Done it!

Just finished the first draft of The Tender Herb: A Murder in Mughal India (changed the spelling). Yippee! Now for rereading, adding in bits I thought of after I'd written certain parts (I think I write in loops rather than in a straight line), trying to put on paper the cover I have in my head, finishing that short story about dogs and apple trees ...

Then what? I have an outline for the next Murray in my head, and a good reason for working on with it. Or I have three partly finished standalones, any one of which could  potentially be finished and out there. They are (subject to some changes!):

A. Dr. Christy Kilgour leaves the London Blitz for the sanctuary of an Aberdeenshire village. But when a German bomber crashes nearby, an extra body is found with the wreckage. In a village where everyone has a story to tell her, Christy must find her way through the maze to solve the mystery, before she can tell a story of her own. (about half finished)

B. X is a bad-tempered merchant with a shady past, feeling under the weather.
Charis is an archaeologist, leading a student dig, when she finds something unexpected.
Steve is a microbiologist, investigating a new and terrible disease with a stigma.
Together, their knowledge could save thousands of lives - but someone does not want them to ... (about two thirds finished)

C. When Toby's mother, Tibet activist June, dies, he is determined to honour her memory. He finds her diaries and decides to have them translated into English. But his mother had a secret, and she was not the only one: Toby's decision will lead to obsession and murder. (about three quarters finished).

Any ideas?

More distractions

The end is in sight - of The Tender Herb: A Murder in Moghul India, that is. It helps that I enjoy writing on trains, and currently I'm doing about eight hours a week on the train. It is less helpful that I would much rather look out the window, at the deer, the rabbits, the pheasants, the swans, geese and ducks, the buzzards and sparrowhawks, the desolate herons standing in flooded fields. The above nest of snowdrops is another bonus. However, it's time to think, and to knit, and to make hurried notes when ideas strike.

I'm currently wondering about promotion for this book and I'm contemplating Fire and Ice Booktours, a virtual tour on blogs. Last book I had a go at free books for reviews on LibraryThing: I think seventy people requested free books (ebooks, thank goodness) and I had about five reviews from it, so that was a bit of a wash-out (the reviews were kind, though). I've also had an idea for a virtual launch party, come the autumn - preparations have already started so watch this space! (well, don't really, not all the time: I'm sure you can find many more useful ways to spend your days. But pop back now and again to see if the drinks have been poured).

A little progress and a lot of rain

It's raining again. I know we haven't had it anywhere near as many places, but it was a beautiful morning, sunny and bright and cold, and now there we have it again. Number Two Cat, who is unnecessarily fluffy, weighed about three times his normal weight and nearly broke the cat flap when he slurped through it.

Chapter Seven is done and I'm now picking my way through the latter stages of Chapter Eight. I'm looking at an autumn launch for this one, which is probably a good thing. The factual history project I've been working on is at the proof stage but it's a complex proof stage, with several people checking it from a variety of angles. I wait impatiently as it should be available in paperback form from Createspace by the end of March - less than two months away! I'm trying very hard not to drum my fingers.

I've written a short story set in Newburgh, Fife, as a quick diversion, but short stories are rarely a quick diversion for me, and this one, entitled Dead Dogs and Apple Trees, has come a little unstuck as I stopped concentrating on it. Holding down a number of other jobs does not help! I must go back and finish it off, though: there's not much to do beyond the cover picture.

Chapter Seven

I'm not stuck. No, really.

I'm not really sure that there is a thing you can call stuck for me (can't speak for other people), not properly. I know what things have to happen in this chapter, and the last one is in fact already written, so I know where I need to get to and I know what's going on along the way. I just don't have a key to get into it yet.

It's like a big bundle of wool where you know perfectly well there must be two ends and you can see there's quite a bit in between them, but blowed if you can find them. What I need to do is go for some walks. Part of it slipped into place about 3.30 this morning (accompanied by the World Service), but that's not such a good method. Walking is the thing. In snow if necessary (and looking outside, it might well be).

