Behind the Shutters

Behind the Shutters is a collection of short stories by the very talented Jo Robertson. These stories are all set in suburbia and feature ghosts, demons, and strange occurrences. The stories are well written and genuinely creepy. My favourite is 'My Name is Graham Roper.'

I highly recommend this book! You can buy it from Amazon.

Writing The Barbarians' Key

I started my Power of Malinas trilogy when I was seventeen. The first two books, The Kingdom of Malinas and The Empress Graves, were finished within a couple of years of each other. Book one I polished up and published. Book two I re-wrote, adding some scenes and another storyline before publishing.

Book three... Book three is The Barbarians' Key. I started it, but only managed about sixteen chapters before I got distracted by, well, life I guess!

Several years later and I'm trying to finish writing this book, telling myself to work on it every day. It's far more complex than the first two books with more plot lines and 'grown up' characters. I'm determined to finish it. Once it's written, then comes the task of editing and re-writing!

I'm currently at 45000 words and think I'm about halfway through. My target date is May. My birthday.

We'll see...

HGE

Last weekend my dog, Beau, had to be rushed to the vets and put on a drip. He had HGE or haemorrhagic gastroenteritis.

Luckily, he's ok now but it was a pretty horrible thing to go through. If you have a dog which had bloody diarrhoea, take it to the vets straight away! Beau went in as soon as possible when we noticed something was wrong, and then again when it got worse. Luckily, the drip, a course of antibiotics, canikur paste, and some special food for intestinal problems sorted him out and in a couple of days he was back to his old self.


Now I'm trying to work out what's best to feed him on for his sensitive stomach! He loves meat but it's so expensive and a lot of it gives him the runs... not pleasant when you have a dog as hairy as Beau is... and the dried food he just won't eat.

I'm pondering tripe. Nobody should have to ponder tripe.

A lovely, lovely poem

This is about crane flies AKA flying daddy long legs - the most evil, scary creatures ever.

There’s a daddy in the window

With long and spindly legs

I don’t know if it’s living

I don’t know if it’s dead

I can’t go any closer

In case it is alive

I’ll just stand here and watch it

And wait until it dies

NaNoWriMo

So I decided to do the NaNoWriMo this year. And I won! It's pretty hard work, having to write 1667 words a day, especially when you have a puppy chewing on you. I fell behind a few times but managed to catch up.

I now know that I can and should be writing every day. When I finished on November the 30th I vowed to write every single day.

Do you know how much writing I've done since then?

None.

The Mind of a Horror Writer

Today I walked the dog around the fields and lanes at the top of the town where I live.

There was nobody else around at all, and as I was walking through the harvested sweetcorn field, which was looking particularly apocalyptic with buzzards wheeling overhead and calling out to one another, I wondered what I would do if a horde of the undead suddenly came towards me across the field.

I figured I'd take photos. And then probably run.

 

The Beast

I grow my own veg. At the moment I've got parsnips, broccoli and brussel sprouts in my veggie patch. The parsnips have been in for a very long time and the foliage has taken over a lot of the space! They swamped my poor leeks, causing them not to grow. Well, I'm going to blame the parsnips anyway.

I wanted the parsnips for Christmas. Apparently they taste better after a frost, but my mum wanted some for a roast on Sunday. So I went out there to pull some up...

The first one I pulled up was a decent size, the second was deformed with split roots. The third was sitting next to The Beast.

This is the biggest parsnip I've ever seen in my life. And this is coming from someone who's been to shows where they have giant vegetables. I watered the ground to make it soft and then pulled out the little one (which was still pretty big) next to it.

Then I spent a very long time trying to pull up The Beast. I didn't want this thing to break so I had my hands up to my wrists in the ground, covered in wet, cement-like mud. I broke the smaller roots with my fingers, used a trowel to clear some of the earth and then just pulled until the bloody thing came up.

I've been in pain since. But it was worth it. Lookit!

18" long, 14.5" round.