Bear With Me

This week, another post about an aspect of my writing life, as featured in the September issue of the Tetbury Advertiser.

Tidying my study after the summer holidays, I declutter my desk, taking it down to bare essentials. There’s a pen tray and bottle of ink, a pencil pot, a shelf of project notebooks, and a stack of four in-trays, one tray for each area of my working-from-home life. This orderly setup makes me feel in control when other evidence points to the contrary.

More important, though, are four tiny talismans. Not otherwise superstitious, I regard these talismans as essential tools of my trade.

A small piece of the Berlin Wall reminds me that no problem is insurmountable. And yes, the concrete fragment is genuine. I bought it from an official Berlin Wall merchandise shop in the heart of the reunified city.

Guaranteed genuine fragment

A multifaceted plastic diamond, a gift from my daughter, helps me focus on what matters. One Christmas, as a small child, in Marks and Spencer she spotted a pack of a dozen of them, sold for a few quid as tree decorations. A keen bargain-hunter from an early age, she was delighted to realise she could afford to give everyone in the family a diamond for Christmas. I’d rather have this plastic diamond given with her love than the real thing without it.

It’s the thought that counts

A more recent gift from her is a small wooden cube she’d painted with the words “writer’s block”. This quip helps me worry less about my workload. Last time I was stressing about meeting a writing deadline, she said to me, “But you always DO get it done, Mum”, and she’s right.

As featured in last week’s post, which was actually about writer’s block

The fourth desktop mascot is a small wooden bear who fits perfectly into the palm of my hand. It’s a reproduction of a piece of netsuke, the name given to the carved ornamental fasteners used in Edo-era Japan to attach a pouch to a kimono. (Men’s kimonos, unlike the women’s, had no pockets – my pet hate in a garment.)

If you look at his tail end, you’ll see a hole that allows him to be sewn onto the scarf.

What’s a wooden bear done to earn a place on my minimalist desk? Well, each mystery in my Cotswold Curiosity Shop series revolves around an object for sale in Alice Carroll’s bric-a-brac emporium. In my new novel, Death at the Village Christmas Fair, a little netsuke bear in her shop is a vital clue to solving a murder at the local Santa Run. With every suspect in the race dressed as Father Christmas, finding the killer is never going to be easy – and Alice needs all the help she can get. Holding the bear in my left palm spurred me on to finish the book while I was puzzling over tricky plot points.

Death at the Village Christmas Fair was published on 16th August, and I’m already halfway through my next novel. But I’ve grown so fond of little Ursa Minor, as I like to call him, that I’m letting him stay on my desk – at least until he’s ready to hibernate.

Available from all good book shops, as a paperback, hardback, ebook, and audiobook. (Quote ISBN 978-1835185827 to order the paperback from your favourite local bookshop.)

IN OTHER NEWS

I’m working flat out on editing the manuscript of my next novel, The Importance of Being Murdered, to be published by Boldwood Books early 2026. This is the novelisation of the murder mystery event that I wrote for my village’s amateur dramatics group earlier this year. 

I’m also preparing for my next public event, which is the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival‘s tenth birthday event, a day of talks and readings on the theme of Strength of Character. This will take place in the gorgeous setting of our Grade-I listed parish church, St Mary the Virgin, Hawkesbury. Tickets are still available here. If you’re in striking distance of Haweksbury, do come along – it’s going to be great fun! This time it even includes paintings and sculpture, all of which tell stories that match the event’s theme.

Book your tickets now!WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

The only book I read last week hasn’t been published yet, as it’s an advance copy of a novel sent to me by the author’s publisher asking for a pre-launch review. I’ll share my review of it when it’s launched.

Meanwhile I’m nearing the end of part one of Patrick Leigh Fermor‘s travelogue about walking from London to Constantinople in the 1930s, A Time of Gifts. It seems to be taking me almost as long to read as he did to do the walk! But that’s only because he writes dense, rich prose, so I’m reading it in very small chunks and savouring it along the way. Another factor is that I’m reading a huge and beautiful Folio edition hardback, which adds extra pleasure, but is tiring to hold open for very long. I have a feeling that if I were reading a paperback or ebook, I’d be travelling rather faster.