User:Mcnorthmore/sandbox

MAURICE NORTHMORE - Author

Biography: Maurice Northmore was was Born in South Yorkshire, England, towards the end of World War II. In his younger years, he was an excellent middle distance runner and a useful squash and soccer player, and for a while, raced motorbikes. He married in 1970 and fed up with life in England, emigrated with his family to Australia in 1975. In 2012, he returned to live in England. His main hobby is writing, but he also enjoys photography, travel and the company of others. He tries to keep fit bike riding, and walking weather permitting, and occasionally, swimming.

In his early years, he applied himself better to other things, rather than writing. But gradually, through his work as an electrical and mechanical engineer, his technical writing skills improved. Then one night, he read a novel (the title’s not important). It was the most awful book he had ever read, or in this case, tried to read. But he kept reading the book until he reached page ninety-six. Then, with his patience finally spent, he chucked the book into the rubbish bin and declared, "I could do better myself.”

This awful book was the catalyst that pushed his writing career in a different direction, because in 2002, his writing career took a dramatic change when he found a hidden passion to write short stories. A few stories and awards later, he started writing poetry. Since then, he has had numerous poems published and four of his poems have won the "Editors Choice Award" in competitions run by "The International Society of Poets". He started writing his first novel, “The Urban Soldier,” in 2002. It took seven years for it to reach the Publisher’s desk. But his patience paid off when “The Urban Soldier” was released to the book retail market in December 2010.

Before the release of his first novel, he said he would never write another. But since its release, he has written his second novel, "The Prime Ministers Rival," and his third "Lost in Transit", and he is currently writing a Crime Thriller. He also plans to write another novel set in Bombay at the time India is fighting for its independence and a Hindu mother is fighting for the safety of her illegitimate child. After that, he says, "who knows?"

To learn the art of writing, Maurice has undertaken numerous "Creative Writing Courses," and been a member of several "Writing Clubs," and continuously works towards improving his writing knowledge, and style. When he first started writing stories, his writing was less structured. He wrote mainly by freehand for a while, but soon began using a computer to draft his stories. Nowadays his writing has a more structured approach. He uses spreadsheets to store his library of story elements and develop a skeleton plot of his stories, which he then finishes off with specialized writing software.

Visit the author's website at: [https://sites.google.com/site/mauricenorthmore/