I hope you enjoy listening to my reading of the opening section of Bethany Rose, from my Artisan-Sorcerer series of short stories and novels. I recorded it using a Fifine microphone, which simply plugs into a port in my desktop computer. This gives a noticeably better sound than the in-built mic, and has proved its worth already. The camera used is the PC's own. I have an Asus all-in-one desktop, and the camera has been placed underneath the screen. It would have been much better if it had been placed at the top of the screen, as this low angle gives an unfortunate view of my chin, even after I've raised the whole thing up considerably by stacking books underneath it. Oh well, that's just one more design flaw to look out for next time I'm buying a PC, whenever that might be.

  Today I discovered that the timer on my effectively prehistoric Kodak has died. When this tragedy happened I do not know. It passed away peacefully in the back of a drawer, its fate only coming to light when, of course, it was needed in a hurry. Now, a normal person would simply wait for a passing buddy to take aim with a camera so the required shot could be taken. This would have been much easier. Instead, as I needed to get the image emailed off sharpish, I had to improvise with the camera on my PC. First there was too much light coming in from the window beside me. Then, with curtains closed, there wasn't enough light so I created something of a homage to Heath Robinson with an assortment of spotlights and tinfoil reflectors. I had been asked to pose holding my books. That's easier said than done when one hand is needed to operate a computer mouse. And smile - but not so you end up looking as ridiculous as you feel while posing like this. Well, here's the result. Pleas...

ISBN: 9781476124902  Fifty copies of Bethany Rose have been set aside for volunteer bookworms.  To qualify to receive one free digital copy, you will need to have  - or contribute to - an active blog site or to be an Amazon reviewer.  In return for your free copy, you will pledge to write and publish your honest review of the novel, ideally within one month of receiving your copy. Apply by sending an email to ACBwrites@aol.com and write BETHANY ROSE REVIEW in the subject line.  Please provide an URL to your blog or reviews so that your claim may be verified. About the book: "Selkies, Ghosts, Terror and Romance!  Morgan seems perfect, but he is a member of a mysterious occult order. Can he protect Bethany Rose from power-crazed assassins?   "Horrified by visitations from a black-robed spectre, Bethany Rose runs to Morgan - and straight into danger.  They want to be together. But will love ...

As of today, there is a new cover for the ebook edition of Bethany Rose . 

Widowed at sixteen and facing bankruptcy, Bethany Rose resolves to rebuild broken dreams. Morgan seems perfect, but he is a member of a mysterious and secretive occult order. Can he protect Bethany Rose from power-crazed assassins plotting to control the order? Terrified by visitations from a faceless black-robed spectre, Bethany runs to Morgan - and straight into danger. They want to be together. But will love keep them apart? Paperback: ISBN-13: 978-1478253211 ISBN-10: 1478253215 Ebook: ISBN: 9781476124902 ASIN: B008XNJRGY (for Kindle)    

One of our garden's visitors A friend challenged me to sum up the themes of my novels in just two or three words. After a few moments, I said that Tamsin is about making choices, Rowan is about taking responsibility, Bethany Rose is about overcoming adversity;and Fabian is about taking control. It was an interesting exercise as I'd not consciously thought about it before. Have a go yourself, either with something you've written or with a few favourites novels. If you're wondering what's happening on the writing front: (a) I've nearly finished correcting the proof copy of Bethany Rose ; (b) the Seaside Stories anthology is still receiving a few submissions; (c) I'm selecting and completing work for another short story collection; and (d) there was an article about cryonics in Marie Claire magazine's August issue which featured me and two friends. I hadn't known the relevant magazine issue had come out until Freddie told me. She and I have b...

Get ready for some great ebook bargains! All through July, the first novel in my Artisan-Sorcerer series, Tamsin will be at 50% its usual cost. Many other ebook titles will be at 25% their usual cost, while Spanish Jones and The Karens will be entirely FREE! All you have to do is visit Smashwords  then make your choice. A wide variety of ereader formats are available, and if you don't have an ereader you can download a free one from Adobe or Amazon, or download an HTML file which you can read on your usual computer. And when you've done that and read your heart out, how about writing a few reviews on Smashwords, or on your blog or forum - or will you take part in this forthcoming competition? Competition Time! Are you artistic? Create a web banner or some fanart based on the Artisan-Sorcerer series! Entry fee = NONE! Prizes = FREE EBOOK copy of the forthcoming 3rd novel in the Artisan-Sorcerer series,  BETHANY ROSE, for every contribu...

Here is a preview of the cover for Bethany Rose .  It continues with the visual theme for the other two novels in the Artisan-Sorcerer series, this time using a flower from the Rosa mundi which grows in my garden. The flower was chosen for its symbolism, as with the images on the other book covers. 

