Debbie Young's Blog, page 33

That’s So Last Year: My Magazine Columns for November & December

[image error]View from my study window after the snowfall before Christmas

Thanks to the unexpected consequences of a snowfall before Christmas, I’ve fallen way behind on my blog.

Who knew that snow and internet don’t mix? Our snow felled an overhead cable, cutting off our broadband and phone line for nearly a week. This crisis was resolved only when a team of engineers dug up the road to fix it. I’m still not sure how snow affected subterranean cables, but so pathetically grateful was I to have the service restored that I was not about to query their methods.

Snow and ice also took out our Sky TV. The satellite dish was covered in snow and ice, and Sky’s technical advice when this happens is simply to wait for the thaw.

[image error]To Dorothy, a window is as good as a television screen – she was transfixed by the snow, chasing individual flakes as they fell

After that, I allowed real life to take over from the internet (well, it was Christmas), so I’m now starting my new blogging year already way behind. I haven’t even got round yet to sharing here the monthly columns I write for two local magazines, the Hawkesbury Parish News and the Tetbury Advertiser, and the guest posts I write on the 30th of every month for the Authors Electric collective.

I’m torn: I like to share all those things on here not only so that I have a central record of all my writing, but also because many of you tell me they enjoy reading the columns, because they give insight into life in the rural community that has inspired my  Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries, and the Authors Electric post because it’s always about my writing.

But I don’t want to bombard my readers with a string of belated posts.

So what I’m going to do instead is tack those belated columns to the bottom of this post, and then carry on with my new blog plan for 2018, which is to post every Wednesday about aspects of my writing life, such as book news and extracts, event plans and reports and reading recommendations

If you have a particular question to ask about my writing life, don’t hesitate to ask, and I’ll add it to my list of blog post ideas for 2018.

Wishing you a very happy New Year full of peace, joy, love, health, fulfillment and great books!

And if you don’t want to catch up with those missing posts, click away now…

AUTHORS ELECTRIC NOVEMBER 2017
It ain’t what you tell, it’s the way that you tell it: in which Debbie Young tries not to lose the plot

Most authors at some point in their writing lives will come across the advice that there are ONLY SEVEN BASIC PLOTS – or maybe nine, or thirty-six, or various other numbers, depending on whom you consult.

If you’re the glass-half-empty type, it’s easy to think:

“Oh no, how can I ever hope to be original? Someone will have got there before me!”

Whereas glass-half-full types like me may think:

“Well, Shakespeare just took existing stories and upcycled them into his plays – if it’s good enough for Shakespeare, who am I to complain?”

Those who can’t even see the glass are probably best advised to throw down their pen and take up golf instead.

The BEST thing to do is, of course, to take your choice of basic plot and wrap around it your choice your characters, themes, setting, etc etc to produce a final story that only you could write.

How Shall I Write It? Let Me Count the Ways
(Photo by MJS on Unsplash)

(Photo by MJS on Unsplash)

I took as my starting point for my latest cosy mystery novel, Murder in the Manger, one of the oldest stories in modern culture, the nativity. Sophie Sayers, the central character in this series, writes her own version of the classic Bible nativity story for the village primary school and local amateur dramatic association in the Cotswold village of Wendlebury Barrow, to which she’s recently moved.

The performance of her script is a story-within-a-story, or rather a play-within-a-play (yes, Shakespeare got there before me on that too, with the “rude mechanicals” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream). It’s a plot device which complements the themes of transformation and restoration that are wrapped around it in the novel’s main plot and various subplots.

Sophie’s Choice of Story

Sophie’s telling of the nativity includes a lot of humour, including in-jokes for the villagers, (the Innkeeper is the school admissions officer, for example), without ever being disrespectful of the Bible story or offensive to believers. At the end, the vicar even compliments her on making the story more accessible to the audience than a more erudite approach such as the medieval mystery plays, which also get a mention in the story.

I don’t know how many other novels have retold the nativity, as I have in this book – but I think even such a well-known and simple plot can be endlessly reworked and still be compelling. As Sophie’s friend Ella reassures her, when she’s worrying about whether her play will work:

You’re on to a winner, no matter what. No-one can complain that the plot is flawed, or that they can’t work out which character is which, or what their motivation is. Your audience will be determined to enjoy it, come what may. They’ll mostly be related to someone in the cast, so they’ll be willing the production to succeed. You don’t have to worry about technical hitches, because you’re not using any technology – no lights, no microphones, no recordings. What could possibly go wrong?

Of course, this being Wendlebury Barrow, things do go wrong – and by the end of the first chapter, the whole congregation gathered to watch the play is accused of murder by a mysterious stranger.

