Friday 7 March 2014

The Devil Rides Out

Back ache blues disappearing at last. The only trouble is Tim got hold of the sheet detailing the movements required to keep joints supple. He ate half of it and shredded the rest. He's much better than a shredder, I can tell you, and no running costs to speak of.

Further to the cheering up we have booked a two night stay at Crinan Hotel in April, so we have that to look forward to. We know we're going to France in early summer, and we've promised ourselves more quickie breaks. It means I'm going to need to be very disciplined with my writing if I want to continue. A few days ago I seriously contemplated abandoning it as I got little pleasure from it, but yesterday and today I've written chapter 20 of Blood Feud, and feel back on the ball again. Health is everything, isn't it? I can't write when I'm not feeling fit.

I've just finished reading Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out, probably first published in the 1930s. His books were very popular until the 1990s and then he seemed to fade from view. I discovered his stuff on Amazon Kindle, and was tempted to read one and see if I enjoyed it as much as I did all those years ago. I'd forgotten how rich all his characters were. Le duc, Rex, Richard - all millionaires. The action and plot read just as well now as back then, but there were one or two spots in the second half of the book where description got the better of him.

Car trips were described in detail, and Richard's private four-seater turned out to be a plane rather than a car. He took off from home, talked of Croydon airport, and whizzed through customs in France with a loaded revolver in his hip pocket. Laughable, given today's security strictures. Then the flight to Greece was described at length - too great a length to my mind. I suppose in all fairness that not many families owned a car in the 1930s and forties, even the fifties. Plane flights were a luxury and foreign places largely unknown, so the readership back then probably lapped it up. We're all too well travelled and blase now. But on the whole, the story passed the test!

I thought I'd loaded Part 1 of Chapter 5 of Capture a Queen to Wattpad on Monday, and only today discovered that it was still in draft form. I remedied that, and if anyone is reading - apologies - and the link is:

http://www.wattpad.com/37913888-capture-a-queen?d=ud

No comments:

More flames on the fire

  Occasionally I check for Book related news and  this morning caught a snippet that sent a shudder through me. It seems Omid Scobie, often ...