I continue to be surprised by the content and the characters in The Owners books. Even though it is I myself who writes them, there are elements of surprise in every twist and turn.

Do you remember me telling you about one of the characters who I had only just realised was a dangerously bad man? Well it turned out today that he met his match in a character who up until now was not a main player but rather a supporting one. Seems she was just biding her time, I guess.

And that's one of the things I love most about this series - every volume picks out the people it needs to tell that part of the story, so that in effect, we get to meet all of the characters at different stages in their lives.

I guess it is a bit like looking at our own lives, slicing out little periods discrete in time and examining who was important in our lives then and why. If like me, you have changed jobs several times, moved home, been married and divorced, you will see that your world was inhabited not with one set of friends or family but a multitude of different ones who all played their own parts.

If like many of my friends, you are fortunate enough to have been in a long-term stable relationship, perhaps you will be able to see how the dynamics of this has changed over time...

'Cos that's life - there is always change, even if you can't see it clearly at the time.

If you would like to have a chat with me about books, writing or indeed anything else, you can find me at the Science Fiction Family Fun Day at Avoncroft Museum on Sat. 16th November where I will be selling signed copies of the books and holding a creative writing workshop.

Toodle-pip!


http://www.avoncroft.org.uk/visiting-whats-on/events-programme/

Pigeon Pie!

I forgot to tell you how the pigeon was getting on. This is the wood pigeon that my daughter and I rescued from her school playground, after it had been attacked by a cat or a fox [or maybe a small ferocious child -I've seen the kids at that school!!!]

Anyway, the pigeon had lost a lot of blood and feathers and its one wing tip was torn off. It also had wounds around its neck and on its chest but with a lot of love and attention, these have healed and its flight feathers are finally growing back now.

Sophia insisted on calling it Fluffy - the most ridiculous name for a pigeon, I know but that's kids for you. It started off its recovery in our conservatory but as the days have warmed up, it has been moved out of there, lest it end up as a rather unfortunate pigeon pie...

I let it out when I have to clean its cage and it walks around having a look at everything, then when I am ready, it hops back in as if the cage is the best home its ever known and maybe indeed it is!

The dogs don't bother about it and it has learned to ignore them too so at least that's a blessing!

But in about three weeks I think it will be ready to be returned to the wild. I have spoken to the school and they are happy to have the children in the playground whilst we release it and it flies off to wherever pigeons fly off to.

Perhaps if it is true about karma then it will make up for the time I had to pluck what remained of a pigeon out of the radiator grill of a car I was in...remember peeps - what goes around comes around...

The Owners Volume IV.

Somehow I can't quite believe that volume IV is almost completely written.

Don't get me wrong, I have spent countless hours slogging away at it and many more hours thinking about the route it was taking through the plot...and yet the almost completed work sits before me like a thing never seen before!

There is one more chapter to write and a lot of editing but by this stage, the promise of a finished book is so close, I can almost smell it.

Because a finished book is a strange thing indeed. I don't know about other authors but for me the book is almost a part of me whilst I am writing it; an extension of my own body if you like. But once written, it is like a child that has been firmly expelled from the birth canal - always linked to me but a seperate entity all of its own, expected to make its own way in the big wide world with only a gentle push from me to help it on its way.

If I wasn't so unsentimental I'd shed a tear ;)

Happy reading!  x