Wimbledon

Today I'm blogging about The Championships on the Britwriters blog, so I've let Spike take over and vent his grievances about the newly arrived Jack and Daisy. Cute, ain't they?

The secret diary of Spike, aged 2 ¼

I am not happy.

Not. Happy.

Young Female has been giving me lots of cuddles lately, which made me somewhat suspicious. I mean, not that I don't get lots of cuddles anyway. Am magnificent beast, people can't help it. But there was something about the way she was talking...

Then she and Old Female came home today with two kittens in a box. Kittens! Small, black, annoying. Am sure I was never that stupid as a kitten. Was surely magnificent and stately, just as I am now.

There is a female kitten and a male one. Have not enquired as to names. Am not sure they deserve them.


To top it all off, my own personal door has been closed to keep the kittens in. Hah! Better off letting them out--they can take the Demon Puppy with them (although DP and I are at least in agreement over the stupidity of Young Female's idiotic decision. First time for everything).

Am now in an official Huff.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I'm talking about Wimbledon fortnight, of course. I'm not even big into tennis, but I can't and never could resist Wimbledon. Grass courts, tennis whites, female players always listed as 'Miss' (or Mrs!). It's all so civilised. I don't actually have plans to go this year--while the Wimbledon Queue is quite an experience, and something of an institution of its own, it's kind of exhausting to get up at 4.30 in the morning just to queue until 10.30--and that's just for a ground ticket (for show courts, you really need to be there the night before).

Besides, as of this afternoon when I saw an ad on the vet's noticeboard, there's a possiblity I may be concerned with a new arrival this week--or maybe even two...

Read More

No, it's not a directive (although it is a jolly good suggestion), it's a blog tag thing I'm annoyed about. You know? When you have a long post, but all that shows is the first few paragraphs and then 'Read more',
and you click on that and, well, read more. Only with Blogger it's not very simple: the directions are a bit like those Help files that start, "And this bit is the keyboard," and from there leap straight into "Add the {span} tag to the style sheet after the {$MainBodyIndex$} tag." Uh...yeah. Well, anyway. I tried it, and it ate my template. So I tried it again, and this time it ate my template so thoroughly I had to go back and re-do most of it. And for some reason the header is all squished up there in the corner, with no background.

Maybe it's time to get a new blog.

Vampires and romance

So, I went for lunch today with some of the RNA-ers who live near Cambridge. Last time I did this Jan persuaded me to take part in an author panel at the conference, as one of very few paranormal authors in the RNA. She told me this time that one of the new members staying in my block at the conference is also a paranormal author and lives not far away, so I looked her up and found her at the Lunatic Horizon, and shall now stalk her until she agrees to be my minion. Or something like that.

Anyway. She had a post about vampire lovers, and the point of view that often in vampire romances, the vamp is hundreds of years old and the heroine is about 25. Clearly, this is more than just an age gap. This is a massive generation gap. A man who has seen the rise and fall of empires, who was born in the days of the bubonic plague and lived to see Aids, is going to have a slightly different outlook on life from someone who barely remembers the Berlin Wall (Actually, I'm 26 and I remember the Berlin Wall, but that's not the point).

I think what annoys me about this kind of relationship is that our hero has been brooding alone for centuries, never having found anyone to touch his unbeating heart, etc, and yet an office administrator from Chicago is the one who gets his engines running. And she's always slightly overweight and a bit mousy, isn't she, at least until she unties her ponytail, etc. (Because that's what men found attractive in Days of Yore). Er, really, Mr Vampire? All the women in the world, for hundreds of years, all those gorgeous young misses, seductive femme fatales, and all the gazillions of frumps, and you pick this particular plain Jane? She makes you happy? Why is she different from all the rest? What do you have in common? If the author hadn't decreed it so, would you have looked twice at her? Would you have looked once?

I mean, it's not always about vampires. I find myself suspending belief all the time with uneven couplings. The billionaire Alpha male who looks like a movie star isn't going to end up happily ever after with a plain Jane either. He might marry her to bear his kids and run his house, but he's going to be off boinking someone as glamorous and exciting as him behind her back, isn't he?

But then, I was never entirely sure Cinderella was going to get her happy ever after, either. Let's face it, even if Prince Charming forgave her humble origins, the tabloid press never would (Doors to Manual, anyone?), and you just know that in every row they ever have, King and Queen Charming would be whispering, "This never would have happened if he'd married a woman with breeding."

This is why I always try to put my characters on a more even footing. Ancient vampire hero? Ancient vampire heroine (She Who Dares, where my heroine was Egyptian, and had spent two thousand years crawling out of the shadow of the vampire who made her--and learning to kill anything that moved, while my hero pratted about with a business empire).

Virile, brooding Alpha, king of his people, out for revenge? Courtesan-slash-assassin with a family history involving the flattening of cities (Almost Human, with one of my mostest favouritest heroines, Chance).

