The Owners, Volume V: Eyon Rising

Well this book is coming along well and I am spurred on by my eldest son, who has just read Volume IV and can't wait to get to this one. But all good things take time...

Anyway, here is today's offering - I hope you enjoy it!

At once outside the scene and also within it, playing her own part, Georgia saw the fragility of the intertwined lives. As if they were all miniature characters, contained within a snowdome, their world only appeared solid from their perspective. From the outside in, she could see that if dropped, the scene would shatter into a thousand pieces, none of which could ever be put back together but which equally could not survive alone.

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

    Do you ever get a glimpse of yourself in a mirror and not recognise yourself? I do it rather a lot. And yet the funny thing is, when I finally recognise myself, I never really know what it was that I expected to see there in the first place, reflected back at me.
    Do I think I am taller/shorter/thinner/fatter/blonder/greyer...[take your pick!] than I really am? I don't think so...but there is certainly something.
    I remember once asking my grandmother how she felt. It was her 90th birthday and we were all out celebrating at the local pub with her.
    She looked me clear in the eyes and in the voice of an excited schoolgirl declared, "do you know why I am here? It is my birthday. I am 44 years old today!"
   That tale still strikes me as both funny and infinitely sad. Sometimes lucid and sometimes not, I was glad that at least she was having a good time and perhaps it was more fun for her to think of herself as 44 rather than 90!
    But it was the loss of the memories of a life lived that saddened me. Trials and tribulations were lost just as surely as the joys and unfettered jubilation that those years undoubtedly rolled out in perhaps equal measures.
   And yet in a small part I feel that myself. I look out on the world with eyes that are as curious and wondrous as they were when I was a teenager and inside my head I don't feel any older...
   Perhaps it is this which catches me out when I pass a mirror. The next time I do, before I step in front of its critical gaze, I shall repeat the litany, "I am 46 and will look 46, I am 46...."
   Maybe then I won't get such a shock. ;)

Signing Event This Weekend

Here I am again, fingers poised on keys and head filled with the voices and situations of my characters but my mind is already on this Saturday.

If you fancy coming along to the Author's Fair on Saturday in Worcester, you can get your hands on signed copies of my books. Of course there will be other authors there, showcasing their work but I know who you really want... :)

Here is today's little peek...

“These might be no more than kids, messing around and angry at what went down earlier…” he cautioned. It was dark and these people were afraid, both for their families and also for their livelihood. Terrible things could be perpetrated in the dark when people were most afraid, he knew.

I have upset myself...

I have just had to write one of the most emotional chapters I have ever written and found myself in floods of tears, makeup streaked down my face, eyes red and nose running. Not attractive, I know!

But characters I have written are no less real to me, just because they take every breath and spend every waking moment on paper and are confined to the story they are written for. And some characters affect me more than others. I would imagine this is true for most writers.

Here's a little bit of the latest chapter.


    “Hush now Gemma,” Katie, patted the soft fur on the top of the animal’s head. And for one strange moment, one moment where time seemed to stand still and reality be caught in a vortex that she could neither see nor hear, but feel…it was not Gemma’s soft downy fur that was smoothed under her palm, instead it was soft but coarser hair, longer and shaggier and thicker.
    Katie closed her eyes and felt once more the velvet flank of
Roxie’s long muzzle, the arch of her forehead and the sweet spot behind the dog’s ears. Tears flowed unchecked and she wept for the loss of a dog that had been her companion, her friend and her very soul, for so long.