Sip, Flame, Scene - that's how I write

People sometimes imagine writers sitting down, pouring coffee, and just… typing until a story appears. Not me. Coffee is for bankers. 

I begin my day with a pot of tea—proper tea, from T-leaf (the best tea company in the world, and I will not debate this). Tea is my thinking wellhead. Each slow slurp draws me a little closer to the truth of the scene, the hidden thread waiting to be found.

But before the words, I need structure. Every book begins with what I call a 360-degree panorama of the story. Imagine standing in the middle of a frozen landscape where every scene is already there. I turn my head left or right, and the whole story unfolds. That’s where the magic connections reveal themselves—like a memory stick with a logo on a desk in scene 13 that suddenly reappears fifteen scenes later for an Eureka moment of the sleuth. Without the panorama, I’m blind. With it, I can see the path.

From there, I craft the scenes. Each one must carry plot, characters, atmosphere—and the invisible current that keeps readers turning pages. To measure this, I use two values: tension and energy.

Yes, there’s a spreadsheet. (Numbers, if you’re curious.) It draws the story’s heartbeat—climbs, dips, surges. Those dips matter: they’re the quiet breaths before the next ascent. If the chart flatlines, I know the flame has gone out, and I have to rekindle it until the line rises again.

My tools keep me grounded. Scrivener is my factory, with index cards, drafts, and background research stacked neatly in one place. Its statistics keep me honest about my 1,000 words a day. Aeon Timeline keeps events from slipping out of order—because it would be awkward if a murder happened before the poison was bought.

And my day is split in two. Mornings are for planning and editing. That’s when my brain is sharp and unsentimental, ready to shovel through mistakes and organise chaos. Editing is hard labour, and mornings are the right time for it.

Evenings are for creating. That’s when I light a candle to the left of my screen and settle in with another pot of tea. Writing a new scene is, for me, a sacred act. The candle’s flame reminds me of that, a small ritual fire that feeds my imagination. The light flickers, the tea warms me, and slowly the scene reveals its truth. Some nights, the candle burns down to nothing before I look up and realise hours have passed.

When the manuscript is finished, polished, and blessed by both tea and candlelight, I pass it through Vellum. Vellum is publishing sorcery, transforming the text into a book ready for every platform. And since I like to keep my fingerprints on every part of the process, I design the covers myself with Pixelmator Pro.

So that’s my rhythm: tea, panorama, spreadsheets, Scrivener, Aeon, mornings for shovelling, evenings for sacred fire, then Vellum. From the first slurp to the last flicker, it’s how the story in my head becomes the story in your hands.