A mature, character-driven Regency Novel

 Been working hard in between bouts of sitting in the sun with a glass of wine to hand over the last month but now  the weather has turned cold again,  witness the near frost cover on the garden this morning. So far none of my plants have succumbed, thank goodness.  

The working hard bit concerns a mature, character-driven Regency Novel Homecoming but the bulk of it is done now at first draft stage so it could ready for the summer reading holiday scene. No promises! 

We've had the snowdrops, the primroses, the daffodils now is the time for wild garlic. The woods around here are full of it, to the point it seems to be choking out the bluebells which seem weak this year. Certainly no carpet of blue as yet. Only a few small, stubby little heads poking up through the white and green.

Saw the finale of The Capture last night and now looking for a fourth season. What twisty minds some authors have, but full marks to Ben Chanan, the creator, writer and executive producer for the series. It was an entertaining series that kept me second guessing all the way through.

A Great Day Out!

I thought I was doing particularly well on my blog yesterday when I saw 495 visits recorded. Something to do with the royal wedding, perhaps? I checked clustermaps for more info and found most of the those visits came from Ashburn in Virginia. Apparently there is an Amazon/Google centre in Ashburn, but why my blog should interest them I really don't know. I think it must be an electronic glitch because all the vists to my home page came between 6.42 and 6.44 on the same day. No human can move that fast, but a computer can. Something in Ashburn needs checking over. Does this happen on your blog? Have you checked? You may be surprised!

We had a great day out yesterday that had nothing at all to do with that royal wedding that the media have pushed in our faces over the last week to the point of stupifaction. Off we went  on  three hour ride to Dent on the North Yorkshire Cumbria border. We drove slowly because we had Tim in the back, and because  it was a gorgeous day we stopped three or four times on the way over the top, as we call crossing the Pennines, and gave Tim a short run each time. All on lead because of course sheep rule the Pennine hills, but he loved the different smells and peed on almost every blade of grass!

The trees are just coming into leaf. There are not  a great many trees on this high level route, but the valleys - Weardale and Teesdale - were so green and beautiful. In Cumbria we must have hit the high point of bluebell life, because the hedgerows were pretty with a grass and bluebell mix and some of the hillsides behind the road were a mass of them. Even though we drove slowly we only got a fleeting glimpse of them.

This little gully was a surprise.  Tim set off at full stretch and we discovered more gulleys beyond this one, all splattered with tiny blue violets in the green patches among the heather. He unerringly found the dead hare, but since he was on the lead we stopped him getting his teeth on it. So warm in the sun and light breeze, and we could see for miles in every direction. A collection of vintage Triumph cars roared past as we stood there, every one polished to perfection and gleaming in the sun. Motorbike riders were out in force, too. One poor cyclist must have been cursing them because they roared by him and after all his effort climbing the long hill, he would have to breathe their exhaust for the next couple of miles. After our visit was over, we stopped off in Sedburgh and walked around the town which is dominated by Sedburgh School with all its many playing fields. Tim shared our ice creams when we headed back to the car. 
All in all, a great day out. We decided we should do it more often. Somehow we've got out of the habit of going off for the day, but yesterday convinced us we should do more exploring!

Fire lunatics

Going cross-eyed at the moment using Adobe Photoshop to work on a cover for Daisy. Not Adobe's fault, I hasten to add. The things the software will do are  amazing, but my knowledge of it is tentative to say the least. I use it so infrequently that all I learn in a few sessions is lost when I complete the task in hand and forget about Adobe for several months on end. I think if I was leaving school now I'd like to move into graphic art but it was just another unavailable option when I was at that stage. Unavailable? It was almost unheard of except for people who went to work for Walt Disney and that was all about working in cinema rather than computers.

We have some undesirables in the woods where I walk my dog. They think it amusing to set fire to to the resin that leaks from pine trees, and this is the result. They are pyromaniacs in the making, if not already there, for I see the remains of camp fires all over the countryside. One was still burning when I found it but the lads had long gone. These, I suppose, are the idiots who start forest fires.

It is horrid to see the trees like this or literally hacked to bits to provide fuel for a fire. There's plenty of dead wood in the woods without hacking at living trees.

The primroses hang on in damp shady spots, wood anemones are in full bloom and the bluebells are unfurling. Soon the woods will be a sea of hazy blue. The endless mud has dried and gone now, thank the lord. I was lucky I didn't slip on my backside sometimes, and both Tim and I got tired of coming home and having to wash him down. Heaven help the poor folk who own long-haired dogs.

The lambs are out in the fields, tiny and sprightly and I saw a fox, running across a field, in full daylight the other day. Tim watched and then gave chase, but he was nearly half a mile away so I wasn't worried he would catch Monsieur Reynard!

VIKING MAGIC

Soon I shall be free! I'm on to checking the actual format of my book VIKING MAGIC.

Are all the chapter headings and Scene Breaks the same? Is the spacing correct? All that sort of thing. Boring but necessary. Once I load it up on Kindle previewer I'll see what tricks I've missed.

The woods behind us have sprouted dense patches of bluebells and the blue seems to get deeper as the days go by. Wonderful. There are butterflies zooming about and the days are warm even if the sun doesn't shine. Thanks to Tim, I get out and about every day, three times a day, so I feel deeply in tune with nature this year. We've had the delight of discovering snowdrops while crocuses bloomed in the gardens. Then the daffodils, followed by primroses, a week later the wood anemones and woodland violets. Now we have cowslips (said to be rare these days, but they've sprouted in my garden and in various places along the riverbank) speedwell, dandelions, celandines, forget-me-nots and now the buttercups are joining the daisies. All that rain has brought a riot of spring flowers. Any couch potatoes out there should get up and get themselves out into the coutnryside and enjoy it all.

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.

Are you being funny?

Soon the bluebells will be gone, but I've caught some wonderful sights this year. This patch, tucked away at the back of the formal gardens at Seaton Delavel, is just one of them.

The snow last winter resulted in so much glorious blossom this Spring, its just a pity that the wind has been so strong this last ten days or so that walking or cycling has been unpleasant. As far as fitness goes, that's not a problem, because we have an indoor exercise bike, and I can remember some step sequence exercises. Still, I miss the walks through the woods, fields and hedgerows.

Being indoors has resulted in lots of work on writing. I'm currently reading through Treason, to see what I think of it after a year away from it. Tweaking is mostly a case of removing odd bits of repetition, padding or bits I like but have little or no relevance to the plot. Only another fifty pages to go and then it'll be perfect - cue hollow laughter.

I've been reading Haze Osmond's blog this morning. She's talking about writing humour, which is something I'd find terribly difficult to do. Inadvertant humour is my forte; if I had to stop and think about it, I'd be lost. Hazel wonders when humour crosses the line and becomes cruel, a line that all writers must tread warily. If your writing is comedic, take a peek and see what you think: http://hazelosmond.co.uk/page7.htm