May babies

This is the time for birthday cards – receiving and sending – because it was my birthday the other day and I have nearly a dozen friends and relatives with their birthdays before the end of the month! Spread out from Scotland to South Africa and reaching from the far west of England to the far east of East Anglia, we May babies get around!

One lovely friend whose birthday is today even baked a fabulous coffee gateau and brought it to our ladies group this morning to share over coffee. Yum!

I’m always fascinated and delighted by the cards I receive. My family and friends always choose well. There are pretty cards:

And cheerful fun cards (I love giraffes!):

Some feature the number of years I have achieved:

I remember how as a child, each increasing year held so much excitement. Now I look at that number and wonder how did I ever get here and really not feel any different from when I was 18?

And I am so grateful for those friends who understand me well and send me the perfect card to cheer me on! (And no, I don’t do wild swimming – especially not with England’s privatised water companies pumping raw sewage into all our rivers and lakes!)

I am grateful for all the lovely cards and messages, Facebook friend greetings and GIFs, and I hope my friends and family members who share a May birthday with me will enjoy theirs just as much! Happy birthday to all May babies!

Eye-spy, with my little eye

So I had cataract surgery on Sunday afternoon. Funny day, you may think, but at least I had the opportunity to go to church in the morning and share communion with my friends before taking this next step into the unknown.

And it is the unknown that is scary. And I was scared. And squeamish about someone fiddling around with my eye. But needs must – and I found attempting to proofread the last book with blurry eyes that wouldn’t cooperate was truly cramping my style. (I’m grateful that my most eagle-eyed reader friend has only spotted two typos, duly marked up for the reprint… if there is one!)

Anyway, Sunday afternoon, after a light lunch, off I went in a friend’s car to a private eye clinic on the outskirts of Norwich, currently being well-used by the NHS to make the huge waiting lists vanish.

The actual op took ten minutes. I’ve no idea whether I had an injection to numb the eye or whether it was the magic drops the nurses kept popping in my eye. Whatever, it seemed to work and I was off home, slightly dazed before 4 o’clock!

I thought this would be a quiet week when I could malinger gently (one of the benefits of living alone is no one to gee you up when you just feel like being lazy!) but having a new book out means people want to know about it – and I’ve found myself writing articles and choosing pics for local papers. I totally hate pics of myself and most of my profile pics are – shall we say – a few years old!

So here’s a last one of me, with the old left eye and the old spectacles!

Where do you get your characters?

I have a first draft of the new book, written in white heat in November 2022 during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I’ve been doing NaNoWriMo since 2013, accepting the challenge to get 50,000 words of a new project done during the month. I never hit the target but I usually get enough of a first draft done to provide the foundation for a complete book, usually several months and many drafts and rewrites later.

So I have a scrappy draft, with the main plot in place. I know who my main characters are – some appeared in the previous book, some are newcomers. I have a weakness for detailed time-lines showing where each character is in their lives from birth onwards to the point when they appear in the story. I’ve been researching agricultural colleges and public schools, Bristol squats and New Age Travellers.

Many years ago when I lived in Somerset, not far from the National Trust’s lovely Barrington Court, our house came with a couple of fields. The lower field was let out to a young lad who was trying to build up his own herd. The upper field we were attempting to landscape, but a good two-thirds of it was untouched and one day a shire horse plodded onto our drive. A young girl was driving the horse, to which was attached a flat-bed trailer.

Beautiful Barrington Court gardens

I went out to chat to her. She and her young man were Travellers who had come to the area for the cider-apple picking. Seeing my nice open field, she wondered if they might pitch up there for a couple of weeks. I saw no harm in it and she seemed a nice lass, so it was agreed. They made their small encampment in the lee of the hedge and the horse, tethered, grazed peacefully. They vanished at an early hour each day to go to the cider farm to work, came back at twilight, and then disappeared to the local hostelry just up the road. I left the back door open so they could use our facilities.

But my neighbours shook their heads and tutted. ‘You can’t trust them,’ I was warned. But as I say, I never really saw them. Till the last day, when the girl appeared at my door to say they were off. And she gave me a gallon plastic container of scrumpy as a thank you.

It was rough stuff but we appreciated the thought – and the gift. And I reckon I might just put someone based on her in the next book!

What comes next…

The past couple of months have been a whirlwind of activity – and huge fun! I overcame my nerves and entered the world of Amazon self-publishing, dipping my toes hesitantly into the water at first – and then when I discovered how easy and how much fun it was, I’ve taken to it with enthusiasm.

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First, I re-issued my four Christian novels: When the Boats Come Home about the Fishermen’s Revival in Great Yarmouth in 1921; and the three books in the Mizpah Ring trilogy.

And then the major step: revising and publishing Loose Ends, the first book in my new Somerset Mysteries crime series.

I lived in Somerset for around 12 years from the mid-1980s to early 1995. My home was first in the delightful town of Somerton and then on the outskirts of Westport, a tiny village. Loose Ends, book one of the series, is set in Somerton. I’m now hard at work on book two which is set in Hambridge, the village just north of Westport.

