John K. Fulton

I can’t remember the last time I wrote a short story. For (literally) decades I’ve been attempting to write novels, but back in olden times I wrote nothing but short stories. On Friday or Saturday evenings I used to fire up my green-screen Amstrad PCW 8256, bought with savings and a bursary from my first… Read More

This week I decided what my next project is going to be. After finishing The Chimney Rabbit and the Underground Mice, I had several options. I could have written the third book in the series, I could have written something completely unrelated, or (and this is what I’ve decided on) I could write a related… Read More

Earlier this evening, I booked tickets for a performance by the Philharmonia orchestra here in Leicester in June 2014 – normally I wouldn’t book anything so far in advance, but the good tickets seemed to be selling pretty quickly already, and my other half has recently become a huge Shostakovich fan, so the chance to… Read More

After I completed my first draft of The Chimney Rabbit and the Underground Mice, I took a break from writing for a little while. I’d gone straight from finishing The Chimney Rabbit into editing it, then straight into writing the sequel, and while working like that does have some benefit in the momentum it generates,… Read More

Two nights ago I completed the first draft of the sequel to The Chimney Rabbit, entitled The Chimney Rabbit and the Underground Mice. They say that everyone has one novel in them – at least I know now that I’ve got more than one. After so many years of writing without ever coming close to… Read More

I grew up by the sea. From the time I was four years old until long after I’d left home, my father was a lightkeeper for the Northern Lighthouse Board, which meant that we lived all around the coast of Scotland, usually moving home every four years. While sometimes my father worked at remote lighthouses… Read More

It’s very easy to be influenced by what you read – or at least, it is for me. When I started writing, I started by imitating the sort of books I liked – one of the earliest stories I can remember putting down on paper was, effectively, Willard Price fan fiction. I was probably about… Read More

The buzz in the world of publishing this week has centred around the contracts being offered by Random House’s new digital imprints Hydra, Alibi, Flirt, and Loveswept. These contracts mark a departure for a genuine, non-vanity publisher, in that they put the costs – all the costs – of publication on the shoulders of the… Read More

The Chimney Rabbit is still looking for an agent. After last week’s rejection by an agent, I’ve submitted a query to another agency to fill that gap. I keep a spreadsheet that lists the agent, agency and date submitted so I don’t do something horrible like submit to the same agent twice. So far I… Read More

Today I received an email from an agency thanking me for my submission of The Chimney Rabbit, but apologising that they wouldn’t be able to offer to take it any further. This wasn’t the first rejection I’ve received, and it almost certainly won’t be the last, but what makes it difficult is the lack of… Read More