Denzil Meyrick, author of 'Murder at Holly House' - Bestselling writer discusses the baggy middle, avoiding distractions, and not being limited by genre
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 10 November 2023
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Denzil Meyrick has published 11 bestselling DCI Daley books, many standalones, and is back with, 'Murder at Holly House'.
Set in 1952, it takes Inspector Frank Grasby despatched to investigate a strange body discovered at historic Holly House. When snow strands him there, and another body is found, we find ourselves in a locked room mystery.
We talk about why Denzil doesn't like being limited by genre... he is a writer of all sorts, as that's what writers should be. Also, you can hear how working in the police, and also as the director of many companies, influenced his writing.
We chat through why his routine is to simply sit down and get on with it, how to deal with missing the word count, and why he wanted to take a break from the DCI Daley stories.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome along to a brand new episode of writers' routine. This week we're chatting to |
| 0:13.5 | Denzel Mayrick. Denzel has written 11 DCI daily books, many standalones too, and he's back with a brand new novel, Murder at Holly House. |
| 0:24.3 | We discuss how his work in the police and directing companies being very busy, how that influenced his writing. |
| 0:32.0 | Also, how his routine is mainly to simply sit down and try and get on with it, and you can hear why murder at Holly House is something a little unusual for him. |
| 0:41.6 | And I thought, well, it's good to write something uplifting at Christmas time. |
| 0:45.9 | And I wouldn't want to do it all the time. |
| 0:49.0 | But then again, I don't want to write the same kind of books all the time anyway, |
| 0:52.5 | whether I don't really believe in being a, you know, I'm always referred to as a Scottish crime writer, I would rather |
| 0:59.4 | just be referred to as a writer, because I could come out with something that isn't really |
| 1:03.5 | crime at all, and I have done. And again, it's this need to pigeonhole people to label them and put them in a box. |
| 1:13.7 | I'm not good at boxes. |
| 1:15.1 | It's all on the way in a brand new episode of Writers' Routine. |
| 1:26.0 | Yes, welcome along. |
| 1:43.9 | My name's Dan Simpson, and this is Writers Routine routine where we take a look through an author's working day, the show that hopefully peels back the curtain and lets you in to see some of the secrets and learn some tips and get tricks that will help you plan your day, your work, your life around what you want to write. |
| 1:49.0 | Now something that can help out with that is our sponsors for this week's show, the brilliant writing software Plotter. We've got a fantastic offer that you can make the most of over at |
| 1:54.4 | go.com slash routine. While you're there, you get 10% off this software. Plotter is a writing tool that, well, |
| 2:02.6 | does what it says. It plots. It helps you plan your books the way that you think, letting you |
| 2:06.7 | outline faster, organize smarter, and it will turbocharge your productivity with a digital |
| 2:12.7 | court board with color-coded notes and paths and threads on there. |
| 2:17.9 | It makes it really easy for you to get a lot of detail into your timeline, |
| 2:21.9 | the outline, your notes, the details on characters and places, |
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... |
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