But my point remains:

a basic plot can be retold in numerous different ways without losing its power

Rather than run through a list of other written interpretations of the Christmas story, I thought I’d go visual to reinforce my point…

Stained glass windows were one of the earliest means of telling the nativity story – postcard images of the Burne Jones windows in Winchester Cathedral by Dr John Crook

And into three dimensions… Not far from where I live, St John’s Church in Chipping Sodbury has just started its annual Crib Festival, which each Advent displays over a hundred different models of the stable scene, contributed by all kinds of people from toddlers to professional craftsmen, with materials as diverse as Lego and coconut shells. I’m looking forward to my annual visit there to remind myself of the many different ways to tell a story.

Click here to view the church’s gallery showing the nativity story told in countless ways – each of them engaging in its own right

The Story Around the Story

And if you’d like to find out what happens next in Murder in the Manger, you can order it from all good bookstores, on the High Street and online, in paperback or as an ebook.

Here’s the Amazon link for the UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Murder-Manger-Village-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B074SZLZ6P/

Here’s the Amazon link for the US:

https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Manger-Village-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B074SZLZ6P

 

HAWKESBURY PARISH NEWS – NOVEMBER 2017
A Nook for Books
[image error]My new reading nook, with handy cat cafe beneath for Dorothy

Sunday supplements’ suggestions for home improvements usually evoke hollow laughter in our house: the gift-wrapping room (who gives enough presents to justify dedicating a whole room to the activity?); the return of wallpaper (at £1,000+ a roll); the subterranean swimming pool (like something from a James Bond villain’s lair).

So the latest trend, the Book Nook, took me by surprise. As soon as I read about it, I wanted one.

What’s a Book Nook?

A cosy corner reserved for curling up with a good book, furnished with copious cushions and throws to keep you cosy while you escape into the pages of your current read.

A Book Nook doesn’t require much investment, provided you can find a little space somewhere in your house. That may be easier than you think. We’ve just created one from a disused inglenook fireplace, previously used primarily as a repository for the cat’s bowls where we wouldn’t fall over them.

Which leads me to suggest that the best way to identify a potential Book Nook in your house is simply to follow your cat.

Cats like to hang out in cosy corners: wide, sunny windowsills, empty alcoves, the cupboard under the stairs, even the airing cupboard. What could be cosier?

So our new Book Nook is where I’ll be heading in future when I want to lose myself in a good book, though I may have to fight the rest of the family, and probably the cat too, for the space.

Once you’ve identified your nook, if you find you’re lacking a book, just head up to the Hawkesbury Stores for the solution to your problem. I’ll be filling the book corner, at the back right of the shop, with carefully selected second-hand books for all tastes and occasions, with all proceeds going to the Stores, alongside a collection of new books by local authors.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to my Book Nook…

TETBURY ADVERTISER – NOVEMBER 2017
When Every Night is Fireworks Night
[image error]The November issue of the Tetbury Advertiser

The Lord Mayor of London’s proposal to abolish woodburners in the city’s Emission Zone should not have affected us out here in rural Gloucestershire, with our abundant supply of fresh air and local logs. I don’t know whether there’s a fuel equivalent to food miles, denoting how far a product travels from source to point of use, but the journey of some of the wood burned in our house can be measured in metres rather than miles.

Even so, his announcement made me realise that it was time to replace my ancient woodburning stove with a more efficient, less polluting contemporary model.

The stove itself had been hinting to us for some time that it was ready for retirement. Bits kept falling off it, and running repairs had become more frequent. By the end of last winter, we’d reached the point at which closing its multi-paned double doors had turned into a Chinese puzzle. Unfortunately, I’ve always been very bad at doing Chinese puzzles.

The stove’s efficiency was also decreasing. This went against the (wood)grain in a household fitted with solar panels, supplied by electricity from sustainable sources (Ecotricity), and populated by habitual wearers of jumpers, thermals and boots throughout the winter.

Considering that we’d bought it twenty-five years ago, second-hand, for £150, we didn’t feel it owed us anything. So we made for the nearest stove showroom, prepared to splash out. We plumped for the most environmentally-friendly woodburner on display, designed to burn wood at the optimum temperature for fuel efficiency, while minimising emissions and particulates. In short: more heat for less logs – and a conscience as clear as the new stove’s window.

Now in pride of place in our inglenook stands a neat iron box with one large rectangular window in its single door. The stove’s size and shape remind me of the television we had when I was a child, and it’s just as compelling to watch. Its clever design keeps the glass forever clear, providing a constant display of flames and sparks from an ever-changing array of kindling and logs. It’s like having a Guy Fawkes’ Night display in the comfort of my own front room.

But best of all, the fire works.

I wish you a cosy November, however you choose to keep warm.

 

HAWKESBURY PARISH NEWS – DECEMBER 2017
Lighting Up Time
[image error]This short story set at the winter solstice is available as an ebook and a tiny paperback

We’re fast approaching the shortest days of the year, when in cloudy weather it feels as if it never really gets light at all.

Successive days and nights meld into one long chunk of darkness, like a forgotten bag of boiled sweets that have congealed into a single, indigestible lump.