I did once have an ancient vampire--a former Roman slave--and a modern young woman (Unholy Trinity). However, she was more than a little bit feisty, and leaked PhDs on the ancient world, and as a vampire turned out to be formidably strong. And the reason she caught his eye was that she looked like a model. PhD or no PhD, after fifteen hundred years Rafa was picky.

If I'm going to put a vastly more powerful/experienced/older hero with a younger/less experienced heroine, I'm going to even the playing field a bit, and make her a newly bitten vamp or were or stuffed full of latent power she didn't know about, with at least the potential to become as powerful as him. Because to me, whether the relationship is about vampires, werewolves, or plain human beings, a massive imbalance in power is never going to make for a happy ending--at least not for ever after.

I'm back

Actually I was back Friday, but too busy to post, and then on Saturday I woke up with a really bad stomach (mine, unfortunately) and spent the day wallowing in bed. Today is better, but I still haven't got my brain in gear, so I'll post more properly later!

I have my tooth in a bag

No really, I do. The dentist let me keep it. I could...I dunno, use it in a scientific experiment like Lisa Simpson, and see if I can cultivate a tiny race of people. Or I could wear it round my neck, like a trophy. Or I could do neither of those things, and just keep it somewhere non-disgusting.

Anyway. It's annoying because I can't drink alcohol for 24 hours, and tonight we're going off on holiday. No drinks in the pub, no wine with the meal...and there's only so much Diet Coke I can drink. Oh well, I suppose it's better than toothache!

See you in a week...

I've been tagged!

a. Link to the person who tagged you, which in my case is Emma Ray Garrett.

b. Post the rules on your blog.

c. Write six random things about yourself.

1. I write and draw with my left hand. Everything else, I do right-handed. Except for sports, which I can't do with either hand.
2. I'm not dyslexic, but I have great problems with left/right and east/west, and I also sometimes mix up words when I speak. Coping mechanisms have included everything from checking the L and R on the soles of my ballet slippers when I was four, to feeling for the callus on my left middle finger where I hold a pen, making an L sign with the finger and thumb of my left hand, and visualising a map of the UK, where I live in East Anglia at one side of the country, so I know which way is east and which is west.
3. I'm really cranky today because I have monster toothache, coupled with either a cold or hayfever. I got woken up at five, then six, by the Demon Puppy barking at someone walking past the house, then at seven by my neighbour's car alarm, which has been going off sporadically for two days (but never, of course, when they're at home).
4. I've just finished a book I started writing in 2005. I intended it as a sequel to Almost Human, but whenever I tried to get stuck into it, something else--another book under contract, a holiday, a family crisis, whatever--kept getting in the way.
5. I was born on St Patrick's Day. Because of this--and the useful fact of having an Irish great-grandfather--I never have to buy a drink on my birthday. Ever. So long as I'm drinking Guinness.
6. Tomorrow I'm going away for a week with my family, because it's my mum's birthday on Sunday--a Significant Birthday--and she challenged my dad to surprise her. My dad came up with a few ideas, I told him why they wouldn't work, and we came up with a plan between us. Since Mum's requirements were for four adults and a dog, but no self-catering, it wasn't easy. But it should be fun. If my tooth stops hurting.

d. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
Okay, Emma Ray got a load of the ones I'd tag, and I don't read many blogs of people I know well enough to tag! So... I'm breaking the rules, and just tagging Stacia D Kelly, who is always so fulsome in her praise, and Julie Cohen, who just sold a mad space-romp to Samhain who I decided not to tag since she's recently bereaved and I didn't want to bother her. So...that's just one person, then. Well, I'm a born rule-breaker, baby.

e. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment at their blog.

f. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Emma Ray? I posted!

Review goodness!

I'm always superstitious about reviews. If the first one is good, then the rest will be. So far (touch wood, cross fingers, etc) I've only started out with good reviews. Yesterday, I got an unstarred but brilliant review for Still Waters from ParaNormal Romance.

I loved the new characters introduced -- Rachel is a hoot and one I hope keeps making appearances. Maria is a great friend and will always be there for Sophie. And who could forget her parents. They have to be the greatest parents alive.

Ms. Johnson has outdone herself with this one. She's even woven in the back story so that you don't feel lost by picking up the series in the middle. I can't wait to read the next story. Please, Ms. Johnson, hurry, hurry, hurry.

I LOVE it when reviewers say things like hurry hurry hurry!

I also got the first review for Spaceport: Incognito. I was double nervous about this one since it's my first sci-fi, but it seems to have made a good impression on JERR:

The plot was perfect, including an ending that made me jump for joy. I enjoy Ms. Marster's books very much and I hope that the Spaceport series will include more of her books. Get this one now-you won't regret it!

Procrastination station

What I ought to be doing today is working on Kett's book. What I'm actually doing is fannying around making her family tree on FamilyEcho.com. I found this site after getting frustrated with PowerPoint's limited ability to keep track of Kett's admittedly complicated family tree. I was losing track of who was whose stepmother, half sister, cousin...whatever. Hey, it's not my fault it all my characters keep shagging around and creating half-families everywhere.

