Current work

This Scottish Independence thing is taking on  a looming presence. DH threatens he won't go to Scotland ever again if they vote Yes. I can go, he says generously, but he will stay home.  I suspect the hard-headed Scots are going to vote No, but we'll see. I may well be holidaying alone in the future!

As you probably all know, I'm currently editing my book about Matho. I've made a decision - I either self-publish this book this year, or I throw it in the bin. I've been working on it in fits and starts for a long time now but it never seems to be finished. The time period is interesting, because it is 1543 and Scotland is independent, and fighting off Henry VIII's advances. Henry's England is ringed by Catholic princes who want to bring England back into the Catholic fold, and he suspects Scotland will offer the Catholic armies an easy way into England by the back door. His answer? Marry the little Scots Queen to his son and make the two countries one. The trouble is, Scotland doesn't see it that way. The valiant Dowager Queen, Marie de Guise, prefers to marry her daughter into her homeland, France. Many Scots don't want to be a vassal of France either. Difficult situation. For everyone.

How does Matho get involved in this situation? He and Harry Wharton became friends  in my book Fair Border Bride, which some of you may have read. When Henry of England sends out an order to Sir Thomas Wharton, Sir Thomas mentions it to his son. Harry thinks he and Matho can handle the job. Matho has his doubts, but he needs a leg-up in society, so Harry and Matho set off for Stirling with much enthusiasm on Harry's part and much trepidation on Matho's side.

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

Ardvreck

Working hard on Matho's story now. It's been put aside for the right amount of time, and I can see why the three agents I submitted to said they liked the story, the premise, the setting but were not sure they liked the writing - though they thought that was confidant and well done. The comment certainly me puzzled and I decided to withhold sending it out any more until I'd gone through it again.  Reading historical stuff on the market today, and then reading my ms, I see that I have been influenced by US writing standards - short, clear sentences, short paragraphs and little description. Seems that is not what UK agents are accepting, but at least I know what to do now.



Ardvreck Castle

Back in the north west of Scotland, we tootled up and down the front street of Lochinver, and stared out at a grey horizon were sea and sky simply merged into one another. Clouds sat on the mountains, and everything looked grey. Few shops, mostly closed because now it's out of season and few people about. Not an entrancing prospect. We've visited the Highland Stoneware Pottery many times, and didn't want to do it again as it just makes us want to spend more hard-earned cash. Getting out and walking some of the very pretty walks we've done before - one to Achmelvich, another to the Kirkaig waterfall, would be an invitation to another drenching.

So we set off east out of Lochinver on the A837 alongside Loch Assynt and Ardvreck Castle on the way back to Ullapool. I photographed the notice board, which hopefully will show up more clearly if you click to enlarge the pic, because there is little left of the castle. It stands on the island side of a neck of land jutting out into the loch, and a cetain times of the year when the burns are in spate and feeding the loch, it's possible they'd be splodging to get across.
Ardvreck

It's a pity it's so much an unstable ruin, because it was built around 1490 and in use in the sixteenth century, which is the era that really interests me. I came away with an impression of huge grey stones and wobbly bits of wall, small rooms and a wet and windy place to live - even today.

When it goes smoothly

Matho's Story is going well at the
moment. I hope I'm not risking the
terrible finger of fate turning in my direction when I say this, but it all seems to be falling into place in the most pleasing way.
I could be totally off the plot with it, but I hope not. Perhaps I feel at home in the time period; perhaps it is because I'm not conciously trying to write romance any more.
But whatever it is, I'm happy with it, and happy with the writing, too. If I get to the end of a chapter and get up and walk away, I tell myself I'll go for a walk, or do the ironing and I'll think about what is to happy next . I start to think about it, sure, but before long my brain wanders off, distracted by some other stray thought, and sometime later I realise I haven't thought about my plot at all.

Not conciously, that is. But because I

sit down the next day and start to write without any trouble, I realise the little old subconcious must have been busy plotting away all the time.

It is an amazing feeling when writing goes as well as this. I love it. If only I could think of a title...

Pics are of the road "over the tops" - between Brough and Corbridge, crossing the Tees and Wear valleys and then on to the Tyne. The pole at the side of the road is a snow marker.

What not to do

Writers must write something that makes readers want to turn the page.

Therefore, plot must be number one in the list of priorities. So if we start with a thorny problem and a sympathetic character, we should be on the right track. The plot must thicken (like a good sauce?), the hero must be hindered in every possible way but triumphs in a surprising way that once you know it, seems inevitable.


Almost every How To Write Book I've ever read says such things. They say it in different ways, but say it they do. So you'd think that by now I wouldn't be writing about a hero, and then bring in his mother, father and three sisters and her cat and have them discuss their lives to date.


I wouldn't drivel on endlessly and get to page 120 without so much as a hint of what the storyline will be once I get around to it.


I won't be writing a prologue where my hero stares at a flower, gazes through of a rain-drop covered window, walks through the long grass and contemplates why his life is not running as it should.


Indeed no. I should know what the chase is, as they say, and cut to it at once. No pages explaining what I want to tell, why the hero is as he is on page one or what terrible history happened to make him the way he is.

So, consider the opening lines of my wip:
Matho Spirston stood at the door of the tiny cottage athwart the hill at Halton and surveyed the countryside with pleasure. Small and poor though the cottage might be, it was a start. He folded his arms, leaned idly against the door jamb in the late sunshine and gazed south. The roof of Aydon Castle, where he had spent so much of his life, was visible above the tree tops beyond the meadows. Further south, the hills of Durham rose like a humped blue quilt across the horizon and somewhere in between, the river Tyne ran unseen west to east through the valley.
This was his territory, where he had reigned as undisputed leader of the gang of children who fought and played together among the scattered farms, cotts and cabins that composed the Aydon Township, and where his father had put him into service with Sir Reynold Carnaby, Lord of Aydon, five years before.
But things had changed since then, and would change further. Both his father and Sir Reynold were dead, one in the Rising of ’37 and his patron last month after a long illness. Then three weeks ago Alina and Lionel Carnaby had stood with Matho at his mother’s graveside.
A warm feeling filled him at the thought of the two elder Carnabys. They were still his friends. On their uncle’s death, most of his holdings went to their father, Cuthbert Carnaby and Lionel now had lordly duties of his own. If Lionel said the cottage belonged to Matho, then no man would question it. It was the least the family could do after he’d helped Harry rescue Alina from the clutches of the reiver Johnny Hogg.
She was married to Harry now. Matho shifted, settled his shoulder comfortably against the wood. One way and another it had been a grand summer, full of life and adventure and all because Harry Wharton turned up in the locality.
Now the dust had settled, the humdrum days threatened to return and Matho sensed boredom creeping into his life. Already he found himself glancing at the horizon several times a day, vaguely hoping for something more exciting than drilling the local farm lads into guard duty around Aydon Castle.
As if he had conjured something out of the air, a small figure rode across the field towards him. Matho squinted against the sun, but no insignia betrayed the identity of the rider. Still, as the distance lessened between them, Matho recognized the familiar set of the wide shoulders and long limbs. A grin stole across his face at the sight of a daft cap with its jaunty ostrich feather curling back in the breeze. He shook his head. Harry was always the lad who liked his fancy clothes.
Matho straightened and strolled forward.


Oh, Lord. I can see the red pen glowing, leaping up and down on my desk. There is work to be done. What would you change, if you were me?