I’ve had my friend Cathie staying with me for the past month and we’ve done lots of exciting things. Here are a few of them…
We went to see The Crucible at The Globe on a very hot afternoon. The £5 ticket meant standing for the duration which wasn’t too bad when the shade finally reached the spot where we were perched against a wall. It was one of several great plays we’ve seen this summer – others were The Great Gatsby and The Stereophonics.
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Oh yes, any trip to IKEA should be rewarded with a bite of lunch. Fortunately, the Croydon store wasn’t too busy when I visited last week and I came away with all the purchases on my list… and not much more. (The marketplace is fatal for picking up just another bargain.) I was interested to note there’s a scene set in IKEA in You by Caroline Kepnes, where the protagonist helps his muse to buy a bed. I am late to this novel (it’s now available on Netflix) but I did find it a compelling story and it made me realise how few books I’ve read recently where the main viewpoint character is male.
On this occasion it’s David and our friend Martin at the helm of a GoBoat. This electric-powered boat took us on a jaunt along the River Thames from Kingston and the table provided an excellent way to share a picnic. I’ve been madly searching Google to find the name of the romantic novel which I think was set in Copenhagen and features GoBoats. Instead, I’ve come up with an AI overview of how I can write a novel based on my search:
The protagonist, a travel writer, is tasked with documenting the “hidden gems” of Copenhagen. She meets a local guide while exploring the city’s canals, and they decide to take a GoBoat tour…
Although I find plot the hardest thing to nail as a writer, but I won’t be resorting to AI any time soon.
Read the rest of this entry »I am a member of the Women’s Institute (WI) and was delighted to join the Kingston branch to talk about my journey to becoming a published author. Here I am with the audience waiting for my session to be introduced.
Although I planned the talk carefully and rehearsed it twice, I was still nervous. Thankfully, the audience were very kind and receptive… and it turned out to be a lot of fun. There were many questions at the end of my thirty-five minutes of delivery and I was pleased to share my inspiration and approaches to writing with such an interested and responsive group.
The KWI book group will be discussing The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell in August and asked me to devise a few questions. I thought followers of this blog might also be interested so I’ve pasted them below:
Read the rest of this entry »I’m one of those people who struggle with Christmas. It’s a legacy from my childhood when money was tight, my father always drank too much and everyone made an effort to have a good time. Since my own children have grown up, it’s become a lot easier and we’ve introduced new Christmas traditions which I really enjoy like the 9am Christmas morning parkrun along Weymouth seafront. I also love visiting Weymouth on Boxing Day to see children riding their new bicycles and scooters. This year, the sea glinted silver under leaden clouds and was absolutely beautiful.
The new addition to our Christmas celebrations is Truffle, my daughter’s puppy. She’s still in training and tries very hard not to jump up, steal newspapers or lick everything off the kitchen floor. Unfortunately, my husband was clearing up his wine making kit (as if there isn’t enough to do on Christmas eve) when Truffle guzzled a few elderberries. My daughter was worried and rang the emergency vet who recommended a visit to the practice in Bournemouth. They duly set off but avoided a consultation charge by ringing a special phone number to be told Truffle hadn’t eaten enough elderberries to poison her.
My husband always cooks the Christmas dinner (my contribution is making red cabbage in the slow cooker). It was a splendid meal followed by music (I can play Jingle Bells on the piano – thanks to learning how to read a few notes on Duolingo‘s music programme) and singing – I just had to share with everyone my karaoke performance of Killing Me Softly which (after hours of practice), I’ve finally nailed. Well, the first verse anyway.
As for writing, I’ve submitted the opening 25,000 words of my new novel to Kate Nash’s mentoring BookCamp 2024. I thought I’d have it finished before Christmas but there was more to do than I’d anticipated. Several 6am starts and I sent it off yesterday. Hurray! (Now I need to go through the rest of the novel with a fine-tooth comb.)
I’ll close with a couple of Christmas snaps and greetings to you and yours for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2024.
