Crumbles, brambles and trilogies

Book News:

I've completed and submitted my first pre-publication interview for gay fiction press, Riptide Publishing, so many thanks to Sally Wolf for being the first to express interest in my upcoming blog tour - which will probably take place in December ready for a January/February publication date. And today is especially exciting as it's the first day that Riptide have been official, so do pop along and join in the celebrations - there are loads of prizes to be won!

I'm also very pleased to say that fantasy novel The Gifting has made some royalties in this last quarter, hurrah - so a big thank you to those of you who are taking the plunge and buying the first part of my grand opus. The second part, Hallsfoot's Battle, should be out sometime late summer/autumn 2012, depending on Bluewood schedules, so there's still time to catch up before you fall behind. Readers are either loving it or hating it - so why don't you decide which camp you fall into?...

In the meantime, I'm getting through the first tranche of edits for the third book in the Gathandrian Trilogy, The Executioner's Cane, and now only have about a hundred pages to go, which is great. Much to my relief, it's not as bad as I'd feared though there are one or two feeble moments I'm attempting to sort out - this is very heartening as I'd been dreading starting the edit on this one purely due to cowardice so have left it pending for ages. Just goes to show that if you face the enemy it's never as bad as you fear.

And I must say publicly that E.J, my lovely editor at Amber Allure Press, is an absolute and ruddy genius. Entirely due to excellent editorial input, I have improved gay erotic story, Dating the Delaneys, no end, and it will be published on Sunday 6 November, hurrah! Not only that but I believe I now have two more book ideas in the series, rather than the one I thought I had. Well, gosh. Honestly, good inspirational editors are pure gold, and E.J. is one of them.

The Sunday haiku is:

Golden explosion
of autumn's leafy richness:
my small acer tree.


Life News:

Alas, Carlos the Cyst (remember him? - cue Squeamish Alert!) is rather worst than he was before, groan. He's running riot across my collarbone in an extremely nasty manner and I'm thinking of charging him rent, especially as he's three times as large and wicked-looking as he was last week, lordy. Honestly, I can't wait for Thursday when I'll be rid of him. However, the interesting thing is I've discovered how much one actually uses one's collarbone in everyday life, which I'd never realised before. Utterly nonsensical actions now hurt, much to my surprise - such as biting into an apple, putting on or off coats, cardigans and jumpers, etc. Though I'm managing the difficulty by reversing the way I put on a coat (no, no, not like that, people!) - I mean I'm starting with the Carlos side of the body rather than the other side, which is more natural to me, and then I can manage it without getting stuck, hurrah.

That said, today has been better and I think either he's easing off a little or I'm getting used to him being there, as I've been able to have a relatively ordinary and pain-free day, thank goodness. However, no matter how much Carlos and I are bonding despite the circumstances, I'll be keeping the plaster on and buttoning my shirts right to the top to avoid frightening the horses, and indeed my poor colleagues ...

Turning to somewhat healthier matters, J from London spent the day with us yesterday, which was fabulous. We caught up big-time, she admired the house & garden, and we then spent the afternoon at the recently refurbished and newly open Watts Gallery. It was great - all that excellently overblown Victoriana, the sharp charm of the smaller paintings, and the sheer magnificence of his sculptures. Bliss. I was also delighted to find there's a modern gallery attached to the shop which sells prints and the frames to go with them at incredibly reasonable prices. I bought a print of quirky colourful houses for the living room and a light coloured frame to go with it - which the man in the shop was kind enough to frame for me - and it's simply perfect in the place I thought it would go. All that for £25 all in. Bliss. Seeing as we have huge amounts of empty picture hooks all over the house that we need to fill, I'll definitely be back.

This morning, we celebrated All Saints' Day at church, though I do seem to be sadly out-of-voice, as it were. I just couldn't get those high notes, darnit as the hymns were so good. Even better, there were some free Bramley apple windfalls outside the church so we snaffled some and made apple crumble - improvising with some golden syrup flavour porridge oats for the topping. It was heavenly, though I say it myself and shouldn't. I'll be using these oats again for sure - just as long as I can get some more apples, that is. Anyone for scrumping, hey ho?...

For the rest of the weekend, K and I have gardened with a vengeance - Carlos seems to like this too, strangely, as he hasn't objected too much. We've raked leaves from the lawns and started a leaf mulch bag. K has dug for Britain and I have filled two garden bags with the wicked (and I mean wicked ...) brambles in the front garden. Honestly, they were utterly huge and utterly evil. Lord knows what the previous owners' gardener actually got up to when he was here, but it obviously didn't have much to do with weeding. In fact at one point, K and I wondered if we should just keep the brambles as a feature and dig up the plants - it might have been quicker, though possibly not an approach recommended by our very own lovely Monty Don. Ah well ...

Anne Brooke
The Thoughtful Corner