A lesson in inequality

The body belonging to the single foot resting its gritty weight on my clasped hands heaved and he had to grasp the top of the wall to steady himself.
‘Ow, bloody hell you stupid cow, what’re you playin’ at?   Stand still I told you!’
The hem of his prickly woollen jumper brushed the tip of my nose, tickling, and I moved my head from side to side, trying to use the self-same bit of jumper to scratch it, but then he stretched a bit more and it moved higher, leaving me sniffing.  I remembered reading about a Japanese torture where they kept putting a drop of water on the end of your nose but your hands were tied so you couldn’t scratch.   I could scratch now but he’d fall for sure and would be even madder and I wanted him to like me, to be pleased I was here, helping him.
‘You nearly done?’  I didn’t like the squeak in my voice as I craned my neck up.
‘Nearly.  Would’ve been finished if you hadn’t kept bloody fidgeting.   Another one.’
I braced myself, back against the brick wall, arms rigid, knowing, from before, that there’d be an imbalancing and another heave as he twisted and threw another empty beer bottle the four feet it needed to go to be sure of landing on the grass – no point in going to all this trouble only to smash it.
‘How many’s that?’
‘Um ...’ I peered round his legs, the one I was supporting and the unsupported, swinging one, ‘that’s six I think.’   I didn’t know but he usually stopped at six and I was cold and fed up and my hands hurt.
‘OK, I’m jumping down.’  But he said it at the exact same time as he did it and his elbow caught my mouth, pinching my bottom lip between tooth and bone.   Instant taste of blood, like sucking a door key.
‘Right,’ he said, all full of himself, bending and gathering them up, ‘I’ll take them into the Offy.   Should get six shillings, which is four for me and two bob for you, ‘cos I did all the work.’

Yesterday's Thinking Ten challenge: 
Take it Away (Tuesday):  The (fill in the blank) heaved and he/she had to....

Karen Campbell - 'After the Fire'

I've just put my life on hold in order to finish reading this.

Heart-gripping, throat-aching, peer through my metaphorical fingers in the hope that justice will be seen to be done - and the undeniable fear that it won't be, because these folk are real and happy endings not guaranteed.

Karen Campbell does suspense like nobody else and I get high on her writing. Wow. (And thank goodness I've two more yet to read.)


Karen Campbell
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6635236-after-the-fire

Itch of writing - best found scratch

I've only ever read one 'how to' write  book, and that was more of a how NOT to  

I have also read quite a few folks passing on the rules they have found most useful, with more or less insistence, but the one that really works for me, time and time again, because of the high level of common sense ('there are no rules'), the tone in which the information is imparted, and the relevant examples, is Emma Darwin's 'This itch of writing' - check it out for yourself.

Conversation familiar to co-habiting couples everywhere.

One hand brushed the hair from her eyes, and inadvertently spread further the daub of paint on her forehead so that, being more or less skin-coloured, it appeared to reduce the length of her left eyebrow; the other hand held a half-inch paintbrush.   Clearly hoping that I would give her a logical, well-reasoned and incontrovertible decision, she moaned, ‘I can’t decide between ‘Calico Cupcake’, ‘Limpet Love’, ‘Prairie Pancake Dawn’, or ‘Crumpled Neolithic’.  What do you think?’
  
I looked at the wall she was gazing at with such intense concentration and knew that any sort of logic – the sort she was looking for – was way beyond me.   he cream wall had upon it four recently painted, four by four squares of ... cream, I had to say cream, of also-cream paint on them, and I could only see those because the paint, still being wet, caught the light from the window and shone.

‘Um,’ I said, trying to sound if I was giving it an acceptable amount of thought.   Nothing occurred, so I repeated ‘Um’ and then, with a flash of inspiration, asked, ‘How much?  How much does each colour cost?  Per tin?  And what's the stated coverage?‘

It was not the sort of answer she was looking for.