Much of August was taken up with a rather wonderful cruise around the Norwegian fjords. We went because I’d bought a lavish evening dress in 2022 and hadn’t had a chance to wear it. There was also the small matter of a 32nd wedding anniversary to celebrate. (Our 30th was a damp squib thanks to Covid.) I wasn’t entirely confident cruising was going to be our thing and I couldn’t imagine what it would be like on the ship – my nearest comparison was a shopping centre! I’m pleased to report P&O’s Aurora was a delightful place to spend time. Here are my top three highlights of the holiday:
Skjolden
After two days at sea looking out on nothing more than (thankfully) flat, grey water and the occasional cargo ship or off-shore wind farm, we woke up in Skjolden (otherwise known as the king of fjords). We went for a walk around a lake and admired the reflections in the water and strolled past a couple of dramatic waterfalls.
Visits to Norwegian towns
We docked at eight different places. Usually we could walk straight off the ship but on one occasion had to catch a tender. Most of the towns boasted churches, museums and riverside walks. I can’t say these brief visits really provided a sense of place but the beauty of the fjords in which they were nestled was undeniable.
Onboard activities
Each evening we were provided with a programme of events for the following day. During the cruise, I enjoyed lectures on art and Norwegian history, I joined line dancing and dance fit classes as well as regular sessions at the gym. I even attended a vocal workshop. We were allocated a dinner table in the restaurant at 8:30pm and found our travelling companions to be great fun. And, of course, there were two occasions when I got to wear the lavish green evening dress on formal nights. Thanks to plenty of exercise and portion control on restaurant servings, I avoided putting on any weight.
You may notice the lavish green dress matches the cover of The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell perfectly. From today for the whole month of September, you can buy a kindle copy for only 99p. Do check out the other suspense titles from Bloodhound Books, too.
https://geni.us/SecretCaroylnRussell
How did the month of August go for you? What plans do you have for autumn?
First there was my daughter’s wedding. Here is the gorgeous girl and her lovely husband.
I wrote a poem for the happy couple and read it at the service.
Then I was in a drama showcase where I performed in a scene from Ladies Day as Pearl, a fish packer from Hull. (I even managed to crack a northern accent.)
Read the rest of this entry »I was pleased to spend a few days in Prague with my family at the end of March. The trip was originally planned for 2020 but postponed due to Covid. We stayed in a central location and wandered the cobbled streets until my feet cried for mercy. It was good travelling as a group because we each had different things we wanted to see. All set for a bit of endurance sightseeing, we tackled the Prague castle complex on the first day. Other highlights included watching the astronomical clock strike the hour, the view over Prague from the Petřín lookout tower, the Jewish quarter and photos in front of the Lennon wall.
It has long been an ambition to visit Ávila, close to Madrid in Spain. I love walled cities such as York and Ávila is equally impressive. ( I love to see the housing inside the walls.) When I realised it was possible to volunteer with Vaughan Town at el Barco de Ávila (a town not too far from Ávila), this killed two birds with one stone.
Vaughan Town is an organisation which recruits native English speaking volunteers to improve the spoken language skills of Spanish business people. Participants experience English emersion with over eighty hours of contact. As volunteers, David and I got to stay in a four-star hotel for six nights with all meals provided (three courses with wine at lunch and dinner plus a sumptuous breakfast). Volunteers came from Canada, England, the USA and Ireland. It was a unique opportunity to meet interesting people and converse with members of this intergenerational group. As well as one-to-ones, there were scripted telephone calls, group activities, presentations and comedy sketches. It was a rewarding experience to be part of the journey that saw participants develop their skills and fluency in using spoken English. I thoroughly recommend volunteering.
Now I’m back at home again, there’s lots of catching up to do. I’m continuing to work on a new novel set on a tropical island which focuses on the tension between affluent holidaymakers and local communities. The Vaughan Town experience has given me ideas for another story, so you could call it research.
But, the new priority for this week is getting in a practice run in preparation for the Weymouth half marathon on 19 March. Wish me luck!