I’ve got the first draft written. I always write, very quickly, a very short first draft – just getting the story down with quite a lot of dialogue. I’m now at the stage of going back and thinking through whether it really works, what red herrings and extra plot twists would be fun, and what research is needed to provide a sound foundation for my fictional characters and happenings.

So – no plot spoilers here but I am looking at New Age Travellers, cider farms, and moo-cows. When I lived in Somerset, I was for a while Features Editor of The Somerset Magazine. I got sent off with my trusty camera each month to research a topic of local interest – and one month it was Sheppy’s Cider Farm! Little did I know it would come in handy many years later.

That’s the lovely thing about writing. Nothing is wasted!

Of making many books…

Long ago, publishers used to release the hardback edition of a novel first. It was a beautiful thing: jacketed, casebound, with marbled or printed endpapers, and headbands like stripey caterpillars neatening the top and bottom of the stitched-together printed pages, and sometimes woven into a silky bookmark. It was only after the avid buying public had purchased a goodly quantity of the stock that concession was made to the hoi polloi and the cheaper paperback edition was grudgingly released.

I confess I always waited for the paperback and blessed the memory of Allen Lane, the wonderful man who launched the affordable Penguin into the world of books in the mid-1930s. I do possess some hardbacks – special books, the ones I want to keep forever. And I must also admit that I find a hardback offers a different sensual experience: the sheer heft and feel of a hardback, and those extra trimmings…

But for the simple pleasure of reading, I am delighted with the convenience and comfort of my Kindle. And so, for my new book, Loose Ends, first in my Somerset mystery series, I am launching the e-book first for all the Kindle afficionados! It’s available for free on Kindle Unlimited or for the princely sum of 99p if you want to hang on to it!

The paperback will be released next week.

And now for something completely different!

I’m taking a leap – changing genre. My previous novels have been historical, family sagas, with a Scottish base/bias. The next to be published will be crime novels. And here’s the cover for the first one in the series, set in Somerset:

I love it. I hope you do too. Special thanks to the wonderful Liz Carter who took my scrappy ideas and an old photograph and worked wonders!

I’m on the final read-through/proof-read. I daren’t hazard a guess how many times I’ve been over it and am still finding things I want to change. But this is the last chance and then it goes away to be formatted before uploading on Amazon both as a paperback and a Kindle ebook.

And then it’s time to polish up Book 2 and get it ready to go…

How to be a publisher

When I was young, there were very few jobs open to a girl: shop assistant, nurse, teacher, wife and mother. I wasn’t interested in any of them. I wanted to be an author. The dream was a shelf of books with my name on the spine.

I had not a clue how to get there. I knew about writing and did lots of it, but publishing? That was way outside my experience. But today, as I trawled through the box of keepsakes I brought from my mother’s house after she died, I came across:

In 1965-66, I’d spent a long weary spell at home after a bout of TB meningitis that nearly took my life. Not allowed back to school for almost a year, I had to entertain myself somehow and The Willow Bank Journal (we lived in Willow Bank) was the result. Looking at it now, I see that I was both author and self-publisher!

Many years later, wanting to give my creative writing students a lift, I set them a Christmas writing challenge and then gathered the results in a book:

Again, I was editor and publisher. I even gave my enterprise a name: Coastal Publishing! And we did it again the next year:

Life then intruded for a while and my next venture into writing/publishing was a collection of stories and poems, a little Christmas gift for friends and family:

So why has it taken me so long to realise that I actually can do this self-publishing lark? As I gain the courage to do more than simply dip a toe into the Amazon KDP system and begin to get my books out under my own name, I am discovering just how much help there is out there, and how much encouragement. This truly is the best time to be a publisher!

So I am delighted to announce that each of my most recent four novels (shown above) are available on Amazon Kindle Unlimited for free and for a modest 99p (other currencies are available!) if you want your own e-book to keep. Paperback editions are now available too. And just this morning I began the final editing of the manuscript for Book 1, and discussion on cover design for the new series with a first-rate designer. It’s a different genre, this time. Crime fiction. I’ll keep you posted!

First steps in the Amazon jungle

I think I’m what’s called a ‘late adopter’ – I’m not the first to rush out and try things. So it’s not surprising I haven’t got an air fryer yet, and although I did give Instagram a go, I haven’t yet ventured onto TikTok.

And I cannot count how many friends have successfully launched their books on Amazon and told me it was easy.

Right. My young friend Amy ran a half-marathon on Sunday in excellent time and said it was easy. I watch cookery programmes that make cordon bleu meals look easy. I reckon ‘easy’ is in the eye of the beholder/expert!

Or is it? As you’ll know if you read last week’s blog, I finally took the plunge and uploaded my four novels onto Amazon KDP.

Yes, I had an excellent step-by-step guide to follow that my ex-publisher Paul kindly provided but… to loud shouts of ‘I told you so’ from my friends… it was much easier than I had expected. OK, feared.