This was posted on today's Thinking Ten, today's prompt being :  One Word/Sentence Two (Friday):  In the second sentence include the following word: Prairie

Of gods and men

‘I heard just the other day that some people actually worship cats, and birds ...’
‘Yeah, the Egyptians, the bird was a hawk, Horus, not something as stupid as a duck ... or a seagull.   I could be your hawk, you my cat.’
His voice vibrated something low within her stomach, and, mobile phone to her ear, she smiled. She’d got the phone for her birthday and two days later he’d phoned and although he’d said ‘Sorry wrong number,’ he’d kept talking to her, had made her laugh.    He’d rung her again a couple more times and yesterday had asked about where she went when she wanted to take refuge from the world.   When she’d told him about the old barn, and the cart propped up on bricks he’d said ‘Go there on Saturday afternoon, I’ll phone you there, then we can talk some more.’
It was ages before her phone rang, she’d lain on the cart watching her cat trying to catch mice, laughing whenever he missed.   She’d straightaway told him about that, her cat pretending he didn’t mean it, which was when he’d said about Egyptian gods.  
Then he said ‘The Egyptians called their cat god Mau ... I can see your cat from where I’m standing ... I’m going to come and see you now.’
Even before he appeared she wondered whether this was one of those errors of judgement her mother said she hoped she’d grow out of, before she got herself into trouble.


[This was my response to yesterday's Thinking Ten Capstone challenge, when the six prompts for the week have to be combined in one ten minute piece of writing.   Usually I also try to keep it short, but this one had a mind of its own.   As ever I am aware that the daily challenge - and challenge it often is - to write for ten minutes about whatever prompt is thrown up - is a hugely beneficial way of exercising one's writing muscles, but the site could do with a lot more support.]

Resolutions for 2013...

A couple at least:

1] To declutter. 
And yes I know that goes with the time of the year, but I do mean making a start on our loft.   I also know (because our last conversation on the subject was on 21st December) that my dearly beloved and I have opposing views on the best way to do this, but since that has, for the past decade or so (I do not exaggerate) resulted in nothing getting done, I am simply going to see how much can be achieved my way.

2] Make a start on producing four Family Histories for the four branches which extend from my parents and those of my husband.   I already have fairly fact-heavy narratives; the challenge is to incorporate this into something which will hold the interest of generations to come.   Biggest problem, as I see it, is knowing how much evidence to include ...

One of last year's was to do something about getting myself an agent/more actively marketing myself, but that failed and I see no likelihood of it being ahieved this year, so have ditched that.

Whoops

In the last two days I have ordered thirteen books from Amazon ...

and not yet broken into the voucher my dearly beloved gave me for Christmas ...

Good, eh?

Top ten books of 2012

Never until this year have I kept track of what I'm reading - thank Goodreads for that - and I'm not a Top Ten sort of person - but yesterday my younger son sent me his Top Ten and it was easy enough to select, from the 127 read so far, the twenty I'd awarded five stars.   Duplicates of all but one author were eliminated, as were books read for the second time (Angla Carter's 'Love', Iain Banks 'Espedair Street', Ian Rankin).
All were memorable except for Sarah Moss's 'Waking' which, from my review, I was impressed with at the time but cannot now recall -   obviously I need to re-read that one.
What is left is in no particular order, but is surprising insofar as there are not that many crime fiction there - most of them fell into the four star category, which totalled forty-seven.

Denise Mina                Garnethill

Louise Welsh              The Bullet Trick

Angela Carter              Heroes and villains

Jose Carlos Somoza    The Art of murder

Michael Robotham      Shatter

Sarah Hall                   How to paint a dead man

Cormac McCarthy      No country for old men

Stuart MacBride         Birthdays for the dead

Cormac McCarthy      Blood Meridian

Douglas Coupland      Eleanor Rigby

Ian Rankin                  The St. Leonard’s years

 Emma Donoghue       The room

Louise Welsh              Tamburlaine must die

Angela Carter              Love

Ian Ayris                     Abide with me

Iain Banks                   Espedair Street

Louise Welsh              The Cutting room

Susie Nott=Bower      The Making of her

Sarah Hall                   Haweswater

            Sarah Moss                 Night Waking

Christmas eve ...

Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast, pebble beach in black and tan and skies of palest blue and silver-grey, the sea slip-liquid putty with edging of crocheted lace, ever re-patterning itself.   Regent Cottage itself blood-orange brick, white paint and door matched to the sky.   Julia has rented it to allow us a family holiday close to but not inconveniencing the family at Blacksmith’s Cottage - three small children take up a surprising amount of space.

And yesterday they came here to tea - up and down the narrow stairs, the youngest very perilously, not yet understanding gravity (which also threatened the safety of the floor-standing wine) but of course we had already cleared many of the too-intrusive, other person’s taste (and much too twee) ornaments out of the way, putting them on a high shelf above the stairs.

Tomorrow we go from here to theirs, for a full-on family Christmas

[A response to T10's  prompt of 'ornaments on a shelf'']

Pet hate

Headline over a small story in today's paper:   "Great-granny in a hood makes Tesco jumpy"
- she was sixty-nine for goodness' sake - not the aged crone the words automatically conjure up!!!

Back story and Stuart MacBride

 In real life I'm one of those over-earnest people who fears being misunderstood, especially by people whose opinion I value or expect to value.   So it's not surprising that I made sure that in my fourth Bridie and Sean novel I felt the need to ensure that the reader knows all he needs to to 'get' who they are and (briefly) what has happened so far.   The first chapter of 'Making good' wrote itself, full of impact and ending on a brilliant page turner.   Chapter two was inserted partly to add variety and delay the 'reveal' signalled in chapter one, partly to provide what I felt to be required back story.   Reading it was, despite my best efforts, despite changing as much as was feasible into dialogue, liking to digest an uncooked suet pudding and when I found myself skipping it when re-reading I knew I had to find a different way of doing this.

Stuart MacBride doesn't do back story.
In Len Wanner's first volume of 'The Crime Interviews'* in which best-selling authors talk about writing crime fiction, MacBride says of his first Logan McRae novel:  "I didn't want it to read like the first novel of a series. I wanted it to read as if it had appeared in the middle of a series. I loathe back story in all its myriad forms."

I've just finished reading his 'Birthdays for the dead' ;  a stand-alone novel which has Ash Henderson as the first person main character.   Aged forty-five, he has led a helluva full and complex life, knows lots of people, at all levels.   None of this, or the relationships referred to in the first chapter, are spelt out, and I have to make and remake assumptions as the story goes on, exactly as you do in real life.

Within a short time I found myself deeply envious of not only Ash but other characters - where does MacBride find them?   How does he portray them so vividly?  And that is what I need to do next - re-read, try not to get caught up too much in the headlong rush of the story, and try and spot how and then to transfer the skills to my writing.


*Wanner, Len (2012-02-28). The Crime Interviews Volume One: Best-selling Authors Talk About Writing Crime Fiction (Kindle Locations 879-880). Blasted Heath. Kindle Edition.

Thinking Ten - 'Toasted thoughts'

Bedsocks and hot water bottles, that rubbery smell, how hot they were when you first got into bed, how her mother had said not to hold them between your thighs because they gave you chilblains (or blotchy skin, she could never remember.)   And also, whenever they stayed at Granny’s house, toast, done over the fire with a long-handled toasting fork.   Granny had two of them and used to let her and her sister hold one each, always saying, ‘Don’t tell on me, your mother’d have a fit if she knew, though she used to do it herself often enough.’
Becky knew that her mother didn’t care what she and Elspeth did these days, so long as they were out of her way at the weekends.   It had been all right at the beginning, when Paul first used to come to the house, he always said ‘I like seeing the girls, you don’t need to send them away,’ but ever since that night last Christmas, when it had snowed, soon after one of the bottom panes in the window got smashed when she’d forgotten to latch it, and in the night the snow blew all over her pillow and she had woken up and cried and Mummy hadn’t heard her but Paul had and had come in to sort her out, finding her another pillow and sticking a carrier bag over the gap, Mummy had been sending them to Granny’s to stay at the weekend.


