contain essays, reviews and other examples of my non-fiction writing. There won't be any politics here but there will be social commentary and personal stories.

(I have started a book reviewing project, I am attempting to review as many of the book I've read as possible, and I am going to post those book reviews here too)

Entries in this blog

Writing

It’s Showtime, Again

My short story, Even a Monkey Can Fall from a Tree, can be read in this, new anthology, Showtime 2023, but there’s more to it than just that. Every year, Newham Writers Workshop publishes an anthology of its members work, and I’m member of them and this is the fourth anthology I’ve had work published in. But I’m also now part of the editorial team that published it. I had the easy job. My fellow writers, Belgin and Paula, had the hardest task. They proofread and edited all the submissi
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Writing

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Writing

Moving Pictures

On a July evening, in 1991, three people are each caught in a moment of indecision, not knowing what the next right thing to do is. Helen has cooked a special, surprise meal for her husband, but he still hasn’t returned home. Paul has parked his car at the side of the road, but he doesn’t know where to drive to next. Craig is working late, but his mind isn’t on work. Moving Pictures is my newly published short story. It tells its story from the point-of-view of three different people,
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Writing

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Writing

Showtime 2022

My big writing news this month is that my short story “Men Online in the Local Area” has been published in Showtime 2022. It is about Harry, a young man living in East London, who is finding building a new life in his new home difficult. Superficially, it is about the ups and downs of using dating apps, but its real subject is about how a big, busy city can be a very lonely and difficult place to form new friendships in. This anthology, Showtime 2022, is special to me because I am one of th
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Writing

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Writing

"His Story"

Does the pain stop when the abuse does? My new novella, His Story, asks this question by following six, different events from one man’s life, a man who survived ex-gay/conversion therapy. Though this may sound a depressing read, there is a hopeful ending, and it discussed a subject not often found in literature, how do you survive abuse and start living again. It is available here, on Smashwords, as an eBook only, but is free to download, or you can pay whatever you want to.
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Writing

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Writing

And Then There Was…

I was an awkward thirteen-year-old (a little under ten years before I was diagnosed as dyslexic) when my mother gave me a copy of A Pocketful of Rye by Agatha Christie. At the time I loved the concept of books but I found them so difficult, my reading was so slow and finishing a book seemed like an impossibly difficult task, a mountain too high to climb. This book intrigued me. The cover was macabre, a black bird’s skeleton surrounded by its black feathers, lying on an illustrated sheet music to
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Writing

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Writing

Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Well Plotted and Proofread

I never actually met Hamish (*), but God did I hate him, and that wasn’t from a personal prejudice. Martin (my husband) was working for a previous employer but still as a clinical nurse specialist. I know that I am biased, but Martin is very experienced at his job and he knows his subject. Hamish started working at the same trust. He had no clinical experience or qualifications and was working as a manager for a non-clinical service; he managed the trust’s buildings. But this didn’t stop Ha
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Writing

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Writing

The View from This Window

My writing desk sits under the window in our front bedroom, though we have rarely used the room as such, and it gives me a clear view of the strip of grass on the opposite side of the road. It is that writers’ activity, doing anything else but write, and mine is staring out of that window and watching life pass by on that strip of grass. Whenever I do it, I stop myself, tell myself I should be writing, and turn away from the window, but so often some fascinating tableau out there will catch my a
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Writing

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Writing

Based on Real People

“I gave you good script,” Ma to Alan Cocktail Sticks, a play by Alan Bennett   The writer Alan Bennett has been very open about how much he is inspired by real-life events. He has written plays and film scripts all inspired by real-life events; he has written several volumes of autobiographical essays, and every year or so he publishes extracts from his diary. I’ve seen and read all of them and enjoyed them so much. In his autobiographical play Cocktail Sticks, about his relations
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Writing

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Writing

Boxing Day 1975 and the Rashomon Style

My latest published book is an e-book version of my story Boxing Day 1975. This story is written in the Rashomon style. This is where the same events are told and retold from the prospective of different characters, two or more. My story is about a family watching the Boxing Day film, on television, in 1975. They all have a very different reaction to the film, reflecting the changings times of 1975. The film they are watching is One Million Years BC. The style/effect is named after the 1950
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Writing

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Writing

Jonathan Roven is Lost (The True Story)

Jonathan Roven is Lost is a story I am proud of. It concerns a subject that I have rarely seen written about, namely how a gay couple manages when one of them develops Alzheimer’s Disease. I’m also proud of the journey this story has taken. Originally, it was just 900 words long, with a different ending. It was written as a flash fiction story (stories under 1,000-words long) to a prompt of Losing Your Lover. So often do I find a left-field response to subjects. It was first published on th
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Writing

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Writing

Never Write in the Dark

Writing is a very solitary activity; we sit there on our own, writing away on our computer or laptop, or even doing it “old school” via paper and pen, pouring out our stories and preserving our characters there in the written word. But how do we know that what we are writing is any good? We can ask our family and loved ones, but will they give us the feedback we need? They are our loved ones and so often they want the best for us and may not give us the feedback we require, or they may not
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Writing

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Writing

Case Studies in Modern Life, blog

Case Studies in Modern Life is my first published book and it has been a long time in writing. I have been writing all my adult life. I was eighteen when I discovered I could write stories. At first I was writing sketches for a drama group. It was an amazing feeling turning an idea I had into something written down that worked and then watching actors perform my words. It was also the first time I realised I had an ear for dialogue. I would hear people talking in public and remember how the
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Writing

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Writing

Book Review: Minority Report – Volume Four of the Collected Stories by Philip K Dick

Before reading this collection of stories, put out of your mind any memory of the Tom Cruise/Stephen Spielberg film of the same name. The Cruise/Spielberg film was very loosely based on Philip K Dick’s story, taking only a few elements out of the story. The original story is far superior to the brightly coloured adventure film that bears the same name. In his best fiction, and this collection certainly contains some of that, Philip K Dick was a visionary—a dark visionary with a downbeat but
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in Writing

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