A Wirral Otherkin Trilogy has been accepted for publication by Amazon Shorts. I received the contract this morning.

This Dark Fantasy mini-novella comprises of Frog, New Year's Day and Swap, which are all set on Wirral.

This morning was spent giving Frog, New Year’s Day and Swap a final editorial polish. These three dark fantasy stories combined are intended to form a small collection, which will most likely be called A Wirral Otherkin Trilogy. Before I can submit this to the intended place, I first have to translate it into American English and then into the required format, and also work out the actual presentation (title page, preface to explain what Wirral is, plus author’s blurb, etc.) I’ll keep you posted.

Well, I’m glad I didn’t bother hanging the laundry outside earlier, as steady rain is now splattering across the French doors. The fence blew over again last night. Ah well, it had only been propped up as a temporary measure until it can be fixed properly. Rain has put an end to all attempts to fix it.

Interesting, is it not, how society decides how eccentricity and conventionality are defined. Ok, so I like unconventional people. In my experience, they tend to be considerably more interesting than the majority of conservative-minded beige-clad sheep who reluctantly slog away for forty-plus years at a job they hate, in order to ensure they can drop dead in relative comfort. I never could see the point.

What a busy weekend! Our antique preserves cupboard is now crammed with various kinds of marmalade and jam, all home-made and wondrously free of synthetic colours and chemicals which mass-produced products are saturated with. The cherry, apple and apricot jam is heaven on a spoon!

We did rather a lot of work on the front garden, as this had ceased to be a wildlife garden and had instead become merely a garden gone wild. Buttercups had choked almost everything, and so we simply ripped these out by the armful in preparation for treating the soil with a weed-killer. I don’t really like using these but here, surrounded by acres of farmland, where every breeze carries a fresh dusting of seeds, there is little choice unless a person wishes to devote half their life to weeding. Frankly, we’ve neither the time nor the inclination!

A viciously sharp bramble had rooted itself tightly round the stem of a half-dead broom. The only way to get at the bramble was to cut down the broom, and the only way to get at the broom was to cut down a towering buddleia. The buddleia may possibly grow again as they’re tough plants. There are two more elsewhere in the gardens, anyway. Consequently, we’ve now got a huge pile of sawn-down shrubbery to dispose of, and there’s more work to be done in the front garden yet.

We also took a stray goal post down to the local recycling depot. Some of the local kids had ‘found’ it somewhere and set it up on the communal green where every evening more and more little darlings were assembling to play football. This in itself we wouldn’t object to, but how many times can a football ‘accidentally’ be kicked into the same garden? The noise level seemed to increase very evening, too. And then my beloved just stopped them from deliberately trying to kick their football at our front windows.

I said this is easily solved. Rather than spend each evening of the forthcoming school summer holidays knocking on various indifferent parents’ house doors to complain about their offspring, let’s just remove the goal post. And so this is what we’ve done. Last night, peace reigned. Here’s hoping it stays that way.

Having had Swap accepted by Magpie Magazine, the editor emailed me yesterday to say she can’t fit it in the forthcoming issue but would like to use it in the next one, whenever that might appear. Ok, but meanwhile I may have found a paying placement for that same story, so actually her inability to make use Swap happens to suit me rather well. In fact, it’s exactly what I’d hoped for.

I’m still waiting to hear from Prediction Magazine whether or not they’re going to use my article on flower lore. They accepted the article in November last year but then didn’t use it after all. The recently replaced editor said, at the end of March this year, that I’d be paid a kill fee if they don’t use it. It’s now July and I’ve not heard a word…

Remember Blood Bytes publication in Power Cord Magazine, which its editors hailed as the first in an intended series of regular on-line issues? On June 23rd, as described here:- http://adele-cb.livejournal.com/39072.html I’d emailed the editor to ask what was happening. I have received no reply. Ah well, I’ll just chalk it up to experience. The story’s Copyright is still my property. In future, I’ll just not expend any time on e-magazines which don't have a proven track record.

One last thing: I’ve placed a legal disclaimer on my profile page here and on my My Space site. It applies to everyone currently on my Friends List and so I invite each of you to take a look. To many this might seem a little excessive, but we live in a treacherous world. And, to quote my old Dad, “If people weren’t stupid, lawyers wouldn’t be rich.”

Last night’s meeting of Riverside Writers went better than expected. Earlier, Tim and I had discussed disbanding it due to dwindling numbers, only to be greeted with a healthy turn-out and pleas for the group’s continuity.

Two lively hours followed, with several people reading aloud their work. Mia nervously told us that the piece we were about to hear was her very first attempt at fiction writing – and promptly delivered an excellent story which could work well as the first chapter of a novel.

I read out Swap, which was only written last week but was, by then, then at second-draft stage. I’d much prefer to allow more time between any second-draft and a public airing, but I needed to push this story to completion as I’ve an editor interested in using it.

This morning I received an email from my old school pal, Sylvia, who is a playwright and actor, and who is about to direct her first film next spring. Some months ago she had asked me if I’d be interested in working on a joint collaboration. Earlier this week I had an idea which seemed feasible, and which utilises our mutual interest in the occult. I’d put this to her and she’s really into the idea. (I’m not going into specifics here, so no-one can swipe the idea!) Anyway, before we even begin working on that Sylvia has some more TV work plus two theatrical productions lined up, and I want to finish Tamsin and also get Cry for Innocence edited and polished. And can you believe I already have a germinal plot for a third novel? I need more hours in each day!

This afternoon I wrote the first draft of Swap, a 1,500-word story which has been floating around in my mind as a vague idea for around two years. This piece fits in neatly with a set of stories which are loosely linked by location and theme (dark fantasy/local history). Eventually I’d like to collate these stories into book-form, and maybe add some photography of the sites used in the stories.

For me, writing short stories offers me an enjoyable break from grinding my teeth over the penultimate chapter of Tamsin which is proving to be something of an uphill struggle. Or maybe I just allow myself to be distracted too easily. But I really did need to go to Birkenhead this week so buy new net curtains. Really, I did. The old ones were vile in the extreme, I assure you. And I bought three books, too. It will be a while before I read them, though, as I’ve only just begun a lengthy biography, Margot Fonteyn by Meredith Daneman.

I don’t believe I mentioned my battles with the power-hose this week. What a pity it conked out half way through the task. Now our drive has a definite “before” and “after” look. Also, the instruction booklet omits to mention that the spray-back carries rather a lot of dirt with it. Anyone using the appliance rapidly acquires the appearance of an animated mud pie. Need I add that I speak from experience?

There, see how easy it is for me to get distracted from my original intention? I was supposed to be writing about how my collection of short fiction parallels the proposed series of novels. I intend to write some short fiction featuring some of the characters in the novels. What I need is more hours in the day to get everything done. So how do you stretch time?