Riptide website overhaul

Just in case anyone is desperately trying to access the Riptide website over the next few days, here's advance warning: the site will be down for a few days while they overhaul their entire site and catalogue.

The end result will be pared down in terms of style, but vastly improved in terms of speed and searchability, with all sorts of new tags, databases and what-have-you to help the reader find what they want.

This apparently entails much poking about in virtual entrails so the website will be 'down' for three to four days at the beginning of August.  I'm told there will be no access from 1st August through to 4th August, and the new site will launch, fully fledged and raring to go, on 5th August.

So if anyone is trying to find out more about my books, or anything else for that matter, please bear with them for a few days.  It sounds as though it'll be worth the wait.

Storms...

The recent spell of hot weather has gone out with the proverbial bang; violent thunderstorms this morning which fried several sets of railway signal equipment and brought down part of a church tower near Manchester.  We didn't have anything quite that dramatic here, but it was quite noisy for a while and the rain came down in buckets for about an hour.  The tall white daisies in the back garden are now mostly horizontal and one or two other things are looking rather sorry for themselves, but after 3 weeks with no rain and hour after hour of blazing sunshine, I can't really complain.

And there's more on the way this evening, apparently.  It's certainly looking rather threatening in the south, and feels like a tropical greenhouse.

It's been baking in my little study all day, but rather to my amazement I settled down with some writing this afternoon, and added part of a new scene to a novella I'm currently working on.  It was only a few hundred words, but still more than I was expecting so a useful bonus.  Here's hoping it's a bit cooler (and a bit less crash-y and bang-y) tomorrow.

Missed her!

In spite of the heat I was all set to trot down into Bowness just after lunch to join the throng waiting to see and greet the Queen.  All the bumf about the visit I'd seen said she was due in the 'early afternoon', which I took to mean some time between 1pm and 2pm, perhaps later if she'd been held up anywhere.

Just as I was finishing the last few bites of my sandwich I noticed a steady procession of people past the front window: mostly children, some clutching Union Jack flags.  And they were heading away from the lake, not towards it.  Which means the royal party must have arrived not much later than 12 noon, and I missed the whole thing.

Rats...

Royal visit

Exciting times this week as the Queen is due to visit Kendal and Bowness on Wednesday.  I've only ever seen Her Majesty once (as I came out of a job interview in Birmingham city centre many years ago) so I'll probably creep down the hill to see what's going on.  Creep being the operative word, as we're in the middle of a heatwave and it's due to be another scorching day.  On Saturday the temperature briefly rose to the dizzy heights of 31c in our back garden (we took a thermometer out into the shade) and we just about fell over.  After four or five dismal summers on the trot (not to mention last year's effort when it started raining in April and didn't stop again until Christmas) we're just not used to the soaring temperatures.

I just hope the Queen brings a parasol and the sun-screen, because it sounds as though she's going to need them!

Book treat

I've been a fan of Louise Welsh's wonderfully dark fiction for years.  Her writing isn't perfect, but it does break the mould when it comes to thrillers, with main characters that are anything but stereotypical.  I adored The Cutting Room, and although I didn't think The Bullet Trick was quite as amazing, I still thoroughly enjoyed it.  I hadn't realised that she had a new(ish) book out, but a chance encounter with the single book stand in our local supermarket introduced me to The Girl on the Stairs and I bought it on the spot.  A quick skim of the blurb tells me it involves a young woman in Berlin, with suitably intriguing suggestions of dark deeds and ghostly goings-on, literal or figurative.

I can't wait to start reading it...

Things you don't expect to see...

...in a supermarket car park.

Number one - an oyster catcher.  One flew overhead, squawking, as we were loading the car with goodies at the Morrisons in Kendal yesterday.  Quite an unexpected sight, given that we must have been a good ten miles from the nearest coast - and it was heading inland.  Since I had no idea these sea-birds fed or bred away from the shoreline, I feel a bad joke coming on.  Why did the oyster catcher cross the car park?  Answers on a postcard, please.

No names, no jackets

Many thanks to Riptide Publishing for pointing me in the direction of this new(ish) website, which combines a promotional tool for writers with a lot of fun for readers.

