Seeing other people's plays can spur your own creativity, but you ultimately learn by doing. You can learn a great deal by watching, which is why theatres such as the Royal Court and the Bush in London provide free and cheap tickets for playwrights. I recently heard Mike Bartlett, writer of Earthquakes in London, say he wrote almost a dozen plays before his first was produced. Great playwrights do not spring fully formed from their mother's wombs. Being any kind of writer takes practice and, while some of the skills are transferable (I write a mean note for the milkman), being even a half-decent playwright takes craft and graft. Writing reviews and recognising a great (or even promising) play are entirely different things, and I think it's best to leave the latter to the professionals. It's not the first that's come my way, and of course I was flattered – who wouldn't be? – but I tend to think that, while 30 years of sitting in the dark watching other people's plays has taught me a great deal, one of the things it hasn't taught me is how to write a good play. They know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.' Perhaps it was Behan's voice that was whispering in my ear when I recently turned down an invitation to write a short play. Now, in the middle of a blizzard, they have to try to survive.and fight the feelings that refuse to die.'C ritics,' said the Irish writer Brendan Behan, 'are like eunuchs in a harem. Their assignment is simple, but a plane crash gets in their way. Three years later, fate brings them together again. Unexpectedly, their dynamics mesh, but when her feelings for Alex become stronger than she wants to admit, Maggie provokes the worst in Alex to ensure they will never be partners again. She believes that rule books were written for a reason. Maggie Campbell has a slightly different approach. Intelligent, perceptive, and at times disobedient, Alex Blake does what she believes it takes to do her job.

While their goal is the same, their work ethics are not. Ice begins when a boy is kidnapped from a London park and Detective Inspectors Alex Blake and Maggie Campbell are brought together to work on the case.

**Finalist in the 2015 National Indie Excellence Book Awards for LGBT Fiction** **Winner of the Gold Medal in the 2014 Global Ebook Awards in Gay / Lesbian / LGBT Fiction**

Ice by lyn gardner