I was therefore pleased to read in last month’s Parish News a call from Councillor Sue Hope to light up our windows on the evening of 9th December to coincide with the switching-on of Lee’s lights and the illumination of the Christmas tree on the Plain.

Actually, I’ve been channelling my inner druid since about Halloween, turning on the string of coloured lights at the front of my house to brighten up dark evenings and drive away the SAD. By that I don’t mean repelling gloomy door-to-door salesmen, but Seasonal Affective Disorder, the form of depression induced by winter months.

A few years ago, before peak Scandimania, there was a trend to display little wooden arches of electric lights, candle-style, in our front windows. The last couple of festive seasons, these seem to have all but disappeared, perhaps naturally extinguished as their bulbs failed and couldn’t be replaced.

Such are lightbulbs, and such is life. Lighting up your windows on 9th December will be more than just an act of community. It’s an assertion that despite the darkness of these dreary winter days, we stand on the cusp of a whole new year of village life. All we need to do is keep the faith, and the sunny summer days that bring the Hawkesbury Show will roll round again, no matter how far off they might seem now.

I wish you all a bright and merry Christmas, and a peaceful New Year full of life and light.

 

TETBURY ADVERTISER – DECEMEBER 2017/JANUARY 2018 (double issue)
The Time-Travelling Shopping Basket
[image error]December issue of the Tetbury Advertiser

When you reach a certain stage in life, it becomes nigh impossible to know what you’d like for Christmas. Once you’ve paid off your mortgage and got the kids into net profit, if you want something, you buy it for yourself, regardless of the time of year.

Or at least you do if, like me, you are a spendthrift but with modest tastes. I’m in that happy stage between the habitual end-of-month overdraft of the heavily mortgaged and the mid-life crisis for which the prescribed cure is a sports car.

Consequently, until yesterday, my Christmas wish list was blank. Then, walking instead of driving up the road to buy a few groceries, (my usual car habit done for the sake of speed – if only Father Christmas could bring me more hours in the day, I’d put them on my list every year), I realised I longed for an old-fashioned shopping trolley.

Not the horrid trolley only ever seen in supermarkets and upside down in ponds; nor the aluminium, nylon-bagged kind; nor even the medically-oriented type with so many functions that it almost qualifies as a caravan: shopping bag, seat, balance aid. No, what I crave is the old-fashioned wicker basket on two wheels, pulled by a long wooden handle that looks like a walking stick sent out to work for its living. My grandmother, born in 1900, used hers on every expedition to her local shopping parade in the London suburb in which I grew up.

Grandma’s trolley held just enough shopping for a few meals, plus a ball of knitting wool from her named box at Rema’s, the drapers. (We bought our jumpers in installments in those days.) She could always squeeze in a quarter of sweets from the sweetshop too. Her every-other-day shopping habit had been formed when food was bought in small quantities, fresh, dried or in cans, before the fridge, never mind the freezer, had become commonplace.

When I shared a photo of such a trolley on Facebook yesterday, several friends confessed they wanted one too. We thought if we all acquired one, we might make them fashionable. After all, they do chime with the trend to shop local and on foot, rather than in a stressful supermarket sweep by car.

But my Christmas present won’t just be a low-emission form of shopping transport. It will also be a time machine, taking me back to the days before globalisation, when a trip to the shops with Grandma meant me begging for a turn to pull her wicker shopping basket on wheels. Eagerly I’d clasp the wooden handle, burnished smooth by constant use, as were Grandma’s silken hands, stilled so long ago. Perhaps the imperative to shop local on foot isn’t the real reason that I want a wicker trolley after all.

Whatever is on your Christmas list, I hope you’ve been good enough all year for Santa to oblige. And if not, there’s always 2018.

Well, that’s my blog all up to date now! Stay tuned for the first “proper” post of 2018 on Wednesday…

 

Filed under: Personal life, Writing Tagged: 2017, 2018, Authors Electric, broadband, broadband problems, Hawkesbury Parish News, internet, snow, Tetbury Advertiser

Breaking the Habit of a Lifetime: Fiction Research

This post originally appeared at the end of October on the Authors Electric blog, for which I write on the 30th of each month.

One of the many reasons I love writing contemporary fiction is that it means I don’t have to bother much with research.

In this respect, I’m in good company, because as my friend T E Shepherd, who writes compelling magical realism novels, told me, Philip Pullman says:

One of the pleasures of writing fiction is that you can sit at your desk and just make up what you are too lazy to go and find out.

This is especially true for me because my current series of cosy mystery novels is set in a little Cotswold village much like the one I’ve lived in for over a quarter of a century. During that time, I’ve been a member of countless clubs, served on various committees, founded an annual fun run and a literary festival, and volunteered in the village community shop. There’s not much about daily life in Cotswold villages that has passed me by.

Having fun in Hawkesbury Upton

Being able to write from my imagination without needing to seek out corroborative facts means I can write much faster.