The Faerie Pond on Caldy Hill In a recent blog post, Jennifer Rainey  included some photos of the Hocking Hills region in southeast Ohio, where she sets some of her fiction.  As most readers of my blog will already know, my fiction tends to be set locally to me, and one of the locations I use is Caldy Hill.  Why?  Well, it's a beautiful place, it's only a short walk from my home, it's peaceful and ancient, and the air is full of birdsong and the fragrances of heather and broom carried on salty breezes coming off the Dee estuary.  Jays, crows, wood pigeons, turtle doves, goldfinches, bullfinches and owls nest there.  There are rabbits, bats, foxes, lizards, adders and badgers.  There are benches perfect for meditating while gazing along the River Dee, over to Flintshire or out to sea. In my fiction, Caldy Hill is home to the notorious Caldy fae.  If you're expecting sugary-cute, tutu-wearing, small faeries probably clutching a sparkly wand, and ...

Mad dog & English hen stay out of the mid-day sun. Standing around like a headless chicken. Summer has arrived.  How long it lasts, this being Britain, is another matter but for now the sun is blazing and the sky is pretending to be Mediterranean.  A mere two weeks ago I was glad of my winter coat as hail stones and biting winds howled down the mouth of the River Dee.  Today all the house windows and the French doors are thrown open and, as can be seen from the two photos above, the menagerie has been hiding from the heat of the day.  And these are just the pets I could find.  The other hens had vanished beneath shady shrubs, and our cat Jasper is nowhere to be seen.  Fear not, she'll return at 5.55pm sharp in time for food at 6pm.  She always does. Jasper is once again without a collar.  We no sooner buy her a new one and she contrives to lose it.  I told Richard that we might as well just tie a £5 ...

Two very different sketches, of two very different personalities...

Top: Fabian; Second & Third: Rowan - pencil and coloured pencil sketches on lined paper. Some of my fictional characters had their origins in old RPG forums and/or blogs.  Fabian, Tamsin and Bethany Rose certainly did, though all have evolved considerably since then.  I've always found the creative process interesting for its own sake.  As well as using character charts, I occasionally sketch the fictional people I write about.  This week, I've been looking for a way of compiling these in a way that appeals to me.  Sketchbooks, being largely experimental or given over to quickly-done work, oftentimes end up containing a few tolerable sketches hidden away amidst a pile of glorified doodles.  Well, mine do anyway!  I'd like to put together some kind of album-cum-scrapbook which combines the best sketches and maybe even some finished art, photography and various mixed media to depict each character's... well, ch...

I’m in the process of developing three new fictional characters for Fabian . I use a combination of methods when creating new people. There’s no right and wrong way to do these things. It’s more a case of experimenting to discover what works for you. For example, with one of these new characters I used a rather direct method. He appears very briefly in Rowan , so I already had his first name and the fact that he’s a musician. I wanted physical contrast with my other main male characters, so choices about looks were easily arrived at. I also wanted a personality which would provide a strong contrast to my other main characters, and so he was given a big, bombastic name to match his loud, exuberant traits and the plot role he plays. For a middle name, I thought of those marvellous Victorian names, heavy with pomp. The surname had been floating around in my mind for a while, and I liked the feel of it and it sounded right. Then I encountered a touch of serendipity. As his is a very ...

Ashton Park’s rose garden has a path lined with cherry trees, and they’re all in full blossom right now. A slow stream of ice-pink confetti drifts down on all who stroll beneath. On the park pond it’s serious nest-building time. A pair of coots are trying their best to attach a pile of sticks to the base of the fountain. That a 30’ jet of water streaks past their little heads is no deterrent. Maybe this is the same pair of coots who successfully built a nest there last year. The dogs and I virtually had the beach to ourselves earlier today. Right now, they’re flaked out - one stretched out along the back of one couch, and other curled up on a tuffet facing the sunshine streaming in through the French doors. Tonight is Riverside Writers’ AGM. Is our anthology ready to go to the printers tomorrow? Will the Chair, Secretary and Treasurer be re-elected (again)? And will we break our own record for the fastest AGM, which currently stands at ten minutes flat? Let’s be honest here - ha...

