What is this blog about?  

This blog is my reflective journal about creative writing.  A reflective journal is a tool to help you think about your own work in process.  I publish new in-depth articles once or twice a month.  Because I’ve been a teacher and a university lecturer, I frame my entries as lessons.  You will find material on grammar and rhetoric, plot structure, characterisation, good work habits, how to write a story from scratch, and whatever else I have been learning as I try to become a better writer.

Who is this blog for?  

Anybody interested in writing.  Articles go into depth on the technicalities of writing and the inner workings of story.  Whether you want to know how to subordinate a clause, how story beats fit into a 5 Act structure, or if cognitive poetics can apply to modern creative writing, you’ll find something for you here.  I didn’t know anything about these things until I wrote about them, so don’t worry if the last sentence didn’t make much sense!  If you want to learn to write better, I think this blog will help.

Who is Keith Crawford?  

I’m a retired British Royal Navy officer, with a PhD in Law, called to the Bar in 2014.  Injured in service around the time of the attack on the twin-towers I spent 6 years using a wheelchair.  A Navy resettlement scholarship paid for me to go to university, which is where I met my wife.  I followed her back to France and we live in Paris.  With our first child on the way I decided to stop working – I was teaching Law at Sciences Po – and take care of the kids full time.  We now have a son and a daughter, and I just about manage to spend more time writing than changing nappies.

I have done a lot of writing: my doctoral thesis, book chapters, working papers, not to mention lectures, notes, newspaper articles, and other worky stuff.  When not doing that kind writing, I write stories.  I’ve had plays staged, published stories, and in 2014 started a novel alongside this blog.  The novel is very nearly finished (huzzah!).

It is all part of a plan to write so much I eventually get good.  Let me know if it happens!