Productivity Bonus






An autumn read

For example, I’ve just published my third of my Sophie Sayers Village Mystery series of 2017. Best Murder in Show was published in April, Trick or Murder? (set around Halloween and Guy Fawkes’ Night) in August, and Murder in the Manger, the Christmas special,  on November 6th.

For NaNoWriMo (the global community that challenges each member to write 50k words in a month),  I’ll started writing the fourth, Murder by the Book. (If you’re a writer and you’ve never tried NaNo, I recommend you give it a go – it can transform your productivity, as my novelist friend Kate Frost explains here.)

Respect for Researchers – and Historical Novelists

I’ve always considered myself lucky that I don’t have to wade through tons of research material before I can start writing, and I am full of admiration for those who do, such as historical novelists – especially when they carry their research lightly rather than info-dumping and turning the stories into history lessons. Award-winning indie novelist and historican Lucienne Boyce gives top advice here on how to do it well, echoing (but more eruditely) my constant admonishment to my teenage daughter that no matter how many teachers tell you to Google something for homework, looking something up on Wikipedia does not constitute authoritative research.

So I’ve been surprised to find myself volunteering to get stuck into some serious research for a spin-off to my Sophie Sayers series that leapt out of my unconscious one day: the back story of one of the characters, Sophie’s beloved Great Auntie May, a bestselling travel writer.

At the start of the series, Auntie May has already died, leaving her cottage to twenty-five-year-old Sophie, who moves to the village to start a new life,  and Sophie, an aspiring writer herself, still feels her presence and her influence very strongly.

Travels with Sophie’s Aunt

Although May loves her home village, she’s spent most of her adult life abroad, with Wendlebury Barrow a bolt-hole to anchor her peripatetic life.

Having killed May off before the first story opens, there’s a limit to how much I can write about her, but I’ve found myself growing to love her and being drawn into her back story. I keep asking myself questions:

Why did she leave Wendlebury?
Does constant travel ever allow you to escape your inner self?
What made her return?
Has whatever made her keep running been resolved?

Keeping Company with Classic Travellers

Although I’m relatively well travelled, and am planning a non-fiction book about travelling by campervan, drawing on my family’s experience, I’ve never been a travel writer. Therefore my research is to read lots of travel books, from the classics (Dr Johnson, Daniel Defoe) to the modern greats (Jan Morris, Paul Theroux). I need to get inside the head of the travel writer as a genre before I can really work out May’s motivation. And what a journey I am having! Armchair travel – at this time of year, it’s my very favourite kind.