Basically writers or publishers submit the first chapter of a book, which is displayed on the site with (as the name suggests) no further identifying details.  No author name, no bio, no cover, just a genre tag and the writing itself.  Right at the end of the excerpt, there's a small link to 'find out what the book is and where you can get it', so at least if you've dipped into something and enjoyed it, you can follow up.

As they themselves say: "No Names, No Jackets is a blind taste test for books, backed by a StumbleUpon-style lucky dip system and a total and deliberate lack of star ratings, likes and reviews. Whether it’s your first book or you’ve written dozens, whether they’ve sold thousands or none at all, whether your cover copy is woeful or superb, whether your jacket design is jaw-droppingly awesome or looks like it was made by a child using MS Paint, all that matters here is the writing..."  You can't help feeling they have a point.

The site is searchable, but only on a randomised basis - either a totally random choice, or a random choice by genre.  This means you can't just go in and search for your favourite author, but you can discover gems that you would never have come across before.  On a whistle-stop tour I found a short story by an author I'd never heard of, and like it enough to follow it back to her web page.  So this really can work, both for readers looking for new reading material, and for authors looking for new readers!

Want to join in the fun?  The pop along to No Names, No Jackets and hit the 'random pick' button at the top of the page.  I believe both my Riptide books (Necessity's Door and Gleams of a Remoter World) are on there somewhere, though it might take you a long and strangely rewarding time to find them.

Does my blog look pink in this?

I've been working away from my usual desk the last few days, using a laptop with a very different screen from my normal pc.

And I've noticed something odd.  On my pc, this blog is all in shades of muted beige and brown, and the background to the invidiual posts is so pale as to be almost invisible.  But on my laptop, that background has a definite pink tinge, which in some lighting conditions looks dark enough to be classed as light red.

It's a little baffling because it's not a colour I've chosen or set in the Blogger controls, and it can make the posts harder to read.

So, does this blog look pink to you?  Is the background getting in the way of the text?  Does it look as though the whole thing's been washed through in strawberry juice, or blood?  If so,  please, please let me know, and I'll go and hack about in the controls again and see if I can tone it down.  I don't want to make anyone queasy!

Books theme for Win 7

Anyone who loves books and writing might like the desktop theme on Windows 7 that I've just discovered.  It's probably been available for ages, but then I haven't checked for new themes for ages, so hadn't realised it was there.

There are thirteen different pictures of beautiful old books and architecturally stunning libraries from around the world.

It's in the 'Art (Photographic)' category and is called, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Beauty of Books.

Now, if I could just find a writing-themed template for my blog that was anything like as attractive, I'd be a happy bunny.

Pill Hill Press closes

Last week I noticed that my link to Pill Hill Press no longer worked, and that their website appeared to have been removed from the internet altogether.  Further investigation revealed that the press actually closed its doors back in January, although unfortunately nobody had told me.

I had a number of stories in Pill Hill Press anthologies: The Other Side of Silence in their 'There Was a Crooked House' collection; and four separate flash stories in 'Daily Flash 2012'.  So I wrote to ask for clarification on what was happening with rights, sales and the like. 

Normally when a publisher goes under, all rights automatically revert to the relevant authors.  All digital and POD sales cease immediately (or at least as immediately as the owners can let the various distributors know); and print copies only continue to be sold until existing stocks run out.  But when I checked my point of sale links, I found both books appear to still be available in a variety of formats, which isn't ideal.

The owners assure me that all the books will be removed from Amazon and the like in the next 'month or so' - on top of the five months since the press formally ceased trading - and obviously I'll be keeping an eye on things to make sure that happens.  In the meantime, if you happen to see a copy of either book for sale anywhere, might I respectfully request that you don't buy it?  I wouldn't be getting any financial reward and it could well be in breach of contract...

Sunday afternoon stroll

One of the nice things about moving to a more rural area is being able to go for long country walks quite literally from the doorstep.

Yesterday we went for a lovely Sunday afternoon stroll without even touching the car, and hit open countryside after less than ten minutes of street slog.  And what countryside!  It might not be the high fells, but the scenery is a stunning mix of woodland and fields, heath and open fellside, criss-crossed by streams, stone walls and ancient tracks.  The path meanders up and down; there are farms with fascinating names like Matson Ground and Old Droomer, and less than two miles from the town you could be in the middle of nowhere.

