Loretta Proctor's Blog, page 3

The Beauty of Lighthouses

We're off to the north of England soon to visit Yorkshire where some cousins live. I love this county with its rolling moors ,dales and little streams or 'fosses.' I love the local dialect and the blunt, earthy speech of the natives. This is the world of the Brontes and we're sure to make another visit to Haworth where they lived in a bleak little house next to a graveyard. Bleak it may have been and their lives dreary by our action packed, seldom silent standards. But it left room for them to converse, imagine, read, dream and create some amazing works of genius.

However, my main wish is to revisit Flamborough Lighthouse which stands on a lonely peninsula, buffeted by winds and rain and often enveloped in swirling mists or 'sea frets' as the locals call them. At times like this the muffled boom of the foghorn sounds out to warn passing ships of the dangerous rocks that line the coast.

This lighthouse is on the cover picture of my book Middle Watch (currently up for a giveaway) and the dramatic climax of the book takes place there. I'm looking forward to clambering down the slopes towards the seashore as Bridie does in my story,looking for wild flowers and watching the birds circling the rocks and coastline, making their mournful cries.

Roll up for Middle Watch Giveaway

Here in the UK it's a Jubilee weekend for our Queen who has reigned for 60 years! So I felt I'd celebrate with a Giveaway spree of 5 books of Middle Watch which will start on Monday June 4th and end on June 16th.

So roll up,roll up folks and take a look! Lighthouses, stormy seas and passions, poetic descriptions of the coasts of Britain, suspense...what more could you ask?Middle Watch

Rain, rain go away....on the other hand...

It's bucketing down here in Malvern, UK. All the lovely spring flowers are getting heavy and soggy and will probably rot on their stems. No way of getting out in the garden even to rescue the fallen bird feeder. The wily ground feeding birds are taking full advantage of this mishap!
However, I am off now to light a cosy fire (did I tell you it's freezing as well?) and then will curl up in a favourite saggy armchair with my latest Robert Goddard book. He's my comfort read. I've saved his latest,'Fault Line',for just such a day.
So rain on...I'm not tempted to go forth or feel guilty for my hidden pleasures and an idle day indoors!

So good to be independent

Our local library had recently contacted a fairly well known writer who was visiting Malvern to give a talk. The writer agreed to do a talk at the library on the same day which seemed a bit worrying. She then later informed them that her agent wouldn't allow her to do this extra talk for some peculiar legal reason??...so she arrived, sat with the audience in the cafe (they had paid £3.00 for this privilege)and hardly spoke to anyone. Naturally they were disappointed and angry. I certainly won't be reading any of this woman's books.

Why agree to the idea in the first place?..she did herself no favours and lost a lot of fans. I am so glad at times to be a free spirit and not have any hassles with agents or those who have 'bought' me as a commodity...never mind my book.

Off to the Big Smoke!

Away tomorrow from the lush green hills of Malvern to the streets of London. Like my heroine Bridie in Middle Watch, I find the city crowded, raucous, even sinister at times. I loved it when young when I enjoyed visiting all the famous sights, gardens, museums and galleries of London, loved a trip on a boat up the River Thames to Greenwich with its famous naval college built by Christopher Wren. Wren's wonderful church,St Paul's Cathedral, London's iconic church, was just round the corner to my workplace in the Old Bailey. I spent lunch hours there in peace and tranquillity. Now it is crowded with tourists,squatters and protesters, seldom peaceful and you have to pay to go in!
London has lost its appeal for many of us older Londoners and we're migrating in dozens to the West. The West, they say, is the place of endings, sunsets, old age so that seems appropriate enough.
However, as I say, I'm off there tomorrow for my book launch at Goldsboro Books in Cecil Court, just off the famous Charing Cross road, haunt of booklovers for ages. This part of London remains largely unspoilt, a fabulous place to find old and rare books as well modern signed editions (Goldsboro's speciality)

I shall enjoy it all...but be so glad to come back home to the hills!

My first interview for Middle Watch. The title is available at a reduced pre-order price now for UK buyers and POD in the US. There will soon be an ebook version. Go to www,troubador.co.uk

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Covers are important to me

Words are wonderful but images are also important. Maybe that's why I love and collect old books with beautiful illustrations in them. The Victorian era saw a flowering of wonderful artists who illustrated children's books and travel and history books also. It brought it all to life for me in an age when there was no television or computer (thank goodness) and the imagination was allowed to roam instead.
Looking at many of the recent book covers, I find them deeply unattractive. My particular hate is the pictures of faceless women in Regency or Victorian dresses. Beautiful dresses, yes, but all we have of the woman is her torso. That's a wierd thing, what's it meant to be saying about the book...or women for that matter!
The cover should represent the book but modern publishers seem to have devloped a format for covers as much as they have for the type of books they promote.

Books and Music make life worth living!

I find it impossible to understand a friend of mine who just can't sit down, pick up a good novel and enjoy reading it. He buries himself in tax books, conspiracy theories and Private Eye - and that's it. Losing oneself in an imaginary world for a brief while, following the adventures of another, perhaps in places one has never visited is what has made life worth living for me. That, beautiful nusic and the joys of gardening have made some of the happiest moments. A great book remains with you all your life, a part of the psyche and enthralling precisely because it attracted you, as a lover attracts you, through something indefinable that connects your soul to that of the other. Books stand out as milestones on my life's path and sometimes, I have even found myself living out similiar events in my own life. What threads unite us all in this way? It's fascinating.
What is my all time favourite? Hard to say but Jane Eyre and Madame Bovary must be amongst them.

Raring to go!

The old year has slunk away into the darkness of the past and the new one is here full of bright hope and encouragement. We human beings are basically hopeful and optimistic at heart , aren't we? However bad the past has been, we feel the future must surely be an improvement. At the least, we have learnt from our mistakes.
As for me, I'm raring to go with my new book Middle Watch which is sceduled to come out Ist April 2012...April Fool's Day of all things. Is it telling me something?
No way. It's a book I loved writing and though all author's sometimes feel they are fools to make all this effort over a mere story, seeing the book cover, signing off the proofs and then seeing the finished product is always such a moment of delight.

Proofs for Middle Watch here now. Time to get to work!

Proof reading isn't any author's favourite occupation but I rather like nit-picking so will enjoy getting the whole story tidied up, eliminate superfluous words and so forth. Thankfully, my daughter did a good job of tidying up my grammar and oddities before I sent the TSS to the publishers! But I know an little tweak or two will still be needed. It's good feeling seeing the book ready to go into print. A very good feeling.