Volume VII: Hunter's Moon

This weekend I finished the seventh volume of the Owners series. I am both sad and elated.


For a very long time I have suspected that it was not going to  be a particularly good ending for some of the main characters and I was right. In real life sometimes there are events which change everything or which alter how things are perceived...so it is with my characters and books. Regardless of how badly I wanted them to be ok, writing in an all-encompassing happy ending would have been both unrealistic and tacky. And they deserve better treatment than that.


Like all of my characters I will miss them dearly but they will remain in my heart. However with the finishing of this volume comes a little joy, for Volume VIII will see the story returning to one of the very first characters to show how things became how they were. It will be lovely to deal with already known and loved characters - its rather like meeting up with an old friend in a warm pub on a stormy night - exciting, long-anticpated and more than a little curious. Are you wondering which character? Well I'm afraid I won't be revealing that just yet, so hunker down for the wait.

In the meantime, there are lots of other things happening. I have been working hard on my editing job and am very busy attending functions on the magazine's behalf. I have also been busy organising the launch of Split Decision which will be out next month [date to be announced].

Meanwhile my new house is coming along nicely and I have now chosen a new fire to go where the old one was. It's a super, duper thing! In fact I think the whole house will look quite good when its finished [courtesy of my fab builder - details to follow on how to book him later].

So if you see a smiling but frantic looking woman buzzing around in an old battered light blue Citroen Berlingo,  not knowing where she is going or what she is doing, give her a wave, 'cos it will be me!


Happy Reading!

Wakey, wakey!

There are not enough hours in the day for me at the moment, so for the last three weeks I have been going to bed at midnight and getting up at four am in order to get everything done. Before you feel sorry for me, I must point out that this is entirely my own fault. I have stupidly co-ordinated events so that everything has now come to fruition at the same time!


This is not a problem however, as I am currently so filled with nervous energy that I could light up the whole of Bromsgrove if they wired me to the grid. But like an athlete after the competition, or a rock star after a tour, I know that very soon, when the need for all this activity is over, I will slump, exhausted and wiped out, for at least two days.  Right now that seems a small price to pay.

 
So what is the cause of all this hyperactivity? Partly my decision to move home. As you may be aware, I have been longing to do this for some time. So I bought a new house. But not just any old house, oh no, not me! I bought a house where the doors do not actually close in the door frames [to my shame I did not realise this, having actually not tried to close any of the doors], where each and every door lock was broken, where there was no door to the en suite bathroom [I know!], where there was a smallish kitchen but a large utility... and an endless list of other strange things.


Yet I LOVE the new house. It is full of potential and possibilities that have been all but exhausted in my present house. So I set a team of builders to work on it. And they are really cracking on. So much so, that I have been forced to speedily decorate my current house and put it on the market, with a view to possibly moving to the new house once it is completed.


But as we all know, with a new house comes even more running around, setting up things, so between all this, life has been popping up its funny little head, reminding me that I have other commitments too - a family birthday party to organise, a holiday to book, five chapters left in the current book to write, other work commitments and, dare I suggest it, a social life! On top of all that, I have also been informed of details of the book launch for Split Decision, which of course coincides with all of this.


Maybe one of the most difficult things I am doing at this moment though, is wrestling with the moral conumdrums and issues which have presented themselves in The Owners, Volume VII: Hunter's Moon. God help me, I have always been an eye for an eye sort of person. I have striven to rise above this my whole life, for I truly believe that train of thought is detrimental to the soul, but being a female born under the astrological sign of scorpio, of short statue, and raised in Glasgow, it was always going to require a lot of effort to be ambivalent let alone magnanimous when I felt wronged.


And  I see a couple of this book's characters having the same problem. What has happened with the story has shattered their world so completely, that they are finding it difficult to stem the tide of hatred that wants to flow from them. And with every word I write, I feel their pain. They want me to set them loose, to allow them to wreak havoc upon others, as it has been wreaked upon them... so here is the latest snippet:-

There was the bigger picture to think of too though. There was the thought that one day, when she was a grown woman, questions about this night would arise and he would be forced to say that he had stood back and let whatever happened, happen.


I would love to tell you that this book has a happy ending, but I fear I would by lying. All I can say [and I am as much in the dark about the book's conclusion as you are,] is that it is sure to be exciting!


So for now, happy reading and I'll catch up with you soon.


Carmen.