"Little sister, let me tell you this story. I know your days are busy and your life full of important things. I promise not to delay you for long. "It is a simple story. It came to me last night in my dreams, and its beauty impressed itself upon my mind so strongly that when I woke, still hearing these words echo through me, I remembered you and sought a way to share it...." So begins this enchanting account of a mystical journey.         What is the ebook equivalent of "hot off the printing press"?  Here's the long-awaited release of an oldie which has been on the backburner for a while.  Getting the cover right caused the delay, as I did not want to see a pretty pastiche in pastels.  This cover is simple but bold.  Well, I think so anyway!  You're welcome to share your opinions of it.  Message... is available now from Smashwords  and Amazon . 

A Gentleman of Old Venice; ink and watercolour; Adele C-B 2004. Rooting out household junk for Sunday's bring-and-buy sale, I came across a few old pieces of artwork plus a very dusty ring-file of old stories.  Most of these are so old the paper they were typed on has gained a yellow tinge.  I started reading through a few of the stories, of course.  My fingers began itching - as they tend to when the writing bug bites - and I ended up re-writing Peter Buddha, a very short tale at just under 900 words, which dates back to 1989.  The edits consisted of deleting redundant words and simplifying a few sentences.  The re-write brought in two extra characters in order to give other peoples' reactions to the unfolding events.  The finished story will probably be added to my next collection of short stories, Dark Waters. The moral of this post, then, is that it can be useful to hang on to old stories.  Some of them -...

 It's bargain time, people!  Win a FREE ebook copy of Rowan:  An Artisan-Sorcerer Story. All you have to do is answer the following question:  Where was Rowan and his aunt living at the start of the novel? You will find the information on the page dedicated to Rowan via the menu above. The first ten people to  email the correct answer to ACBwrites@aol.com will receive a coupon code which can be redeemed at Smashwords, where a variety of ereader formats are offered.  Plain text or HTML versions are also available.  Another option is to download a free ereader to your PC from Amazon or Adobe if you haven't done so already. Competition ends on December 19th, 2012, when the coupon will expire. Good luck!

Ashton Park pond, West Kirby The photo above was taken this week at the edge of the pond in Ashton Park.  I passed an elderly man who was holding a chunky camera with a foot-long lens.  Mine sits in my pocket, a modest Kodak which weighs next to nothing.  My old Pentax SLR was much more flexible from a creative view-point, and the lenses were excellent.  Meanwhile, I'm happy tinkering with this little digi, which is ok for static shots.  For snapping anything moving it's hopeless as the shutter works more slowly than the button - so you have to press the button and attempt to move the camera in time with whatever you're trying to photograph.  Mostly the resulting image is blurred or partially missing.  For example, last winter I tried to photograph our dogs playing in the snow.  They were having a fine old time, chasing each other around.  Unfortunately, due to the shutter/button delay, mostly all I caught was image...

I thought I'd share a few interesting videos with you. The first is an enjoyable trip around central Liverpool, where my Artisan-Sorcerer series is mostly set. The labyrinthian Williamson Tunnels are another feature of the series. You can learn about their history and enjoy some old footage of Liverpool buildings. Most of those old dockside warehouses are luxury apartments now, by the way. Morgan and his household live in walking distance of Lark Lane, in the Liverpool suburb of Aigburth. I lived there for seven years, which is one reason why I based their fictional home there. This next very short film features a drive down Lark Lane at night. This next film is a pleasure to view, with its lovely snowy images of Sefton Park. When I lived in Liverpool I often walked through this park. The Artisan-Sorcerer's house overlooks this large expanse of parkland.

Woodland dolphins?     A section of Ashton Park in West Kirby, Wirral, has been developed as a pocket-sized woodland trail.  The height of the old trees readily lends itself to this theme, even though the smooth expanse of one of the bowling greens lies just beyond the bench in the photo above.  Taking pride of place along the trail are a number of fairly new carved sculptures made from stumps of felled trees.  While I'm not too sure of the dolphins, which in my opinion aren't sufficiently site specific to work well, the other sculptures are lovely.  You will have to click on the images to see them full-sized in order to enjoy their details.   Sculpted owl   A pair of nesting owls   Old Man of the Woods   Dangling from low branches around the trail were an assortment of wind-chimes and paper Xmas decorations - mostly snowmen and tree cut-outs - possibly created by one of the ranger-led activiti...