A Christmas Special

In the meantime, in my own little Cotswold cottage, I’m feeling more festive by the minute. Like Sophie’s Great Auntie May, perhaps I’ve got the best of both worlds.

~~~~~~~~

For More Information

 

For more information about my books and writing life, check out my website:

www.authordebbieyoung.com

To order  Murder in the Manger , click here:

www.amazon.co.uk/Murder-Manger-Village-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B074SZLZ6P/

And if you fancy something seasonal but shorter to read, you might enjoy my stand-alone short story  Lighting Up Time , set at the winter solstice, or my Christmas collection of short stories,  Stocking Fillers  – both these and my other short story collections are currently on offer on Amazon for just 99p each.

 

Filed under: Writing

For Remembrance Day

Lest we forget

[image error] A moving tribute by a fellow villager (click image for more information about this important book)

I’m lucky enough to live in a village with a profound sense of community, and never is it more strongly visible than on Remembrance Sunday.

On Remembrance Sunday, villagers come together to process down the High Street from the former Hawkesbury Hospital Hall (built to nurse injured soldiers in wartime) to the war memorial on the Plain (our village green) at the centre of our village. All local groups are involved, either in laying wreaths at the service or taking part in services in school or in church or in one of our two chapels.

I don’t remember this degree of commemoration when I was my daughter’s age, living in suburbia in the 1960s.

Perhaps the war was still too close for my parents’ and grandparent’s generation – they wanted to forget. Although it’s now so much longer since the end of the Second World War, I feel much more conscious of it now.

[image error] This Christmas special includes commemorations on Remembrance Day

For this reason, and slightly to my surprise, I found myself writing it into the Christmas special of my latest cosy mystery novel, Murder in the Manger, whose timeline runs from 6th November to the week before Christmas.

My Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries are essentially comedies, but there’s always at least one serious, and, I hope, moving scene. One such scene that I found myself writing in Murder in the Manger takes place on Armistice Day (11th November) in the village school, in which villagers join the children in the village school. During a short service of commemoration, the children recite the names on the war memorial, many of whom, as in Hawkesbury Upton, are still represented in the village by their descendants (Chapter 13 We Will Remember Them). It also draws the reader up to consider who in their acquaintance would be called up to fight should there ever be another such war. (Chapter 14 We Can Be Heroes)

I know that is something I consider every year, as I stand quietly at our war memorial during the service there, observing the young men and women in the crowd who would be sent to fight, or who would not have long to wait for their call-up papers. My daughter, her friends, and her peers.

This small episode in my novel is my small tribute to those that sacrificed their lives in both World Wars and to their bereaved families and all those who loved them, not just in Hawkesbury Upton, but all around the world.

We shall remember them.

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Filed under: Personal life, Writing Tagged: First World War, Murder in the Manger, Remembrance Day, Second World War

Season of Mists and Mellow Idleness

[image error]

(My column for the October 2017 issue of the Tetbury Advertiser)

People often say to me “I don’t know how you do so much”.

But I have plenty of sins of omission, because, as an optimist, I am constantly trying to fit more into the day than can physically be done.

I wish I could bring myself to subscribe to the Fall Off the Desk rule invented by my former boss. She held that if you ignored a task for long enough, there’d no point in doing it.

Harnessing Time’s Chariot

Not being that defeatist, I decided last month to re-embrace the timesheet. Years ago, working as a consultant, I had to keep timesheets to demonstrate I’d spent no more hours on a client’s business than they had contracted to pay for. These days, my chief client is me, but I hoped the practice might help me get more ticks on my action list each day – or at least excuse me from wasting precious time on the ironing.

[image error] Cover photo via Amazon

The last time I filled in timesheets was before the invention of smartphone time management apps. We got by with paper lists or commercial systems such as Filofax. Such systems may look smart, but they’re not exactly exciting. My novelist friend Alison Morton‘s husband’s collection of Filofaxes earned him a place in the book Dull Men of Britain, alongside a drainspotter. No, that’s not a typo.

Squirrelling Time Away

So this time round, I decided to go high-tech, choosing from a wide selection an app called Toggl, because it reminded me of Tog, the red squirrel from the 1960s children’s television series Pogle’s Wood.

Toggl lets you set a timer running as you begin each new task. My first experiments were fun, but flawed, due to pilot error. I kept forgetting to turn it off when I went to lunch, logging five-minute tasks as taking an hour. Usually I turn my computer off before I got to bed, but when I forgot, Toggl recorded a gruelling night shift. I may burn the candle at both ends, but I’m not that bad. With constant mistakes reducing its accuracy, Toggl’s novelty started to wear off, and I wondered whether to send the little squirrel into hibernation.

Tuning into a New Trick

Then by chance over breakfast, I heard an article on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme promoting the importance of idleness to the creative mind.

To be more productive, it suggested, I shouldn’t be managing my working hours but increasing my down-time.

I already knew my best ideas arise when I’m not actually trying. Sure enough, after the programme finished, I got the idea for this column not at my desk but while in the bathroom cleaning my teeth. Well, it could have been worse.

Here’s to a season of mists and mellow idleness for us all. I think we deserve it.

[image error]

If you enjoyed this post, you might like to read my collected columns from my first six years of writing for the Tetbury Advertiser.

Now available in ebook from all good eretailers, and in paperback online and from your favourite independent local bookshop – just quote ISBN 9781911223030 to order.

 

