Marc Nobbs's Blog, page 3

Balancing Budgets with Bitter-Sweet Endings

The annual financial year-end crunch is upon us. The Peak Season for financial professionals the world over.

My ‘IRL’ job is in finance—I’m the finance manager at a small law firm. March represents our “Year End,” so naturally, February and March are the busiest months for me. It’s also, of course, coincides with the year-end for the nation’s tax system on April 5th, meaning those year-end pressures af...

May You Live in “Interesting Internet” Times

If you've spent any time online lately, you've likely encountered a familiar phenomenon: the unwavering confidence of those who know the least.

Here’s a tweet/bluesky post I made under my legal name earlier this week. I think it neatly sums up the state of the internet and its chilling effect on the world in 2025.

“If you spend any length of time on any internet platform or in any internet forum where p...

Chapter 36: Not the Chapter I Thought I was Writing

This week, I completed chapter 36 of ‘A Healing Love,’ which is now available for Postgraduate members on the story’s Ream Stories page.

But it wasn’t the chapter 36 I expected.

I mentioned in a previous post that I’d completed an emotional chapter 35 and was staring at a blank page with “Chapter 36” written at the top. But once I had finished “Chapter 36,” I found myself with two connected yet short ch...

A Short Break

I’ve taken a little break from writing “A Healing Love” for the past week or so because, I have to be honest, while the past five or six chapters include some of the best writing I think I’ve ever done, they have also been emotionally very draining.

These characters—Paul, Clarissa, Emily, Mark, Imogen and the rest—are all very real to me. I know them. I’ve been living with them in my head for over a de...

Slice, Dice, and Write? My Post-Op Update

It’s been a while since my last update because I went in for minor knee surgery and have been in recovery.

Yep, I finally got that lump on my knee that’s been bugging me for a decade removed on February 7th. Day surgery, so I was back home before I knew it.

The procedure was smoother than I expected. It was under general anaesthetic, so one minute I’m talking about what I do for a living and the next, I...

The Road to 150,000 Words: A Progress Update

Things are moving along nicely with A Healing Love. I’ve completed the thirty-third chapter, which has taken the word count up to 150,000—over twenty thousand more than my next longest novel, A Tortured Soul.

While I’m thrilled with the progress, I recognise that the book is far from complete. And Paul’s story is even further from a resolution—although I’m now very confident that the fifth book will in...

A Healing Love Update: Riding the Wave of Inspiration

At the start of the year, in a post about the Lilly Phillps controversy, I mentioned wanting to broaden the scope of this blog beyond A Healing Love updates.

Well, aside from my initial experiments with AI tools like Gemini (which has since become invaluable in crafting this story), I haven’t exactly branched out. But honestly, that’s because I’m on such a roll with the book, that I don’t want to brea...

Navigating Political Minefields: Crafting Chapter 30 of A Healing Love

It's been a fascinating few days working on Chapter 30 of A Healing Love.

This chapter was always going to be one of the toughest to write, as it depicts Paul attending a political speech—one that presents a viewpoint I know some readers might find contentious.

This isn’t the first time I’ve woven political opinions into my work. Readers may recall the clash between Chris and Colonel Burnett over the I...

How AI Helped Me Nail Chapter 29 of A Healing Love

Yesterday, I wrapped up Chapter 29 of A Healing Love, and I’ve got to say—I’m pretty happy with the progress.

Chapter 28 took nearly two weeks to come together, but I rattled off Chapter 29 in just four days. Not bad at all. At four and a half thousand words, it takes the manuscript past the one-hundred-and-thirty-thousand word mark.

This chapter feels like a big win for a couple of reasons. First, it m...

AI & the Author: Insights from My Experiments with AI as Writing Assistant

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I’ve been experimenting with the various AI platforms available, and it’s been quite an eye-opening experience. Today, I’d like to share my thoughts on the process and whether I think it’s a worthwhile exercise for writers. Using AI as a Beta Reader

I began by asking ChatGPT to analyze A Good Man on a chapter-by-chapter basis, which I foun...