Our hallway is blocked by two huge boxes containing the new chicken house. The blurb insists it will take between ten and fifteen minutes to convert these two flat-packs into the house and run but having experienced the joys of self-assembly before, I remain sceptical. The chicken house which Mum gave me is made from re-used wood and isn’t as watertight as it needs to be. It soaks up water from beneath, which is very bad for the birds’ health. Plus we wanted to give them a bigger run anyway. So I scoured the internet and found something much better. All I have to do now is assemble it then we can have our hall back and Hattie and Joyce can move house (again!) I’m just back from a trip into the village. There’s an icy wind coming off the sea today but it’s pleasant once you get walking. I’d tackle the flat-packs now but the light will be fading soon, and so instead I’ll update this blog. So what’s new? Well, I’ve now completed the first draft of Bethany Rose , and am happy with ...

Work on Bethany Rose has kept me busy, as I’m on the last three or four thousand words now. The total word count will run over my intended 100,000 words but as I’ve already decided to delete one minor character completely that’s not an issue. This is only the first draft, of course; there’s a lot of work to be done yet, editing and polishing. Some people balk at this aspect of writing but I thoroughly enjoy it. I’ve enjoyed writing Bethany’s story. Her character’s an interesting mixture of contradictions; sensitive but strong, creative but practical, and incredibly brave in the face of awful circumstances. She’s a very different person from Tamsin, that’s for sure. But I won’t say too much about her publicly for now. I’ve also been enjoying our two chickens. In the spring, Mum began talking about having two pet chickens. She gave it some thought, and by early summer they were in residence in her small garden. Richard laughed and told her we’d have them by Xmas. Well he was right, a...

I have been waging war on the kitchen ceiling, polyfiller and spatula at the ready. The job would be so much easier if I could levitate. This would save having to climb up a stepladder and twist half-upside down so I can smooth away miniature potholes which bring something of a lunar texture to our temple of culinary experimentation. The house acts like a magnet for moths. There was a large, fat orange-brown one flitting round earlier, and snoozing on the ceiling is a particularly beautiful moth which looks like a Spanish lace fan. No wonder so many have been hanging out in our house--the bats are out in full force tonight. I've been photographing a few things in the garden, and have also begun weeding around the grove--which is badly overgrown with mare's tail. I've yet to find anything which can kill off mare's tail without destroying the soil for years to come. Anyway, the good news is that my Lady's Mantle has re-established itself under the contorted hazel-...

Wrote 1,850 words this morning, which takes the total word-count for Bethany Rose up to 23,250 so far. Writing the spooky bits is such fun...! Warm spring sunshine yesterday enabled me to get some weeding done. Today's torrential rain has forced me to postpone further efforts. We have three yellow crocus and a patch of snowdrops in bloom. What happened to the rest of my crocus though? I planted heaps of them four years ago, and there has been less each year. Anyway, yesterday I had no sooner finished weeding a stretch of one border when a cute little robin came to investigate. I was looking out of the kitchen window as I was washing my hands, and saw a wren on the fence. Bathed the dogs yesterday. I managed to capture them in the bathroom by stealth. Otherwise if they hear the 'B' word they hide under the bed and will not come out! I bathed Emily first as she was the cleanest. I'd no sooner towelled her dry than she jumped back in the bath to torment Ygraine. So th...

Richard spent a rough night due to the cold he's caught. Consequently he spent half of today in bed. He's sat in his Man Cave now, watching a documentary about The Beatles, with Saffron purring in his lap. He likes some of their music but not all of it. Saffron couldn't care less what's playing so long as she gets her ears tickled. The photo depicts one of the tattoos he's done recently.  To see more, visit his website: http://www.myspace.com/riche_tattoo_artist Anyway, while he was snoring triumphantly in bo-bos, I was busy tapping away on this puuter. Today's word count for Bethany Rose is 1,879 words. I love it when a character does something unexpected. I had no idea Bethany was going to move into a haunted house! This MS is very different in mood from Rowan. Whereas Rowan has a languid romantic feel to it, BR is much, much darker. Did anyone tune in to 7 Waves Radio today? Four members of Riverside Writers were guests on Cath Bore's Lunchtime F...

The word count for Bethany Rose now stands at 11,000 words. Only 89,000 to go. No! Don't think of that!! Today's tally was 2,000. It was 3pm before I realised I'd forgotten to have lunch. Did I mention that I'd begun writing the new version of BR ? Anyway, it began to appear on my puuter screen on January 16th. I hadn't intended to spend that evening working but TV was as boring as it usually is, and while busy washing dinner dishes the start of the novel came to me. My fingers started itching, and so it began. Do your fingers itch, literally burn and itch, when you've got a tasty idea demanding to be written or painted or photographed? I find myself pulling odd facial expressions as the images of the idea flows through my mind. It's like watching a cinema screen in 3D inside my head. Who needs a remote control zapper when with a flick of Will you can rewind, rewrite, bring details up closer or move away as the story bursts into life internally? Then ...