As to the wildlife, it was pretty spectacular too.  Loads of flowers at last - the warm weather a week or so ago seems to have brought everything out at once.  But also signs of some less common creatures: a raven flapping and croaking overhead; deer tracks by the tarn at Matson Ground; and a strange animal scent nearby that put us in mind, rather forcibly, of big cats in zoos.  There've been tales in the past about a big cat roaming the countryside at the back of Bowness; could this have been proof?  Or just otters in the tarn?  We'll probably never know, but it made for added interest on the walk.

We covered about four miles in just under two hours with frequent photo stops.  The picture here isn't one of mine (I'm still waiting to download my SD card) but shows Old Droomer farmhouse - a perfect example of a seventeenth century Lakeland farmhouse hidden in the back lanes behind Windermere.  Sadly, the farm it used to be attached to is now derelict and it's pretty much surrounded by a modern council estate, but still retains its charm.  If anyone knows where the name comes from, I would love to find out!

Ask us a question

You might remember I posted a few days back about the revamped Britwriters Blog.  Now fellow British author Sharon Bidwell has added a new feature to that blog - a page where people can ask us questions about Britain and the British way of life.

As Sharon says, "Want to know about everyday life, our towns, our countryside, our petrol prices, whether tea is as popular here as the jokes would have you believe? Which side of the street we drive on, or what dialects are spoken around the country?"  If so, ask away on the Ask Us a Question page at the blog.  No question is taboo... as long as it's legal, decent, honest and truthful *grin* and we'll always do our best to answer.  Writers basing books in the UK may find this feature especially helpful, but we're happy to answer anyone else's burning questions as well.

You can find the Ask Us a Question page here.

Newts, herbs and water wheels

The weather has been far too nice lately to hang around indoors.  Saturday was brilliant from start to finish and we took one look at the chores, shrugged, got the car out and headed up the motorway in the general direction of Penrith instead.  Once there we turned off into a maze of country lanes in the most gorgeous countryside in the Eden valley, and finally ended up at Acorn Bank garden.

This is another National Trust property but unlike most of theirs round here I'd never actually been, and all the pictures looked idyllic.  Sure enough, there was a 'big house' in lovely old red sandstone basking in the sunshine, surrounded by immensely pretty gardens.  The first area included an old garden pond which was absolutely swarming with newts - something I haven't seen for years - and a sprawling rockery.

There's far more to the garden than flowers, though, because it's known as a nationally important collection of herbs and medicinal plants, containing over 300 different varieties.  We saw a sign to the herb garden and thought 'oh yes, parsley and thyme', but there were plants from every corner of the globe, many of which we'd never even heard of, let alone seen growing in this country.  The collection is divided into sections depending on the part of the body they treat (head, heart, skin etc) and it was fascinating to see Medieval childbirth remedies cheek-by-jowl with plants used in ultra-modern chemotherapy drugs.

We could have wandered round the garden (which also included old orchards, beehives, wild-flower
meadows etc) for hours but after a nice salad lunch in the tea room we set off through the woods to the old watermill on the banks of the delightfully-named Crowdundle Beck.  There's been a mill here since about the twelfth century (the original is believed to have been owned by the Knights Templar) although the current building and workings date from about 200 years ago.  While we were there the volunteer miller opened the sluice on the mill leat, diverted water along the newly refurbished chute, and got the waterwheel working so we could see the machinery turning.  Originally there were three separate wheels, each connected to different workings with a different job to do, but only one remains.  It was still fascinating, though, listening to the clunk-creak as it span lazily round, and imagining how it would all have looked and sounded a century or so ago when they still used the building regularly to grind corn.  Swallows buzzed in and out of the windows just above our heads, chickens pecked and scratched in the farm yard at the back, and it was all so Yesterday's Rural Idyll it practically hurt.

Lovely place, though, and well worth a visit.

Gleams is award finalist

I'm even more delighted to announce that the judges at the Bisexual Book Awards included Gleams of a Remoter World in their list of finalists.