On Thursdays at T10 the prompts need to be used to denote a change in plot, today's prompts were:
 a cold night and a broken/leaky window.   This, as with so many T10 pieces was begun before I knew where it would end.

Sarah Hall - Goodreads review

Haweswater by Sarah Hall

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Strictly speaking I would have awarded half a star less, but for its strength and ability to ensnare me it deserved the extra.
I'd come to this after several well-writ, fast-paced, dialogue-heavy detective novels; the slow and rich descriptions took some adjusting to but the strength of the characters and of the developing love affair was irresistible, the inevitability of the end compelling, the pain real. Superb.

I picked up, from a charity shop in Sedbergh, Hall's 'How to paint a dead man' (How could I not!) and was enthralled;  this is the third one of hers I have read, all very different, but equally vividly, addictively-written.


View all my reviews

Thinking Ten is back again!!

After a few weeks hiatus, when Life and it's myriad challenges got in the way of its hitherto smooth and enthusiastic operation by Travis, Kerry Logan has volunteered to resurrect Thinking Ten.

Since 2010, previous to which I could write efficiently and grammatically but had done nothing in the way of creative writing, I have relied on three different sites to develop and hone those writing skills:  Six Sentences was the first, leading me from surprise that so much could be said with (apparently) so few resources to the making of many good friends, several of whom I have met at various gatherings in America (another first for me)

Thinking Ten requires a different approach.
Themed prompt words: On Location (Monday), Take It Away (Tuesday), Words, Inc. (Wednesday), Plot Thickens (Thursday), The Friday Times (Friday)
Canvas (Saturday), Capstone (Sunday)   each  spur a quick thought of a subject and then a frantic ten minutes trying to get the beginning middle and end mapped out.   It IS worth sticking to the rules, because that's the challenge of it, but there is then the opportunity to edit and tidy, thus avoiding embarrassment.

And I have found a third, equally and immensely valuable, site to be Phil Ambler's Friday Prediction where the challenge is to write just one hundred words which incorporate three prompt words and require writing in the 'genres of horror, fantasy or science fiction', none of which I could do, or was interested in doing, to begin with but the stretching of imagination allied to the very limited word count - and there's a week in which to hone it - has proved extremely beneficial, as well as, with 'The blacksmith's wife' a lot of fun, (not to mention the enjoyment to be had from reading all the other posts.)

It's not me, it's hymn - Friday Prediction runner up!

I’m not immortal, only feel like I’m invisible and, God knows, not at all wise, none of which would normally make a blind bit of difference, but that article in the paper, the one about divorces amongst the over-sixties being on the rise really made me think.

It’s galling to have been married for forty-plus years and realise that we never talk, never touch, never communicate in any meaningful way whatsoever.   What happened to the dreams we had, the expectation that the fun, the laughter and the love would last as long as we did?

They died?    Or did he?

Thank you to Phil Ambler for providing the prompt words gall, invisible and  touch, and a great deal of enjoyment, both in the writing of pieces and the reading of the very high standard offerings of others.
I also feel obliged to stress that this is wholly fictitious.

Why I write

Earlier today I read Kerry's account 'Why do I write?'  much of which resonated with me (I never failed to enjoy her descriptions of life on a crab boat).

An hour or so later two to-be-proofed copies of 'Making good' arrived - extremely fast and efficient service - thank you Lulu!.   Thus far I have merely hugged them, skimmed the pages and tweaked the slightly mis-aligned cover.

I shall re-read, with pencil and paper to hand, in a few weeks when it's had time to fade from my memory so it comes fresh again.

So I've put them on the shelf where I can sit and glow gently about them ...


