Author Archives: Lee J. Russell

As I write this blog update it is now 13 days since the world was plunged into possibly the most significant political crisis since the official end of the Cold War. Russia stands accused by much of the International Community of having violated the sovereign territory of Ukraine by surreptitiously invading Crimea.  The Superpowers areContinue reading “From 12/3/14 – Crisis in Crimea”

28th December was a lovely day and I decided to have a walk around Ramsgate harbour. The south-east has been hit with a lot of unusually strong storms this Christmas but on this day the weather was quite pleasant! Ever since I was a boy I have enjoyed the atmosphere around the harbour. In thoseContinue reading “From 30/12/13 -“I had a lovely walk around Ramsgate Harbour just after Christmas…””

  I enjoy running for general fitness an relaxation. I don’t aim to run competitively against other people. Rather, I like to see how my personal fitness varies over time. But when the opportunity to take part in this charity run for Men’s Health in the UK, I thought “why not?” So at 7:00 thisContinue reading “From 30/11/13 – Enjoyed the 10k MoRun in London’s Greenwich Park today”

Here is a quick drawing from the scene where our group of survivors meet an inhabitant of Charybdis for the first time…  I’m not a great artist, as the drawing shows, but do I find that sketching things out like this helps me to visualise a scene. At this point the story had reached 50kContinue reading “Another concept drawing for “An End Of Beginnings”…”

Do you listen to music when writing? I don’t like to be distracted when I’m writing and enjoy the feeling which comes when my study is quiet and suddenly I’m really “in the zone” and the story is taking off. This happens most often when writing dialogue, but I have a confession to make… IContinue reading “Musical inspiration”

In August 2013 we enjoyed a fantastic day at Harry Potter World at Leavesden… I have become a great fan of the Harry Potter saga; the stories have been a massive commercial success but they’re also very engaging tales! This ‘Making Of’ event is arranged around two “sound stages” that are used to showcase a veryContinue reading “Harry Potter World – great for the imagination!”

This picture dates from 3rd May 2013: “The Living Rock Swallowed Fuster” At this point in the writing my survivors of humanity had been “ingested” by the approaching ship (Charybdis)and were enduring their first real test. Some people were dying while others were rising magnificently to the challenge. They couldn’t afford to lose any memberContinue reading “Another piece of concept art from ‘An End of Beginnings’”

I can’t resist sharing this old blog entry from 20th April 2013 – this small scene from an episode of Doctor Who had me laughing out loud: Dr: “… And ignorance is… what’s the opposite of bliss?” Clara: “Carlisle.” Dr: “Yes! Yes Carlisle. Ignorance is Carlisle.” Wonderfully funny, as long as you don’t come from Carlisle…

When I was writing ‘An End of Beginnings’ I sometimes did little sketches & paintings to help me visualise the scenes I was working on. Here is an early picture of the ship that eventually became known as the Auchliffe in the finished novel…