I’m recently back from a trip to Cambodia where I met my Australian friend and we visited the amazing temples at Angkor Wat. After much consideration, I decided to make the journey without my laptop. The timing was good. I’d sent off my latest manuscript to beta readers at the end of December with the expectation I’d hear back from them after a month. The deadline for submitting my third novel The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell is on 1 February, and I figured I’d have enough time for a final read-though on return from Cambodia. Yet it was with some trepidation that I set off without my trusty laptop.
There was lots to distract me during the fortnight I was away. We stopped in Phnom Penh for four nights and spent many hours walking around the city. It’s much less frenetic than Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and I could actually cross the road unaided. (I once had to cling to the backpack of a Vietnamese schoolboy to safely cross a busy junction.) Phnom Penh hardly feels like a capital although there is a large business area. We stuck to the streets lined with colonial buildings which were a short distance from our hotel situated near to the royal palace.
One day we went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Visiting the S-21 interrogation and detention centre was a sobering experience. Housed in a former school and it was incongruous enjoying shade in the playground offered by frangipani trees knowing the atrocities that went on in the classrooms. Upon confession, victims of torture where then transferred to be murdered at the nearby killing fields of the Khmer Rouge regime. It seemed disrespectful to take photos but you can learn more about the museum here.
I must admit to having itchy fingers for the first few days of my trip but used the notes on my mobile to jot down any important things that came to mind. The next stop on our journey was in Battambang where we stayed at a delightful resort hotel with a pool. Breakfast and dinner were served beside a lake and excursions included an outing on bicycles and a trip into the countryside on a bamboo railway. Getting off the railway line quickly became a necessity when the scheduled train from Phnom Penh thundered through.
By the time we reached Siem Reap, I wondered why I’d hesitated to travel without my laptop. There was far too much to absorb during visits to the temples to be bothered with writing anything down.
The vast scale of Angkor Wat means it could take days to see all the fine details. I just had a glimpse of its magic then moved on to other temples, completely different from the first.
I must admit during the ten-hour layover at Singapore, I could’ve done with my laptop for company. Instead, I spent time wandering the complex and enjoyed the butterfly garden that features as part of Changi airport’s attractions.
Now that I’m back at home and recovered from jet lag, the final check of the manuscript for submission is calling me.
Have you ever travelled without a laptop? How did you find the experience?
Ever since I received a publishing contract for my dual timeline mystery The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell, I’ve been slaving over a new manuscript. It seemed completely do-able to get this latest work-in-progress shipshape before the publication schedule for book number three arrives in 2023. In October, I had nothing near a complete draft. It seems to me I approach each new novel in a different way. For the current work, I kept losing the thread of what I was doing which made me turn back to the beginning and start again. During the early months, I wasn’t sure what the spine of the story was about. But I worked my way into it and discovered one of the themes to be coercive control. Phew! That was a relief. But writing has many layers and the next priority was to ensure the three viewpoint characters had distinct voices. This is when a little comedy crept in and I discovered one of the characters to be quite humorous. (As a rule of thumb, if the writing makes me chuckle, I assume others will find it funny too.)
I’ve worked as hard as I can to complete and edit the manuscript. The next stage involves sending it to five beta readers for feedback. During my last read through, I discovered I’d used the word with 655 times. That meant I needed to get the pruning sheers out and reduce the usage considerably. Other of my high frequency words include all, now and only. Thank goodness for the find and replace function.
I’m now settling into a few days away from writing. It’s my husband’s birthday today and with my adult children home for Christmas, we visited the I Grew Up in the 80s exhibition at Dorset Museum. We also treated ourselves to breakfast in the cafe. Here are a couple of photos:
Who remembers these? (The visit also acts as research for a story I’m developing set in the 1980s.)
I will be away from my computer for much the Christmas break. On 2 January, I’m heading off to Cambodia but I’ll be back in touch again afterwards. What plans do you have for the next few weeks?
Happy holidays everyone!
the writer is a lonely hunter 