***STOP PRESS***

The Tetbury Advertiser has just won another award for parish magazines – best for content and third place overall. Congratulations to the Tetbury Lions, who run it to raise money for charity, to the tireless editor Richard Smith, and to all my fellow contributors. What a team! 

 

 

Filed under: Personal life, Writing Tagged: action lists, autumn, idleness, Keats, Tetbury Advertiser

In the Land of Giants

My column for the October edition of the Hawkesbury Parish News

[image error]Tally ho! We’re off to Legoland!

In the first hour of a trip to Legoland on an INSET* day in September (no queues – hurrah!), I spot several signs that I must be getting old:

Realising I’m admiring the autumn colours of the landscaping as much as the theme park’s rides
Being more interested in the opening times of the coffee shops than of the attractions
Wondering how many plastic bricks the builders trod on in stockinged feet while assembling the hundreds of Lego models on display
Considering whether the staff valiantly performing in character costumes are thwarted RADA** graduates
Not minding the circuitous walks between attractions because they boost the step count on my fitness tracker

[image error]The hotel carpets had pictures of Lego bricks scattered on them – it was hard not to walk around them, as any parent will understand

But such churlish thoughts are vanquished by lunchtime, supplanted by the childish sense of wonder that results from strolling, Gulliver-like, among miniature models of famous landmarks from around the world.

[image error]I towered over the Eiffel Tower at Legoland

Despite the 17,777 paces notched up by my step counter by bedtime, I leave the park feeling rejuvenated. Expensive though Legoland may be, at least it’s cheaper than Botox.

[image error]How to embarrass your teenage daughter: take photos in the Legoland toilets because  the decorations made you smile

*For non-British friends, I should explain that an INSET day is an In-Service Training Day during the school term, when the teachers go to school but the pupils do not. Each school has theirs at different times, so it provides the perfect day to take your kids to a popular attraction that is normally swamped at weekends.

**RADA is a leading British school for actors

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My collected columns from Hawkesbury Parish News 2010-2015, is available as an ebook and in paperback.

Filed under: Family, Travel Tagged: ageing, fitbit, fitness, Hawkesbury Upton Parish News, Legoland

The Mystery of the Vanishing Bag

A post about one of the milestones in my Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries series

[image error]It’s in the bag… well, nearly!

This is the beautiful shoulder bag that I bought this summer at the Harris Tweed shop in Inverness this summer. It’s the repository for my research for the eighth book in my Sophie Sayers Village Mystery series.

Regular readers of this blog may remember that I’d planned to make it only (!) a seven-book series, but this summer’s trip to the Highlands planted an indelible germ of an idea for an eighth adventure following on after the seven-book cycle has run the course of the village year.

Sophie will take Hector to meet her parents, who live and work in Inverness, and inevitably a local mystery will ensue there, with a series of attempts on Hector’s life, and taking them all over this vibrant Highland city just above Loch Ness, to the Highland Folk Museum (our favourite museum in the world), the remarkable Leakey’s Bookshop, and into the Highland wilderness.

The Handbag Vanishes…

The bag has already been involved in a mystery of its own. I realised a couple of day after we’d unpacked our camper van at the end of our summer trip to Scotland, with my husband unloading while I put everything away in our house, that my precious new bag had not made it back into the house. My husband swore blind he had emptied the van, and that there was nothing left in there at all.  I started to doubt my own memory – had I put it away in the house in such a safe place and forgotten where I’d put it?

I started to doubt my own memory – had I put it away in the house in such a safe place and forgotten where I’d put it?

A few weeks later, on a trip out in the van with his best friend, when they were turning the van inside out in search of his friend’s missing glasses (his friend had put Gordon’s on by mistake, and said “These glasses don’t work”), he told me again that the bag was nowhere to be found.

They would certainly have found it this time, Gordon told me, especially after his friend had found his glasses.

In despair – as I had stuffed the bag full of notes, brochures, ideas, and postcards as I roamed around Inverness on our final day there – I made a special trip to the van to see for myself. There on top of my husband’s sleeping bag lay the missing bag.

Needless to say, I won’t be asking him for advice on detection techniques any time soon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

[image error]The Sophie Sayers Christmas Special is due out on 6th November

Meanwhile, I’m on the home straits with book #3 in the series, Murder in the Manger, which will be published on 6th November as a Christmas special. It’s already available to pre-order as an ebook on Amazon, and the paperback will be published at the same time.

[image error]Available now in paperback and ebook, with a lively story spanning Halloween and Guy Fawkes’ Night

And in the meantime, the second book in the series will provide a topical seasonal read. The story in Trick or Murder? kick off right about now, and runs through Halloween (31st October) and Guy Fawkes’ Night (5th November).

Here’s the buying link to the series so far on Amazon – or you can order the books from your local independent bookshop by quoting the title, my name, and the ISBN.

There’s also more information about the series on my website here. 

 

Filed under: Travel, Writing Tagged: Highland Folk Museum, Inverness, Leakey's Bookshop, Sophie Sayers

1 Simple Tip to Boost Your Writing Productivity: Learn to Touch-Type

A post in praise of touch-typing

This post originally appeared on the Alliance of Independent Authors’ Self-publishing Advice blog here, where it was obviously aimed at indie authors and aspiring writers, a startling number of whom don’t touch-type. I’m reproducing it here because I believe the content is equally relevant and helpful to anyone who uses a computer keyboard for any purpose, business or pleasure.

Why the old-fashioned skill of touch typing can be a real boon to twenty-first century indie authors, and why you should add this accomplishment to your repertoire to help you increase your output as a writer.