The winners were announced on Sunday and Gleams didn't quite make the grade on the night, but I'm not entirely surprised.  One of the main judging criteria (along with quality of writing) was 'quantity of bisexual content' and if I'm brutally honest, the main character's sexuality is only referred to a handful of times, so it's hardly a wonder if the judges felt other books had a stronger claim to the award.

I'm still glowing, though, because being an award finalist makes all the hard work worth while.  Many thanks to the Bi Writers Association for selecting the book and including me.

The Boyfriend From Hell

A fun title for a fun new short story.  The Boyfriend From Hell is a tongue-in-cheek romp involving aliens and tentacles which has just been accepted by British micro-press Fox Spirit for their new Shapeshifters anthology.

The collection forms part of their Fox Pockets range, a set of themed anthologies designed to introduce readers to the scope and style of their work.

No word yet on a release date as the stories have only just gone into the editing mill, but I'll post more details as soon as I have them.  In the meantime, you can see the full contents list here.

Award nomination for Gleams

I'm delighted to announce that Gleams of a Remoter World has been nominated for a writing award.  The book has been entered in the Best Bisexual Speculative Fiction category at the inaugural Bisexual Book Awards, organised by the Bi Writers Association.

Winners will be announced at the awards ceremony/dinner in New York on 2 June, so I'll be keeping everything crossed until then.

Wish me luck!  (And if you'd like to buy the book to see what all the fuss is about, then feel free to visit my webpage to find out more.)

Islands and, er, intrigue

Forgive the long silence but we're just back from a week-long cruise around some of the wilder parts of Scotland and the northern coast of Ireland, operated by National Trust for Scotland (NTS).  For some reason this was billed as 'Islands and Intrigue'; the first bit is fair enough since we visited three separate Hebridean islands (and would have gone to a fourth if the weather had been kinder) but we're still scratching our heads over the 'intrigue'.  Never mind, it was a super break and allowed us to get to some remote and stunning places that we'd never otherwise have seen:

Greencastle, a small village on the Inishowen peninsular on the north coast of the Republic of Ireland.  This is mostly a stopping-off point for bigger attractions such as the city of Derry/Londonderry, and the Giant's Causeway.  Given that it bucketed down all day, we decided against sitting on a coach in the rain for four hours and stayed local, pottering round the Maritime Museum (a delightfully quirky collection of bits and bobs including whale bones, boats and amateur rockets) and then walked as far as the ruined castle on the edge of the village.  Getting on and off the ship's tenders in a force eight gale was, um, interesting, and some of the passengers had a really hairy time of it, but we made it safely and enjoyed a quieter day.

Islay:  One of the inner Hebrides, this is best known for its whisky distilleries, of which there are still about 8 or 9 operational on one small island.  Dave is a big fan of Scotch whisky, so we walked the two miles from Port Ellen to Lagavulin, one of the oldest distilleries in Scotland, for a fascinating guided tour.  Unfortunately there were absolutely no refreshments on offer (I even had to beg a glass of water) and part way back my blood sugar began to suffer.  Luckily a guardian angel, in the shape of Fabian, a young German we'd befriended during the guided tour, came to the rescue as he gave us a somewhat illegal lift back in his car - Dave on the front seat and me on Dave's lap!

St Kilda.  This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site twice over (almost unheard-of) as well as being a National Nature Reserve.  It's now owned by the NTS and almost uninhabited since the original inhabitants asked to be re-housed on the mainland in the 1930s.  The old village, much of which lies in ruins, stretches in a crescent just above the main bay with volcanic peaks at its back, and apart from a small army base and some NTS scientists and rangers, the only inhabitants are rare Soay sheep and thousands upon thousands of sea birds.  I don't think I've ever seen such breath-taking scenery and we were lucky enough to get ashore, explore the village, buy a teddy in the tiny gift shop, take about six million photos, and then have a circumnavigation of the islands in the ship once we were back on board.  A truly magical experience.

