New Year post news

 Well, here's the second blog.

Family and I managed to do Christmas - Lou, the grandchildren and her partner stayed in their house with her partner's father, I stayed in my house with the other three, Miles, Phillips and Leo. We had all the traditional food, and did New Year's Eve, too, with Haggis and bashed Neeps.

Now, the decorations are down, and I am endeavouring to write Libby 22. Our friend Lee has re-done my website - which my publisher says is elegant - and I have received the Dreaded Email telling me I am Extremely Clinically Vulnerable. Doesn't make a lot of difference, as I've been staying indoors since last March. I have alo bought rather a lot of joggers, and Lou bought me the lovliest warm jacket for Christmas. Phillipa bought me a DustBuster, and Leo bought me the Rupert Annual. Miles bought me the Victoria Wood biography. A mixed bag.

That's it, then. Happy days - and I hope everyone has the best New Year they can possibly have.

A Rather Unsettling Year news

Everybody's had it tough this year. I know of at least one family in my own small circle who are all in hospital as I write. Many people are far worse off than we are. I, at least have been able to work, although my children haven't - mostly. I rail ineffectually against the government for its mismanagement, but at least I'm in my own home and we have enough to eat. I really  ought to count my blessings ever day, but it's difficult, sometimes. So here's our story of 2020.

On the 4th October, it was exactly a year since my younger daughter received her breast cancer diagnosis. We reflected on the year so far and wondered what would happen next.

Phillipa couldn't work from that point on, as she was no longer able to go off on cruises. She was able to do a few gigs, but not enough to keep her, so lost the flat she was going to move in to. So she stayed with me. Her treatment was shared between out local hospitals, anyway, so it was all for the best. Her sister performed all the chauffeuring (is that a word?) duties and her brother and I looked after her at home. After her operation (successful) her radiography started - every day except Christmas Day and Boxing Day, until the end of January. Talking to her occasional duo partner, they decided to see if their cruise line needed anyone - and they did! For exactly a month - February. And when they got back - what happened?

Suddenly, all my children were out of work. All gigs stopped and only the odd one has cropped up. Meanwhile, over last winter, my publisher sold out to one of the Big Boys, just as I was having a book released. I worried. Oh, boy, how I worried. This is my day job, and now, not only I, but two of my offspring were relying on it, and Big Boys are not quite as forbearing as independent publishers. So there we were, over winter, with one daughter in the grip of something rather nasty and me terrified I was going to lose my job.

However, a few good things have happened. First, Phillipa recovered beautifully. Then, I got my agent, who sorted out the publishers, with whom I have got on like a house on fire ever since. The three older children all managed online gigs of sorts, while the youngest, Leo, had his first book published. Not a good time for that, of course. All events (signings, etc) were cancelled. My grandchildren have both started new schools during the last couple of weeks. And in October the 21st in the Libby Sarjeant series was released.

And both younger children have recorded albums. Phillipa's is of songs wot her dad wrote, and the first single released actually reached number one in the Country Chart. Leo's is of self penned songs and is already out. So we've all kept busy despite the pandemic.

Finally, I Got Ill. Actually spent a week in hospital. Diabetes related and I am still recovering. but thanks to the NHS I am still here. Like most other people who have recourse to their services, I am stunned and grateful to them. I had a rather nasty relapse (poor Leo suffered the brunt of that) but finally was released into the community with a whole battery of new medication.

And now my granddaughter is self isolating because someone in her class has become infected. Like many families, we will be separated for Christmas. The boys and I will be in my house, Lou and her family in hers, and goodness knows where Phillipa will be.  Lou has managed a couple of live streamed, socially distanced concerts. Miles has given us a few living room concerts and I've been hiding.

This blog is now part of my new website, and I started it back in October. Then came the nasty relapse and everything went on hold. I had hoped to make it a cheery, hopeful post, but with the world as it is - rising Covid numbers and Blasted Brexit on the horizon, all under a government who don't appear to know how to govern a classroom, let alone a country, that was a vain hope. So we keep on keeping on. I'm trying to write Libby 22, and not succeeding very well, but I will keep going.

Have as Happy a Christmas as you can, people, and here's hoping 2021 turns out better than 2020.

Thoughts at the end of August 2020 - I am NOT Cosy.

It is Tuesday August 25th, and I don't know where the month went. The weather has suddenly turned autumnal, as a consequence of which I feel considerably better. After almost six months of being told what to do, shielding, isolating and playing the "old lady", the worm has turned. I AM going to drive again, despite what my (non-driving) son says and despite my rackety old car. I don't go far, after all, chiropodist, hairdresser, doctor and I might even venture to attempt Tesco!

