Scooters Yard

Well, I’ve finally done it! Published, that is.

Scooters Yard is now out and about and hitting the internet.

It’s been quite a long haul and took far longer than I expected but I got there eventually. I’m pleased with how it turned out and I hope that you will be too.

myBook.to/Scooters

A radical move ruffles more than a few feathers.

The introduction of female officers into the Police Force has an effect that Commander Jethro MacGillicudy wasn’t intending — someone isn’t happy.

A Watch-House mysteriously catches fire, a cart carries a strange load and there’s a neatly folded pile of clothes.

MacGillicudy joins forces with Cornwallis, Frankie and Rose to dig out the truth: a truth which has consequences, a truth which runs too close to home for comfort, a truth which must be discovered before it’s too late.

Another visit to Gornstock and its inhabitants as the crime-solving team seek out the not-so-good guys with the help of a cat and twelve very eager girls.

Having grammar probs?

 

Ever had problems with grammar? I know I have.

I can’t say I’ve solved my problems, but there is help out there if you know where to look. This is a site that I regularly turn to and it might be one to help you too.

If you can’t figure out your “m” dash from your “n” or your comma from your splice, take a look and play with the exercises — it might just improve your writing.

Click here for the fun

 

 

 

Sponsor a writer sir/madam?

Is this a new way forward for eBooks?

The thought of having to gear my writing to an advertiser would somewhat hinder the creative flow I would have thought, but the worrying thing is that when one publisher/company/writer starts using something like this and it becomes moderately successful, then the door is flung open for everyone else.

Imagine Frankenstein being sponsored by an electric company, or Sherlock Holmes having to insert adverts for ambulance-chasing lawyers, Patrick O’Brian in league with the holiday companies, Terry Pratchett and British Rail (his latest).

Seems to me that although this is obviously going to be a revenue stream for someone, I just hope that sense prevails and it doesn’t transfer to the mass market. Reading would never be the same again!

The pen is mightier…..

I have decided to relent.

After the last few years of bashing away at the computer I’ve decided that picking up pen and paper and scribbling away in my hard to read handwriting is more productive than sitting at the keyboard and hammering away at the digits.

I’ve gone back to writing my writing down by actually writing!

When I first started writing I did so at work. Being in the ambulance service, the wee small hours were then a bit slow for calls, and I hated being woken up and having to rapidly get my brain into gear before careering off down the road to deal with whatever some person decided to do with themselves at that ungodly hour, that I always stayed awake whilst my crew-mate counted the z’s in the next room. I had to write on bits of paper, loose-leaf and stuffed into a battered and ripped A4 beige folder. I used to hide away in the ciggie room in my comfy battered chair and scribble away, making regular forays out to the kitchen for endless cups of tea to sustain me during those strange dark hours.

Technology has its good points, but you can’t beat the good old-fashioned technology.

I reckon people can lose sight of how it feels to actually write down, properly, the prose whizzing around in the mind. I find the flow is easier and more tangible and you don’t highlight and cut with pen and paper, you just write down what you’re thinking, warts and all. There’s a connection that you don’t get with a computer and it’s a bloody sight easier to just pick up a pen and add a line when it suddenly occurs to you.

It’s less of a distraction too. With a computer you’re just a click away from everything, and I mean everything. It’s all too easy to wander off and then find that for the last hour you’ve been scrolling through e-bay or looking at the house you’re going to buy when your latest book hits the best-seller list; the book that you’re not writing because you’re looking at the internet!

Give me a nice fountain pen and a few bits of paper and I’m happy as the pig in the proverbial.

I reckon that’s not a bad thing either!