The Isle of Lewis.  The biggest of the Hebrides (as far as my geography takes me, anyway) and an intriguing if somewhat bleak landscape of dark moorland and inland lochs.  We joined an organised tour by coach to the famous prehistoric stone circle at Callanish (very atmospheric) and an early medieval stone tower, or broch, at Carloway.  This was the only time we ventured on a tour on the whole holiday and we were glad we had, since the only other option was to trudge round the dull streets of Stornoway, the main town on the island.  As it was, we saw more of the island, and had a fascinating talk by a tour guide who really knew her stuff since she was a qualified archaeologist.  I've wanted to see Callanish for years so this was a real treat for me.

Inverie, a tiny village on the ultra-remote Knoydart peninsular on the coast of Scotland.  The whole of this peninsular is cut off from the mainland road system; the only way to reach it is by boat, or by a sixteen-mile slog across some very difficult terrain.  I was expecting the village to be primitive to say the least but actually it was a glorious surprise - pretty, welcoming, and set like a jewel in the most amazing surroundings of mountains, woodland and coast.  We did a 'Knoydart in a Knutshell' walk from a leaflet, around two and a half miles taking in some of the varied elements of the area, then had a really nice lunch in the local tea shop, before setting off for another two mile hike along the coast, dodging frequent heavy showers of sleet.  The icing on the cake was hearing several cuckoos trying to out-cuckoo each other in the surrounding woods.

Rum.  The last day should have involved a trip to the island of Rum, one of the so-called Small Isles.  Sadly the weather had deteriorated hugely with a Force Nine gale, lashing sleet and snow showers, and a heavy swell on the sea.  The captain tried to moor and launch one of the tenders but was beaten back, and every other port he tried was the same story.  Even places that are normally dependent on (desperate for) tourists told him to stay away, so in the end he chose a route for the most scenic sailing tour he could find, including a circumnavigation of Rum itself, a sail-by of Fingal's Cave on Staffa, and a cruise up Loch Linnhe as far as Oban.  The latter was quite sentimental for us since that's where we spent our honeymoon, but we'd never seen it from the sea before.

All in all a wonderful experience and one we'd quite happily repeat.

The Britwriters Blog

Several years ago now a group of British writers, including yours truly, set up The Britwriters Blog as a place to showcase Britain, the British way of life, and (of course) British writers.  Gradually we all got busy with other things and the blog lapsed, but given the recent boost in interest in all things British after last year's Jubilee and Olympics festivities, we've decided to try to resuscitate it again.

After much messing about with defibrillators and the kiss of life, there are now some new posts on the site.  So, if you'd like to read more about all things British, as well as finding out about us and our books, then pop over to The Britwriters and feel free to poke about in the archives and leave a comment.  Topics range wildly from Tolkien to M.I.5 so hopefully there's something of interest for everyone!

Beating writers' block

There was an amusing article in The Guardian yesterday about how writers get past writers' block.  It was less a 'how to' manual, and more a look at the weirder methods employed by some well-known writers.  Dan Brown, apparently, hangs upside down on a special frame while wearing gravity boots.  When I told one of my friends, she said it explained a lot.  I'd better not comment on that one, except to say that if I tried hanging upside down I'd either get a headache or fall off and break my neck.  Neither of which is all that conducive to writing.

So how do I find inspiration?  Well, sometimes a soak in the bath helps.  I'm not sure why, unless it's the total relaxation that frees up my brain from all those little everyday worries.  Other than that, it's just a case of plodding along.  I'll leave the hanging about to the bats.

Sutra

Not the 'kama' one but something very different.  Last night we went with our friends to Birmingham Hippodrome to see the dance troupe Sutra perform.  Sutra are the brainchild of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and feature set designs by Anthony Gormley (of Angel of the North fame) and seventeen ShaoLin buddhist monks.

At its most basic level you could say the performance was a bunch of men pushing wooden crates around a stage to some rather discordant modern music.  In reality it was so much more than that.  The boxes created patterns, objects, even stories (men jumping from a cliff into a boat; a lotus flower opening) whilst the monks' mixture of kung fu and tai chi was awe-inspiring - by turns graceful and explosive.  There were even some lovely touches of humour.

The performance only lasted a little over an hour but the level of physical effort involved in lugging the boxes round the stage and doing martial arts in, around and over them was so extreme that we really couldn't have asked for more.

An unusual evening but a very rewarding one.

At a glance I can't find a website for Sutra but you can see more details at the Birmingham Hippodrome webpage here.