In the meantime, I am struggling - and I do mean struggling - to find ways and means of editing, re-writing, shuffling and making a good deal sharper, last year's NaNoWriMo novel.

NOT what I wanted, damn it ...

Gym ideas again - this time the opening sentence of the novel to follow 'Making good', a novel which I had no intention of writing , believing that to be the last ...

Phew!

Spurred by Lulu's 30% off offer, which lasts until Tuesday, I've upoaded a proof (and therefore not yet publicly available) copy of Making good.

However,  all  of my currently available novels can be bought at this discount -   just type REDEMPTIO in the code box ... 

Things I wake up with ...

"Emerging naked from the bathroom, he slipped the plastic soap box into the fluffy blue pencil case and dropped it into the bottom of his briefcase, rummaging other contents about until it fell, concealed, to the bottom.   It never failed to bring a smile to her face, although his original explanation had not been anything to laugh about."

This is the first sentence of an additional four hundred word snippet introduced into 'Making good' to make a later episode more comprehendable.   It arrived, fully formed, before five thirty this morning.

Also today, and less satisfyingly, I made myself critique a most unsatisfactory book I began reading yesterday.  I was on the point of giving up after only ten pages, but then gave myself a stern talking to:  "Why is it so bad?" I asked, "how can you be so sure you're any better?"  and so I read another 200 pages, making notes.

This is my review:

First there isn't enough dialogue, so it feels heavy, but what there is is unreal. Use of words is either lazy or ignorant - someone 'swigs' from a bottle, several times, and female prisoners are referred to as 'ladies' when women would be more appropriate. The same phrase is repeated twice within a single paragraph, and the repetition of facts strongly implies that the writer believes each and every one of her readers to be thick as the proverbial. And there is a ludicrous amount of clothes description.

Back story, and keeping track

Oh the difficulties of maintaining back story!

And yes I know it's something many writers abhor, and that an anxiety to do so is seen as amateurish,  so although I have put in several thousand words of it, I am now trying to stamp it out.   Drip feed the minimum, as and where necessary and/or applicable.

I had originally dealt with it by writing a dramatic first chapter and followed it with a catch-up second, but no matter how imaginatively I tweaked it, there were dangerous heavy undertones which threatened to drag the as-yet-uncommitted reader into the morass.

And so I am trying to combine (aka 'divide and rule) the two chapters while cutting ruthlessly.   Which has brought me to use Tracking seriously for the first time ever.   Another learning curve.

I'll just finish this chapter then ... oh whoops!

So often, having promised this, I have to keep my fingers crossed that the next chapter is over the page so I don't get so much as a glance at it, and even then I cheat half the time, so I do know about the importance and effectiveness of a good ending for each and every chapter.

And the final sentence of the first chapter of 'Making good' was in my head long before anything else.   It's still there and it's still bloody good.

But when I looked at the final sentences of the other thirty-seven,  there were really only ten chapters whose final sentence would truly spur the reader on.   Some of the rest are okay because of the context, i.e. I'm hoping that the developing situation will suffice, but I don't think I should rely on that completely (said reader might not be so enthralled as I!), and some are definitely of the 'turned over and went to sleep' variety, so one of the (several) things I need to do now is go back and see if, and where, a little page-turning urgency can be inserted so as to be sure of at least keeping the reader awake..

I was alerted to this when, after a bit of blog-hopping, I ended up here - a site I shall continue to follow.

I should also  say that if I only ever follow one writing blog it would have to be Emma Darwin's 'This itch for writing' for her empowering - and towering - good sense.

Progress report - week 46

It's ages since I updated my progress on Write 1 Sub 1, but since my last Progress report was for week 18 I think it's time for an update.

'Damage limitation' (114k words/281 pages)  - the fourth in the story of Bridie Burdock and Sean Donovan, is published and available from Lulu in a 6" x 9" format, as are its predecessors, 'Theme for a summer / Reunion' (now combined in one volume 32K words/99 pages) and 'Holding steady' (67K words/159 pages).   All are also available as ebooks, see http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/SandraDavies

'Making Good' - the follow up to 'Damage limitation', is 'written' but needs to sit for a bit, before I re-read.   Currently wordcount is 124K and is unlikely to decrease. 