Oh...wait. It is. It's probably a reaction to my own, very very simple family tree, which could be created on PowerPoint using about five clicks (no divorces, no remarriages, and only four cousins).



Well, at least it's something to do while I wait for the heating to be mended.

Can I get a SQUEE!!?

Because my friend Patrick just told me his wife is pregnant. I'm going to be a...well, whatever you call it. Mad Auntie Kate. They've been married just over a year (yes, the wedding with the big pink hat). Now all I have to do is stop him calling the kid Spartacus (yes, it'll be funny the first time the teacher calls the register, and then the poor bugger will get beaten up in the playground) and everything's shiny.

Cold showers

How is it I always forget that when the heating breaks down, the hot water supply also goes on the fritz? At least, I forget until I'm in the shower, and the little bit of hot water left in the pipes has run out...

Still, cold showers are supposed to be very good for the hair. And skin. And for killing the rather yummy dream I was having last night... dammit.

Still Waters locations part 2

Okay, after searching two hard drives and several shoeboxes in the garage (where I also partook of a little light beating-the-crap-out-of-the-punchbag), I found the photos I was looking for. Back when I was working with an analogue camera. Ahh, the good old days of 2004.

This is the first Sophie book set entirely in England. although the Cornish might argue that fact, since Cornwall used to be regarded as a separate country, with its own language and its own flag (which is still used sometimes, as is its Cornish name, Kernow).

I also made a couple of maps (heavily borrowed from Google maps) , for those of you who haven't got a clue where in the hell I'm talking about. (If you want to see them bigger, right-click and open them in a different window--Blogger will open them in this window if you let it).

And yes, for those of you who do know where Cornwall is, I know I've included Devon in half these maps. Deal with it.





Tintagel, looking down the path to the cove. This path doesn't look so bad, but trust me when I say it's so steep my lungs were burning by the time I'd climbed back up. There is actually a Land Rover Defender service to carry tourists up and down so they can see the castle. Sophie mentions this service, which Luke reckons is for wimps, but she likes the sound of--not only because her beloved Ted is a Defender too.

Tintagel Head, seen from Port Isaac, through a typical sea fret. And yes, that is as cold as it looks. I can tell you from experience how bitterly cold it is standing up on the headland with the wind slicing through you. Imagine living in a dark age castle there (the dark ages being when King Arthur was supposedly born in that very castle, now sadly almost completely obliterated).

Tintagel cove. First look at the cave on the left--that's known as Merlin's cave (yes, that Merlin). It goes all the way through to the other side of the headland like a tunnel, and when the tide is out you can walk all the way through.

Now look further left and up at the walkway between the mainland and the 'Island'. Those tiny, tiny little dots are people. Pictures can't possibly convey how high that is, how jagged the rocks below are, how loud the crashing waves, and how completely terrifying it is to someone as frightened of heights as I am. Even once you reach hard rock again, you climb up more steps, carved into the vertical rock face, until you get to the very top of the Island.

The top of that Island is also a setting in Still Waters. Okay, I'm not really sure a helicopter could land there, but that, my friend, is what they mean by poetic licence.


Back to Port Trevan, or Port Isaac in real life. The street known as Squeeze-ee-belly Alley, which I showed a picture of below, ends by passing under a couple of cottages. This is me standing there in the narrowest part of the gap. I know I have giant man-shoulders, but they both touched the walls as I went through.

Crystalline turquoise waters, a tiny cove near Port Gaverne just around the headland from Port Isaac. This tiny little cove always reminds me of something out of the Chronicles of Narnia (I think it's the Voyage of the Dawn Treader I'm thinking of, where they find a beautiful pool with the statue of a gold man in it. When they try to hook it out with a sword, the sword turns to gold on touching the water. The statue is actually a man who dived in and turned to gold. Why I think of that when I look at this, I've no idea--but that's the power of imagery for you).


Pretty pretty views, with imminent death just behind you in the form of those falling rocks. Honestly, there are so many ways to die around here--the water and the cliff are spectacular enough--that it's a wonder I didn't pop off more characters in Still Waters.

Aha! The cave! I found the picture of the cave! The tide here is, obviously, well out, but when it's in it completely covers the floor of the cave. I truly don't know how high up it actually goes (you can only see the place by walking there when the tide is out), but in the book I had it high enough to drown someone a few feet from the ceiling.

The little dog there, by the way, is Honey, the real-life Norma Jean, trotting along behind my dad.

St Michael's Mount, on the south coast of Cornwall. The causeway here is only visible and safe to cross when the tide is out. Twice a day, the mount becomes an island, only accessible by boat. The island is inhabited by the family who own the castle at the top, and villagers in the cottages at the bottom. I took liberties with the island when I used it as the setting--both in Still Waters and Ugley Business--for the home of Angel's friend Livvy, by putting an Elizabethan palace there instead of a medieval castle. Still, I can't think of a more fantastic setting for the wedding at the end of the book, can you?