Titles and squirrels

Since Monday I've discovered there are at least two other books with the title Blood Feud, so maybe I'd better think of another title. I own one of them. It's non fiction by Richard Fletcher - murder and revenge in Anglo-Saxon England. He spells it as one word. The one I saw on Amazon yesterday is a crime thriller, Mafia style feuding. So. along with the hunt for a better cover, I'll hunt for a better title!

Went out for an early morning twenty minutes on the field behind the house and discovered how warm it is in the sun now. The grass is lush and green, everything is growing like crazy and it's a pleasure to be out walking. A squirrel darted along the fringe of the woods. Tim bounded after it. I wasn't sure what he would do - he hasn't actually caught anything yet, though he has finally begun to see and chase rabbits. The squirrel chose the wrong tree - one with a smooth bark - and couldn't climb. Tim chased it round the tree, snacking at it. I feared the worst when it lay on its back, quite still, little paws, with those long claws, limp on its chest.

Tim sniffed at it, but didn't volunteer to eat it. I grabbed his collar and pulled him of it. The squirrel picked itself up and stumbled away, went to another tree and vanished. I think it went up into the tree, but Tim was yelping and struggling to get after it and I didn't actually see what it did. I hope it got away. Such a little beauty. I fear we managed, between the three of us, to squash a few bluebells that have sprung up and into flower this week. I hate squashing growing things. Must be a Buddhist at heart.

Blood Feud

Happy to report that Blood Feud is well on in the editing stakes. Chapter Nine is currently getting the treatment! This is after it has been through a sharp-eyed critique group, and first read through by me, a rest of several weeks and then a second read through. Now I'm printing out a chapter at a time, reading it, making corrections....Maybe then I'll consider it OK to self-publish. OTOH, I'll need to check chapter headings are all the same, that the font doesn't vary, all those sort of technical little things that catch you out. Well, they catch me out, especially when I put something on Facebook.

I'm working on a cover, too. Not entirely happy with what I have. May start again.

The story is set in 1046  AD and these are the opening lines:

‘Thor’s teeth!’ Flane hammered his fist on the mast and gazed at the sky. Above the thatched roofs and smoking fires of Dyflin’s thousand-strong Viking community, the sky was so blue it hurt the eyes. Good sailing weather going to waste. If Oli didn’t move faster than a sick snail, they’d have to wait half a day for the next high tide to take them safely over the sand bars in the estuary. That meant yet another night in Dyflin, and more opportunity for the crew to get into trouble.

A blur of colour and movement caught his eye. Curious, he squinted through the tracery of masts and ropes that blocked his view. A small figure ran heedlessly fast along the wharf. Her fists hiked her skirt out from beneath her feet as she dodged loaded carts and leapt over creels and coils of rope in her path. Long hair, glinting gold in the sunlight, streamed out behind her. She darted towards a ship, veered away and ran toward the end of the wharf where he stood on the Sea Bird.

‘Oh, Christ, no!’ Flane swore under his breath. He was not mistaken; the girl headed straight for him.

The first cover is maybe not clear enough, though I like it. I have just this minute realised that the second cover reminds me of that iconic photo of Nessie the Loch Ness Monster done around 1933, so maybe that would work against it. What do you think?   

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

Procrastination

I know now why I haven't finished anything in a while. It's because I keep starting over with something. Bad habit, must break it. Not only am I editing Matho's story, but I've started over with Blood Feud. Some people would call "starting over" editing, and I think I shall have to in order to preserve my sanity. It's a good thing I did take a new look at BF, because I discovered that I have two versions of a scene. So I spent yesterday with the two versions isolated and on my screen so that I could view them together and amalgamate into the best version. It wasn't hard to do, but what if I hadn't been reading through in a continuous sequence, I probably wouldn't have found the fault. It's something critique partners might not notice, because they read chapters weeks apart sometimes.

To add to the procrastination, I've started sending chapters of Matho's Story to Wattpad. I wondered what kind of reaction - if any - it would receive. There are about 6,000 people registered for the Historical fiction group, so there should be plenty of readers. We shall see!

As for real life, we had a sharp frost the other morning, but today I had to take my jacket off as I walked Tim on the riverside or I would have been far too warm. Spring is here. The grass is growing, much to dh's disgust, and some of the trees and shrubs are showing tiny new leaves. Daffodils are poking through, heads still pointing down, and snowdrops - those delightful hardy little flowers - are everywhere this year. The pic is a track Tim and I walked yesterday. Still muddy, but delightful in the sunshine.

Added to this I just got a good review for Dark Whisky Road on Amazon, so things are looking good today.
 Here's the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Whisky-Road-Jen-Black-ebook/dp/B00AT4NPTA

Stuck my nose out of bed this morning and hastily stuck it back in again. Cold! The air was cold, and so was my nose. Autumn, it seems, has arrived. Yet by midday, I was hot while walking the dog. Now, as I write this an hour later, it threatens to rain and it might be a good afternoon for working. We had a wonderful morning walk at the beach this week. Tim's first exposure to the sea....he trotted toward it, full of curiosity, and then......(see later this week!)

I have plucked up my courage and sent off two partials submissions on Capture a Queen, aka Matho's story, in the last month. Now comes the nail biting time of sitting and waiting for a response. Meanwhile, I have gone back to work on my next Viking story Blood Feud. Suitably exciting title, don't you think? It will pick up the character Oli from Far After Gold, when he has reached sixteen, and tell his story.  So far it is exciting, but I have to keep stopping and think how characters are going to get out of the difficulties I have given them. Usually I'm stuck for a day or two, and then the idea pops into my head while I'm asleep, or nearly asleep. Sometimes I forget it by the time I've woken up next morning, and Yes, I know I should keep a notepad and write the idea down, but really, that's just too much fuss when dh would be grumbling about the light being switched on, and the dog would wake up and come nosing around - and his nose is even colder than mine was this morning! If the idea is good, it will come again, or I'll remember it half way though the day.

So far I have seven books published, which surprises me sometimes. They all sell, some better than others, and the one with the most sex sells better than the rest, so I know what I have to do. They are all listed on the My Titles page on this blog. All historical, but for Shadows, which is set in contemporary France.

As I anticipated, it is now sheeting down. Good thing I didn't do any washing today!

Bad Yahoo

Yahoo has just complicated my life by changing the entire format of at least one critique group - I haven't checked the other as yet but no doubt it will be screwed up  in the same way. Now I have to take aeons to find the things I want, and I am filled with horror that everything else may be about to change as well. I don't need this! Plus which the new layout isn't anything like as clear as the old one. Bad move, Yahoo.

Got a good start today, apart from Yahoo, of course. Up and out for 1,200 steps with pooch  before eight and there's a lovely clear blue sky with warm sunshine sparkling on the dew-kissed meadow. (Yesterday we managed 8,939 steps, so we're getting better.) Have already checked e-mails (not many) , Twitter, Facebook (slight changes there, too) and hung out the washing to dry. Clothes dry in no time this summer and the fresh air costs nothing. Some people never hang any washing out, so I presume they dry it all indoors, which can be a costly process. I'm told dryers eat money.

While I wait for the last few critiques on To Capture a Queen, I'm going back to Blood Feud, which means a completely different time period and thought processes. For a long while I couldn't think how to move the story on after chapter 6, but last night the ideas starting flowing in and I will have to sort through them this morning and see which is the most feasible, which will seem the most logical and lead on to bigger and better happenings. It is an enticing prospect, and I'm really quite keen to get started before pooch wakes up and decides it is time for the Big Walk of the Day.