'Not wanted on voyage' (128K words/369 pages) - Yes, well, all the things I had my doubts about were pointed out as Big Mistakes by my daughter, which means that the first thirty-one chapters need more or less re-writing and the information therein absorbing to some extent in the following twenty-five.   Plus the activities of the main characters needs to be much more strongly written.    So it is likely to finish up shorter but better.   A start has aready been made and I am optimistic that I can do it, eventually.

'The blacksmith's wife'  finished after forty-one hundred word episodes.   I am in the process of illustrating it via my 100 day endings blog - another nineteen to do, after which I shall publish it on Lulu. 

'The longest shadows' - not at all sure about this as a title, especially as it is lifted from a poem for which I  haven't permission to quote, and also because I'd forgotten I'd thought of that, so I'll continue to file it under 'Susannah Elphinstone' a story spurred into being at the beginning of February by one of Lisa Ricard Claro's Book Blurb Friday photographs, further inspired by the discovery of a photograph of a house from my own past.  Untouched since June - wordcount currently 49K.

Plus I have begun, and temporarily abandoned one  serial on Thinking Ten (Colin and Daisy's 'Just cause'), have edited the book for the third House of Writers gathering in Kansas last July, and have begun another serial on Friday Prediction, but am less certain of its staying power. (A change of focus)

Making good - finished (fingers crossed)

I think this is finished.   

Not totally, upload-it-to-Lulu finished, but all written.

More than a first draft because I always edit as I go, a LOT, as much to inform myself of what is to happen next.   Also because sometimes I need to put stuff down even when I know it's crap writing, which I go back to later to improve.  
This time there is not a great cliff-hanger which appeared at the end of 'Damage limitation' so it might well be the final time Bridie and Sean make their appearance (which feels a bit sad, to be honest.)

And the cover picture is no longer pink because my dearly beloved spouse, viewing the image on-screen, wondered aloud why I had chosen to use a photograph of a pig's ear.

Cross-trainer thinking

Reluctantly to the gym, but there's no point in trying to cut out (i.e. cut down on) chocolate etc. if I don't also exercise, and to have two writing ideas in ten minutes warm-up on the cross trainer does make it worthwhile!   Another post-it stuck on the notes for 'Not wanted on voyage', reminding me to make more use of Facebook and blogs, and a conversation I now have to write between Sean and Sally in 'Making good' which should make better sense of the ending (not that I want closure, or all ends to be tied up) is No Bad Thing.

4 a.m. not too soon

Yay!!  While 4 a.m. is too soon to get up in these November mornings (unless I really cannot contain myself - in my first NaNoWriMo year I once got up at 2) the hour waiting for the more acceptable 5 a.m. was spent pondering on 'Making good' which I have, over the past few days, been re-reading.   At 120K it needed, as I was well aware, bringing to a close, but up to now I have been unable to see a way, a point at which to do it.

Probably two-thirds through writing 'Damage limitation' I had pencilled in a natural ending - the tenth anniversary celebration.   The whole series was meant to end there, but with the final half of the final chapter already written, something unexpected (to me, at least!) happened at the  beginning of that chapter, which necessitated the writing of 'Making good.'

This, I am (fairly) sure, will be the final one.   I suspect I have already written what needs to be a final chapter but have then run on past it:  something more mildly dramatic was needed to underline it, and in my early morning hour's pondering I think I've found it.

Now I have to write it (that's the relatively easy bit;  the first sentence of the chapter is already in my head) and then re-jig the other chapters so as to take place before not after - a little tricky, but far from impossible.

To work.

If it takes ten men with teaspoons to dig a hole ...

 ... how long would it take them with tablespoons?

