Murder Served Cold, the next step.

Spot the Dalmatian?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week’s picture of our Dalmatian Duke was taken on a six mile walk on Dartmoor that we did earlier in the week.  It was a lovely day but very hot and he was very happy to find this pretty little stream.  As were we – but there are no pictures of us having a cooling paddle though.  Nor of us enjoying a well deserved pint at the end of our walk.

Murder Served Cold.

The edits are finished and the book has now gone on to the next stage in its journey to publication.  I’m feeling more and more like I did in the months before my children started school for the first time.  With mounting dread I would watch the days on the calendar slip by all too quickly as the start date drew closer.  I’m getting that same feeling as October looms.

So now we’re talking covers and it’s all beginning to feel very real.  This is the ‘buying the school clothes’ part of the process, I suppose.  At the beginning the words were everything and I didn’t give the cover much thought.  It was a case of “I’ll know the right one when I see it” – and my publisher, Crooked Cat Books have come up with some great ones so I’m really looking forward to this part of the process.

This the first time I’ve had any input in the choice of cover art.  In September, my eighth Large Print book,  Brought to Account,  will be published in the Linford Mystery (or Romance) series which are sent to libraries.  I’ve had mixed feelings about some of the covers as the art work usually consists of a picture of a woman who bears no resemblance to my character.  It’s often the same with magazine illustrations as well.  But I figure they know their market.

And for my next trick….?

I have started the sequel to Murder Served Cold and it’s a delight to be back with some of the characters again and to move their story on.  But it also brings problems.  Like when did I decide Betty was called Sandra?  And if I’ve used the ‘gone to seed dandelion’ analogy in book one, can I use it again in book two?  I’d be very flattered if someone remembered what I’d written from one book to the next (I often can’t!) but the reader might feel short changed.  I wish now I’d been more organised when I was doing the edits for Murder Served Cold and made notes as I went along.

But I’m now 15,000 words into the first draft and it’s going well.

And finally….

Here are you daily prompts for the second half of June.  I hope you’re finding them useful.  Check out Writers’ Prompts.  A limitless supply of story inspiration for hints on how to use them.

• 16. Not all Grannies knit.  (the title of a book by Jane Fearnley Whittingstall)
• 17. Old friends, old wine and and gold are best. (Proverb)
• 18. The battle of Waterloo was fought this day in 1815.  Write about something you believe is worth fighting for.
• 19. On this day in 1975, Lord Lucan was found guilty of murdering his children’s nanny.  Write about disappearing.
• 20. “Stands the church clock at ten to three?/ And is there honey still for tea?” (Rupert Brooke)
• 21. Burying bad news.
• 22. Write about a ceremony
• 23. It’s raining, you’re late for an appointment and someone nips into that parking space you’ve been waiting so patiently for.
• 24. She was the kind of woman who….
• 25. Write about an eclipse.
• 26. Grandmother’s secret.
• 27. What would you do for £10,000? (note: it’s for £10k, not with!)
• 28. You have a new neighbour.  Is that good or bad?
• 29. Listeners never hear good of themselves.
• 30. Write about your own version of Paradise.