Blog posts and books abound about how indie authors can increase their self-publishing productivity by various means, primarily by focusing on increasing daily word counts. Different methods exist for boosting your writing output, such as getting into a daily habit of writing a fixed number of words per session or day, or by writing in sprints, against the clock, or using popular schemes such as NaNoWriMo to squeeze out a fixed word count in a set time frame.

True touch typing means it doesn’t matter if you’ve written so much, you’ve worn the letters off your keyboard

Missing a Trick

But most of these schemes fail to mention one of the most straightforward practical tips there is: to learn to touch-type.  In an informal survey I’ve just conducted of over 100 indie authors, around 40% of them admitted they didn’t touch type. This included writers of multiple books. I wondered how much more prolific they might be if they mastered this important art.

What is Touch-typing?

Touch typing means typing accurately without looking at the keyboard. Thanks to an ALLi member in Russia, Alexander Kirko, I can tell you that in three other languages, touch typing is known as “blind typing”, which I think is a more graphic description.

When you can touch type efficiently, you can set down many more words per minute than you can when you have to look at the keyboard. This frees you to concentrate on picking the right words, rather than hunting for the right letters.

There’s no such thing as a “sort of” touch typist. It’s like being “a bit pregnant”. You either are or you aren’t.

Many Ways to Learn

Many of the respondents to my informal poll reported that they’d learned to touch type early in their careers, either at school or at college or on first entering the world of work, and plenty went on to say it was the most useful skill they’d ever learned.

But the good news is, it’s never too late to learn, and by throwing a little time at the task each day, you can quickly acquire the skill. It’s simply a question of putting in a certain number of hours to program your brain.

How you do it is up to you, and there’s plenty of choice.

I learned fresh out of university, using a tried-and-trusted traditional approach: a typing manual with a cardboard chart that taught you to match the right fingers to the right keys, building up your skill one row and one new finger at a time till you’d mastered the alphabet.
These days there are plenty of automated programs available online to make the process more fun.

Whichever route you choose, make sure you pick one that serves the layout for whatever language you write in. When I went to work in Switzerland in my twenties, I had to reprogramme myself to use a German keyboard, in which the Y and the Z trade places.

If you’ve learned to drive a car, you can learn to touch type. And you won’t even have to master hill starts or parallel parking.

So if you haven’t mastered the art of touch typing yet, and are seeking to increase your writing output, don’t dismiss this simple technique. Once you’re hammering out 80 words a minute (my current rate – I just checked on this fun online gadget), you’ll be glad that you persevered.

[image error]All for one and one for all – the Alliance of Independent Authors’ cute pen logo

If you’re an author or an aspiring author, you’ll find more posts like this, with a new one published every day, on the Alliance of Independent Authors‘ Self-publishing Advice blog, of which I’m Commissioning Editor. 

Filed under: Self-publishing, Writing Tagged: authors, lifeskills, productivity, Self-publishing, touch-typing, typing, Writing

A Book for All Seasons: The Joy of Seasonal Reading and Writing

This post about seasonal writing first appeared on 30th August on the Authors Electric blog, for which I’m now a regular monthly contributor. (I write a new post on the 30th of each month).

When I started planning the cosy mystery series I’m currently writing, I thought I had a bright idea: I’d make the seven books span the course of the year.

What’s not to love about writing a book for all seasons, and then some? Whatever the time  of year, I’d have a topical book to tout.

Given that my Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries are set in a small (fictional) English village (no surprises there), its residents are naturally very conscious of the seasonal changes, and their social calendar dictated by the time of year.That’s just how it is in the small (non-fictional) English village in which I’ve lived for the last twenty-six years. Here in my real life village, I’m so much more aware of the passage of the seasons than when I lived and worked in and around London.

Working in a city centre, I was more likely to spot the season by what was in shop windows, rather than by the appearance (or disappearance) of lambs and the like.

Bikinis in Marks and Spencers? Ah, then it must be February.

I much prefer the rural indication of the coming of spring: seeing the lambs appear down my lane.

Seasonal Satisfaction

Yes, I often share my street with sheep, or sometimes cows. Today we passed a few chickens pottering about at the roadside outside the local farm shop. Well, where else would a chicken go to do its shopping?

And if there’s a traffic jam down my way, it’s more likely to be caused by a farm vehicle than a stream of commuter cars. On nearby Sodbury Common, herds of cows frequently block the road.

For those who don’t live in the country, reading the Sophie Sayers books will give them the chance to enjoy the seasons vicariously as they work their way through the series.

Seasonal books = seasonal reading = seasonal sales.

Good plan. 

Until I try to launch my new autumn read,  Trick or Murder? , full of mists and mellow murder, on a searingly hot August Bank Holiday weekend, when we can almost convince ourselves that summer still has weeks to run.






It felt indecent to be talking about October already

I find myself not wanting to even think about the autumn, never mind promote my autumn-themed book. 

It seems unkind to remind people that autumn is just around the corner, like the supermarkets that start hyping back-to-school wear the minute the schools break up for their summer holidays.

Standing in scorching sunshine talking about Halloween and Guy Fawkes’ Night – key events in Trick or Murder? – seems as tasteless as touting mince pies and Christmas cards in September. Yes, I know Tesco’s will be doing that. I rest my case.

 I know that commercial traders, including bookshops, will carry on regardless, marketing things at least a season before we really want to think about them.