This is the sort of question that had me screaming "use a bloody digger!!" when faced with it in a maths lesson, which explains why I had two goes to pass my 'O' level,
But seemingly, after half a century, someone has listened to me (probably NOT true, but ...) because an article in this week's Spectator by Timothy Gowers, seems to imply that it makes a lot more sense, and is ultimately more useful, to ask relevant maths questions (such as 'Should Alice marry Bob?') which also require logic, deduction and some thought given to variables and possibilities.  
Fascinating.  
There is a website, which I haven't read,but those of a more mathematical bent might enjoy.
And no doubt there are the stick-in-the muds (like my dearly beloved spouse) who STILL say "what about the equation?"

 http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/how-should-mathematics-be-taught-to-non-mathematicians/

What went on in Next ... and what came next.

First a sliding glimpse of man pulling basket on a trolley:  disabled or a shelf-stacker?  For a while we unintentionally played hide and seek between the ‘sleepwear’ racks.  Then he spoke - the voice instantly alerting me to more interesting possibilities, a preference for seeking more than hiding.

I looked, I saw, a most ... desirable face: crinkled, smiling sloe-black eyes, tousled hair, stubbled chin, good-humoured smile, however (and of course!) it was to his wife he spoke.  They were happily Christmas shopping:  she a list,  he laughing and agreeing what to buy for who (‘pyjamas for the girls and we’ll stick with what we’ve got for Marianne’).

Sour and silently snarling, with nothing bought off the list that I make and I solitary buy (and source, and solitary wrap) I left the shop.  Stomped back down to Morrisons where my husband, having finished the usual weekly grocery shopping, greeted me with an ever-loving smile.

‘From battle and murder, and from sudden death’

I'm on MuDJoB this week with a story which failed to win me chocolate in Gita's Fiction challege ... 
http://mudjob.blogspot.mx/2012/11/sandra-davies.html

Goodreads

Always a bit slow to pick up on technology, I finally found how to put my Goodreads list on my blog, selecting (after a couple of false starts) the option of posting the twenty-seven or so most recently-read books.

Still mostly crime novels, and generally a preponderance of Scottish  crime, which I began reading over a year ago in preparation for 'Not wanted on voyage', my NaNoWriMo2011 novel.   I'd not had anything against crime novels, but felt that there was plenty more other stuff I'd choose to read first.   Now, I own at least a bookcase full and have my daughter, youngest son and friends to thank for the loan of many more.

Obviously the original idea was to learn about crime writing.   Invariably I got hooked on the story and forgot to be watching how it was done.   Eventually I learnt to re-read those that I thought might usefully point me in the right direction, and at the same time I realised that I preferred those books which became a series, in which there was the development of a small cast of central characters.
Some, such as Stuart McBride - an early loan - I found too far from my natural style, but I am now wanting to re-read, others I found too awful for words and they were very quickly sent to charity shops, many were so good that I almost gave up there and then, and latterly, as can be seen, I have concentrated on those I was due to see at the Orcrime festival.

I've now got back into the habit of using the library too since, much as I prefer to own books, there is a space constraint:  already this year I have read ninety plus books ...

When 'Not wanted on voyage' is fnally done I shall return to the follow up, working title 'Susannah Elphinstone' (and ~40K words so far), but that's intended to be more of a thriller ...

A change of focus [2]

Suspicion, and a single question, swelled like a tumour:   why?  
Why her?
Why now?
She’d been due to return tomorrow, to the farm she’d vividly described, red earth, big skies and far distant horizons.
But someone had prevented that;  at least, not permitted her to return alive.
He’d understood she knew nobody here.
And only mentioned one man there:  Jake.
Who, she’d said, in the lucid moments between waking, guilt-entwined in the furrow-sheeted dawn and her engulfing him again, would never forgive what she had done.
‘Need he know?’ he’d asked, matching rhythm.
‘He always knows,’ she’d told him, distant-eyed.

Took some time but this is a response (one of three - the others are already posted)  to Phil Ambler's Prediction prompts:  farm, tumour and lucid]