Richard surprised me this morning with a gorgeous amethyst ring. It's an unusual setting, with a delicate bow at either end of the oblong stone. I knew nothing about it until he handed it to me in the jeweller's box. That is so like him; he's always buying me little presents all year round, whether there's anything formal to celebrate or not.

Yesterday I put a few more tweaks to a short ghost story, The Homecoming, which is set in Parkgate just down the coast from us. I'll workshop it a Riverside Writers before I call it finished, though, as I'm not totally sure it makes 100% sense yet. Sometimes when an idea is clear in your head you can't always see that the words on the page don't convey that idea clearly enough. That's where Beta readers come in handy.

On Friday last week I was invited back to City Talk radio to record four more of my short stories: The Club, New Year's Day, Clara's Wristwatch and The Faerie Tree. These will be broadcast during Roy Basnett's Zone Unknown show on Fridays between 10pm and 1am (GMT) on City Talk 105.9 FM.

Alternatively, you can hear The Club at any time throughout this week by going to the website at: http://www.citytalk.fm/showdj.asp?DJID=48793 To hear my bit, move the curser almost to the end of the slide.

If anyone is wondering why this LJ layout has been changed back to the original design, it's because the new one "ate" my guestbook. Not than many people have actually signed the guestbook anyway...!!! But it's a sparkly little gadget and I like it.

While I was in Liverpool on Friday, I visited the World Museum (as it now calls itself) on William Brown Street. No longer do visitors hike up mountainous steps to reach the entrance. Grand they may look, but those steps really were a bit scary. Anyway, I wanted to view the new Egyptian Gallery, but effortlessly spent three hours meandering round the entire place, taking in the aquarium (no seahorses now!) and the Romanesque statue section, which used to be bigger, and my favourite sculpture was absent. There was a lively display of Tibetan statues, and a gorgeous Asian goddess with twenty-four arms, and absolutely heaps of interesting, beautiful or educational things to see.

The Egyptian section didn't seem to have much new in it, unfortunately (in fact, I can remember pieces from the old displays which were not on show now, but maybe they're being restored?) However the collection's presentation has been greatly improved.

I was standing beside a mummy when a mother and two small boys approached. One of the boys wrinkled his face and loudly declared, "That's disgusting! Wrapping up dead bodies in bandages! That's horrible!" The other boy kept watching the mummy's fingers for any signs of life. I don't think the tea shop stocked tanna leaves....

Dark of the Night: An anthology of shadows
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,491,928 in Books
Publication Date: October 24, 2006

That's interesting... I was updating my bio details on my Amazon Connect page just now, when I spotted this. So it's suddenly begun selling again, hmm? Jason, who features in my contribution for Dark of the Night... also features in Rowan. With The Club you get to learn how Jason first came into David's strange, vicious life - which later has desperate consequences for Rowan. So the short story links to the novel, which is something I enjoy playing around with.

Monday's Riverside Writers meeting was well attended, though partly because we were joined by another writing group who are linked to John Moores University.

First, Antonia Prescott talked about her ten years experience as a children's book editor, and about the things which agents/publishers look for (originality, flair, marketable product) plus common mistakes which writers make when approaching these (format, addressing them as "Dear Sir" rather than research a correct name, approaching with a genre unwanted by that particular company etc.)

Next, Cath Bore talked about how writers can get involved with her show on 7 Waves Radio. A writer herself, she's keen to bring in other writers to share their work. The station's recording studio has now been built, and at some point in the near future, Riverside Writers will decend upon it en masse, clutching our MS in eager hands, to record material for broadcasting later.

Also, at 11am on Friday 29th, Marguerite Davis, Peter Hurd, Tim Hulme and I will be appearing live on Cath's radio show. We'll be reading some of our work and talking about our writing group.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, hubby has been glued to a DVD boxed set of old films starring Marlene Dietrich. He was watching Destry Rides Again when I arrived home. Hmm, not my thing... Would remarks about her singing sounding like a moose with a head-cold be too snarky?!!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1430309156/ref=olp_product_details/102-0089972-8776928?ie=UTF8&seller=

Order your copy today! Go on, you know you want to!!! *chuckles*

Though it's not available to buy on the Dark Moon Press website just yet, here's a preview of the front cover of Dark of the Night: An Anthology of Shadows, which is due out on Hallowe'en. As most of you will already know, it features my story, The Club - but also the work of many other writers also.

I do hope you're all saving up your pocket money...!

Here’s a photo of some of my hand-made pottery, nestling amongst the lavender which is spilling over our garden path.

I finally finished tweaking The Club, and so this 3000-word piece was emailed to Dark Moon Press yesterday for consideration for inclusion in their forthcoming anthology of vampire fiction. The first draft of this story was written around two years ago but I wasn’t happy with some aspects of it. For very similar reasons, writing Tamsin ground to a complete halt for a while. The whole issue of blood-drinking vampires irritated me. Not only was I bored with the theme but it seemed increasingly silly. My fiction is laced with metaphysics, and the disparity between this and the stereotypical gore-chomping imagery had grown so wide that the one simply could not tolerate the other. Consequently, my writing ground to a halt. I could not move forward with it until I had resolved this issue.

Exactly how this resolution was arrived at is not something I’ll reveal. Suffice to say that The Club has been re-drafted and Tamsin has only the final chapter and the epilogue yet to be written. All I have to do now is edit it, sell it, promote it….. *groans* Ah, well - onwards ever onwards!!! *chuckles*

I’ve had an idea. Don’t all gasp. I’m aiming to write a piece of short fiction each month, at least for the next year. These short pieces will complement or echo the novels. Some of the characters from the novels will be in the short pieces, which will be intended either for publication separately or collated into book-form. I’ve no working title as yet. I’ve found myself interested by several series which portray a complete pantheon of characters, whose lives intertwine, who might refer to the same event but from a very different view point. This is something I intend to incorporate. I’ll let you know how this project develops.

Oh, before I go – my poor mother almost got struck by lightening last night! She’d stepped beneath the covered pergola to watch the heavy thunder storm. She reached towards an old Lloyd Loom chair just as a small arc of lightening flashed through the corrugated plastic roof and hit the very same chair. She was knocked off her feet but is quite unhurt. How’s that for fortuitous timing?

A fairly busy day! I’ve mowed the lawns and trimmed the hedges with the electric clippers, then cleaned up the mess this always creates – which takes almost as long as the job itself. I discovered that our little collection of basil plants has been reduced to green stems; our garden pests seem to share our penchant for Italian food. Then I harvested our strawberry crop, which I have to do daily to prevent the woodlice and snails devouring the lot. Fortunately they leave our raspberries alone - instead, the local hedgehogs gobble all the ripe ones within their reach. Go down the garden at dusk and there they are, standing on their spindly hind legs, snuffling and grunting to each other, happily chomping away while the bats whirl overhead.

I’ve also been editing and polishing The Club, a 3000-word piece for submission to the forthcoming Dark Moon Press anthology. The deadline is approaching, and so this strange little tale needs must demand my attention – as did the huge pile of emails left on Richard’s business website, which I run for him as he simply hasn’t the time. It’s still under construction; it needs photos of his studio.