Meanwhile, I have been watching Foyle's War. Not quite bingeing (now discovered there's an "e" in the middle) but watching them over a few weeks consecutively. I'm now well into the Cold War in 1947 and I'm constantly surprised at how accurate it is. Last night, saw a specially made documentary "The Making Of Foyle's War", which encompassed the War Office expert, the properties and art department and various other experts, which explained a lot. Over the years the odd episode has given me material for my own books, one of which I was describing to my daughter this morning. "That doesn't sound very 'Cosy', Mum," she said. My reply? Guess.

I have been fighting a One-Woman War against the term "Cosy", coined in the States, for years. I'm sorry, but I don't consider homophobic murder and attacks, people smuggling, modern slavery, child abuse  and paedophilia very cosy, all of which I have written about. Other writers in roughly the same genre have also written about similar subjects. We are described as following in the wake of Agatha Christie, who would have been horrified to be descibed as Cosy.

When I started my career as a novelist I was already a writer, in that I wrote stuff for money. I called myself a writing whore. I adored many of the Golden Age writers, although not Christie so much, and read many modern crime novels. Yes, funnily enough, that was what they were. Crime novelists. Then, a few books in, I discovered - via Waterstones, no Amazon, then - that I was "Cozy". Yes, to compound matters, spelt with a "Z".

I even founded a Facebook Group called Traditional Mystery Writers UK, which attracted a few fellow novelists, but has never really thrived. But now I'm determined to fight against this rather derogatory and disparaging sobriquet. I am NOT COSY. Neither am I a doddery old lady. I can (mostly) look after myself - oh, and I'm still earning my own living. I am extremely grateful to my offspring for being there for me during the Covid 19 lockdown, for fetching and carrying and generally doing the things I can't, but we've all got to stand on our own two (wobbly) feet sometime. So off we go into the rest of 2020 with determination.

Mysteries-U-Like news

I am going to make a recommendation. I write, and enjoy reading, lighter detective fiction. As I have documented elsewhere, my love of this genre came from being allowed to run riot amid my parents' books, many of which I still have. These included Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series (and occasionally a Tecumseh Fox), John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson - Gideon Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale - and Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn series. I re-read them all, and the Alleyn books from start to finish at least once every two years. On the way, there were other writers; Gladys Mitchell and Patricia Wentworth, to name two.

I was already a professional writer (features, PR, theatre) when I went back to school to do a Master's Degree in Creative Writing, a fairly new discipline at the time, and one I was already teaching at local authority level. Sadly, it didn't improve my knowledge of literature, which I had hoped, but it did introduce me to the woman who became my publisher. Again, well documented. We more-or-less started off together. As my final dissertation I submitted 20,000 words of a detective story which had first been conceived for the long departed World One Day Novel Cup. I had never seriously considered authorship as a career, although I had dabbled freely in the murky waters of Romance. Like many others, I had thought I could write a Mills and Boon romance, or Category Romance, as I learned to call them. Easy, I thought. Wrong!!! I came to realise how very, very clever these women, and the occasional man, were. I remained content to be friends with many of them, friendships I have maintained to this day. More of that later.

Meanwhile, as Hazel Cushion went on to become a fully fledged publisher, she asked me if there was any more of my dissertation, and if so, could she have it. And, could it be a series. Well, by this stage in my life I had expanded my reading habits and discovered, among other things, many writers writing in the same genre I had loved as a child. So there was a market for it, although received wisdom from the industry was, between much sucking of teeth, that there wasn't. We all know how that turned out.

And that market also extended to Television, exemplified by the hugely popular Midsomer Murders. I had read the original books - only seven of them - and even met Caroline Graham, the author, when we were both tutors on a Writers' Holiday. There have been other series in a similar vein, although none as long lasting. Father Brown might be heading the same way, but Rosemary and Thyme didn't last long. Shakespeare and Hathaway is a little more jokey/pastiche, but quite enjoyable if you suspend serious criticism. The Coroner didn't last long, either, although it should have done.

But I've found a new one! I suspect a lot of my readers discovered it before I did, but I'm terribly glad I did. It's been airing on UKTV Drama since 2017, and now I have all my streaming ducks in a row, I have been - I believe the term is "Binging" (!) - on it since the beginning of the series. It is a New Zealand small town detective series called The Brokenwood Mysteries, and has some very familiar elements. Lead detectives, of course, and recurring characters, often rather quirky ones. And very odd murder methods - remind you of anything? Anyway, that's my first recommendation.

My second refers to something more personal. You remember I mentioned retained friendships? Well, some of us go away "on retreat" each year, which I have written about before. Not this year, of course. Anyway, a few of them decided to release an anthology of shorts as a 2020 beach read. And to my surprise, they asked me to join them. Surprise, because they are all romance writers, and all have been, or still are, Mills and Boon authors. I really struggled with this, and failed miserably on the romance front, but I was edited by one of them, a particular friend, who brought me into line. And the result is up for pre-order. You can find it on amazon, and this is what it looks like:

So there you are! Happy watching and reading.