But I’ve decided to launch my Christmas special for the series, Murder in the Manger, for the day after Guy Fawkes’ Night, and not a minute sooner.

Time passes us by all too fast without me fast-forwarding the seasons.

In the meantime, I plan to make the most of whatever remains of the summer sunshine.

May we all have many sunny days yet to come. 



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The first two books in the Sophie Sayers Village Mystery series are now available in ebook and paperback. You don’t need to read them in order, if you prefer to start with the one most appropriate for the current season. The third book, Murder in the Manger, will be out on November 6th.

Filed under: Reading, Writing Tagged: autumn, Reading, Sophie Sayers, summer, Writing

Eavesdropping While Shopping

My Young By Name column from the September issue of the Tetbury Advertiser

[image error]The editor’s choice of images to illustrate my column always makes me laugh – spot the subtle listening device in the black and white picture, top left

Whenever I’m on holiday, my writer’s habit of eavesdropping on other people’s conversations goes into overdrive.

It is particularly well rewarded this August in the heart of Inverness’s shopping district, a regular pit-stop when we’re touring the Highlands in our camper van.

Co-op Encounter

Outside the Co-op in a seedy side street, a cluster of pale, unkempt young men is hanging on a bedraggled, older woman’s every word. She looks like she is holding court, giving her loyal troops their instructions for the day.

“There’s the cemetery, like, the graveyard. There’s always the graveyard.”

I am unsure whether this is a deployment directive or a warning against disobedience.

Peril in Primark

As my teenage daughter checks out Primark, a father and his little girl are idling in the toy section. He must be under orders to occupy her while his wife enjoys a bit of low-budget retail therapy. The child, decked out in princess pink, is beautiful: strawberry blonde curls, blue eyes, sweet face. She seems to be taking the lead in the entertainment stakes, so perhaps the maternal instructions were for her to keep Daddy amused, rather than the other way round.

“Let’s play chicken,” she suggests brightly.

He looks blank, unsure of the rules. I pretend to browse a nearby rack of t-shirts while I wait to find out.

She seizes two plastic bazooka-style guns from a nearby display.

“You’ve got to shoot me, and I’ve got to shoot you. Bang, you’re dead! Now you shoot me. Now we’re both dead.”

The father looks dumbstruck, and I suspect I do too. What has he raised? The natural successor for the lady outside the Co-op?

Models in Marks

Half an hour later, towards the top of town where the smarter shops are, I am heartened by the approach of a more wholesome-looking family group emerging from Marks and Spencer: a father, son of about ten, and daughter young enough to be riding on her father’s shoulders. They are all bronzed, beautiful, and glowing with health. They could have stepped out of the pages of an upmarket Sunday lifestyle supplement.

Their glowing tans make me wonder which country they’re from. The Highlands is awash with foreign tourists in summer. Parked near our van that day are high-end cars registered in Monaco and San Merino, as well as the usual swarm of Italian, French, German, Spanish and Dutch motor homes. Then I spot the boy’s West Ham supporters’ scarf.

As the group passes by, the little girl’s crystal tones ring out in Queen’s English: ‘Well, everybody has to pass wind.”

I suspect Daddy may be regretting offering her a shoulder ride.

Tourists in Tetbury

I wonder what Tetbury’s tourists take away from conversations they hear in its streets? Listen out next time you venture into town – you may find your routine shopping trip more entertaining than you expect.

_______________________

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FURTHER READING

You’ll find more like this in Young By Name, the book that brings together my first 60 columns for the Tetbury Advertiser , available both as an ebook and in paperback. Click here for details of how to order your copy. 

 

Filed under: Personal life, Travel, Writing Tagged: eavesdropping, people-watching, shopping, Tetbury Advertiser

When Blog Posts are Like Buses…

[image error]By the time morning came around, this deserted spot on the Black Isle had gained two surprising new visitors: vast cruise ships moored on the Cromarty Firth – fortunately on the other side of it from our camper van

Catching up with my blog for September

A fraught September culminated with a certain inevitability in a debilitating cold virus, which sent me into near-hibernation for a few days. This has put me woefully behind with my blog, even to do what I regard as the bare minimum: to keep it as a central archive of what I’ve written elsewhere online or for printed publications.

So if you’re a regular reader here, please forgive the prolonged silence, which will now be followed by a sudden flurry of posts before I run out of September!

I’m kicking off with the column that I wrote for September’s Hawkesbury Parish News, when I was in Scotland on my summer holidays. Seems like light years ago now!

Stretching the Summer

In August, we head for the Scottish Highlands, whose soaring mountains make the Cotswold hills look like speedbumps.

It’s not just the landscape that is on a grander scale here. This far north, the daylight hours are significantly longer than at home.

From Mallaig, we watch the sun set over the islands of Skye, Rum and Eigg a good hour after Hawkesbury’s nightfall. On the Cromarty Firth, despite the absence of light pollution, it’s only just dark enough at 11pm to discern the Perseid meteorite shower at its official kick-off time.

It is as if we have travelled back in time to the summer solstice.

Although I have been a frequent visitor to Scotland for the last seventeen years, the difference in daylight hours never fails to fascinate me. In the same way, every time I stand on a beach (in Nairn, east of Inverness, this holiday), I marvel at the way the moon pushes and pulls the tides.

Returning home in time, as always, for the Village Show, I know the earlier nightfall down south will come as a shock, as we’ve been away long enough to acclimatise to northern nights. But it’s not as if we’ll feel fast-forwarded into the fall, because whatever the sun or moon might do, everybody knows that the day after Hawkesbury Show is the first day of autumn.

[image error]Over the sea to Skye – and Eigg, and Rumm – viewed from our camper van in Mallaig this summer

 

 

Filed under: Travel, Writing