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This is Vicci, the cat who came to stay when I had my Scotland adventure in 2019-21. And she was not a scaredy-cat. But I think I definitely can be. Fear is a rotten thing. It stops us in our tracks. Prevents us from fulfilling our potential.

I had brunch with a friend this morning at one of my favourite places, the Broken Egg cafe on the outskirts of Harleston. (It has a wonderful sculpture at the roadside – built a while back by the local Young Farmers’ Club. It was put on top of a car and taken to a county show where it had to process round the ring – only they’d put the car in backwards and the driver couldn’t see out so one of the Young Farmers had to sit on the chicken and shout directions!)

Anyway, my friend reminded me, when you’re afraid to do something, ask yourself ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ I was trying to pluck up courage to contact an Arts Festival which hasn’t finalised its programme and I thought my next book might be relevant. Katie’s reminder produces the answer: the worst they can do is sneer and turn me down! I can live with that.

Oh, and if you need a little Biblical help, Paul’s second letter to Timothy is the one: ‘For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.’ 2 Timothy 1:7

So where I’m concerned, no excuse there!

Lunch with my publisher

I had lunch with my publisher yesterday.

Long, long ago, it was one of the joys of being a young editor with a generous expense account that I could ring up authors in need of encouragement and take them out somewhere nice for lunch. And just so, now, it is a delight to be sitting on the other side of the table and be wined and dined by an appreciative publisher.

Of course the days of long boozy lunches are long gone. I remember a little hazily some of those long drives back from central London, and there were some authors quite notorious for ensuring they got our money’s worth!

It was after a fascinating lunch in Windsor with one of England’s top importers of Australian wines (a new thing, then) that duly tutored, I had the courage – and savoir faire – to order the wine for a male author. In the early days, the fact that I – or my expense account to be exact – was footing the bill made some of the more dinosaur variety males very uncomfortable. So the fact that I chose my own food, recommended the specialities, and ordered the wine rather shifted the goalposts they were used to controlling. But then, at that time, the only females they were used to encountering would be receptionists or secretaries. (In my opinion, some of the most fearsome females in the business!)

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So yes, I enjoyed the gentle humour of turning tables on red-faced, club-tied, older males. Once they got used to the idea, however, they became lambs and produced the books I had commissioned from them on time and to length.

Which of course is now my responsibility and this lunch celebrates the relaunch¹ of my four most recent novels with a new publisher.

I have some confidence in this publisher and raise my glass in a cheerful toast. After all, she’s been editing my work for as long as I’ve been writing. Yes, you’ve guessed it: I’m relaunching my books as an independent publisher – and the step-up from writer to publisher after so long is exhilarating!

I applaud all those who have forged this path ahead of me and I look forward to the new adventures my publisher alter-ego will encounter.

1. I was sad that my wonderful publisher Paul Stanier has closed Zaccmedia and moved on to other things but he has been most helpful in converting the book files and enabling me to enter the Amazon jungle to reissue my books – as paperbacks in the next three weeks, and as e-books for Kindle more quickly. I’ll keep you posted! ↩︎

New routes, new journeys

I like trains. Yes, I enjoy driving my car, but there’s something much more holiday-like about going somewhere by train. I was thinking about renewing my Senior Railcard (30% off ticket prices) and working out that if I could get myself to Norwich, I could get to Glasgow in two short hops with a stop in Birmingham in between – train drivers’ strikes permitting.

The idea was to spend a few pleasant days doing research on… yes, the book that won’t let go. I’ve had yet another recent bash at it: 14 pages before I ground to a halt. Then I indulged in some blatant displacement activity: moving furniture, bookcases, boxes… And came across a fat lever-arch file

with six different starters of several chapters and one two-thirds-complete typescript.

(The index card reveals my writing process – one hour in the morning, print out the output, and keep a record of the word count… to encourage me as the numbers and pages add up!)

But, like a train where something has gone wrong, I seem to run into the buffers every time with this book. Including this time when I thought it might be a good idea to complete and have the sequel to the Mizpah Ring trilogy ready to publish, to accompany the reissue and relaunch of books 1 to 3, and my first novel, When the Boats come Home (now generally unavailable except second-hand).

The reason is that my publisher has gone out of business but, bless him, he has converted the book files for me so I can upload them to Amazon as print and e-books – this is work-in-progress! A companion new book seemed a good idea. And then I hit the buffers.

But wait! Much though I like trains, I am not a train! I am not trapped to run on rails! I can hop off and take a different route – and suddenly it crosses my mind, maybe the reason each attempt to write Book 4 has fizzled out is because I’m telling the story (pardon yet another railway metaphor) on the wrong lines!

Maybe it’s time to take a fresh look at the characters and the story I wanted to tell and see if, hidden amongst all the attempts and versions, there is a much more interesting way to tell it. (I am much encouraged by author Bonnie Garmus of Lessons in Chemistry fame – her book sold 6 million copies and has been translated into 42 languages – and took five years to write!)

Just as well our weather is currently beastly – it’s excellent weather for staying home and pondering book plots and ideas!