Drink tea, save lives.

If you could put your feet up for twenty minutes, have a cup of tea and a biscuit, and save a life, wouldn't you?

I've just given blood. I'm evangelical about this. You have been warned.

My father started giving blood during the war, and he earned his silver badge in the days when you could only give twice a year. He wore it constantly on his tweed jacket, with considerable pride. When I was at primary school, my mother had a serious operation, and a few days after she came home she had a major haemorrhage and had to be rushed back to hospital, where she received, and was saved by, a blood transfusion. We used to joke that maybe my father's blood had saved my mother's life, and perhaps it had. When I was eighteen, I attended the first local donation session that came along, and have been giving, with a couple of medical gaps of my own, ever since.

My father was forcibly retired from blood donation at retirement age, just before he earned his gold badge. A few years ago, I earned my own gold badge, though unfortunately he didn't live long enough to see it. I wear mine constantly on my Barbour jacket, with pride. I've now given seventy three donations, in seven different cities. I’ve seen all kinds of advances in technology, and watched health scares come and go. I've drunk coffee and eaten TUC biscuits and met interesting nurses and fellow donors, and not a minute of it has been a waste of time. It's such a little, pleasant thing for me to do. You can see on television adverts and online the number of lives that are saved or changed by blood donation. I've no idea if I've saved a life - I hope I have, but if it has at least been of service then it has been worthwhile. If you can do it, go on, do.

www.scotblood.co.uk/‎

Autumn again! Ooh, I love it. One allotment pretty much cleared (leeks planted, though) and the other to be done, nasturtiums all over the garden, the amelanchier bright yellow, and the blackberries leaping off the brambles to be eaten. I wasn't going to make any wine this year but it's too good a year to miss and hedgerow wine will be made.  A few weeks ago I took a brisk walk locally to deliver something and saw a skein of 250 geese, two roe deer, and a fox, and filled my arms with elderberries. Who needs to live in the country? (well, me, often, but sometimes towns can come up to the mark. And how many cities can you live in and regularly see grey seals from the bus?)

Meanwhile I'm ploughing through The Tender Herb, Book Six. I'm looking out at autumnal trees and busy bluetits here but half my head is in Moghul India, trying to catch and convey the sights and smells and tastes that intrigue Murray. It wasn't all novelty for him, though: of course Indian silks and cottons were available in Britain, and the first commercially blended curry powder was sold in the U.K. about 1806! So many Scots worked in the Honourable East India Company or travelled to the subcontinent for other reasons, then came home and brought a flavour of their travels with them. The Fraser family of Moniack in Invernessshire are particularly interesting - I've kidnapped William Fraser and put him in my book (couldn't resist) though his brother James can't appear as he came to India later. He was an accomplished artist but returned to manage the family estates after compiling albums of fascinating portraits and views around Delhi and in the Himalayas. And the family estates now produce Moniack Wine, which along with Cairn o'Mohr from Errol is much appreciated in this household!

Scots Words in Fellowship with Demons

The final instalment of these for now:

Advocate: Scots law’s equivalent of a barrister

Assoilzie: (pronounced assoll-yee) to acquit

Aught: anything

Bailie: councillor

Barnage: childhood

Behouchie: behind, backside

Chopin: a Scots half-pint (about 0.85 litres in new money)

Claik: gossip

Craw-step: crow-stepped gables, gables with a stepped edge.

Cundy: a covered drain or the entrance to a drain

Doocot: dovecot

Dwamie: dreamy

Feardy: cowardly, fearful

Flotter: in a state of excitement

Forwanderit: amazed

Glour: sticky muck

Greeshach: shivery, shuddery

Gyte: mad, crazy

Haar: sea mist

Hirple: limp (verb)

Jook: glance, poke your head quickly round a corner

Ken: know (if you’ve read all these lists you’ll ken that one by now)

Laldy, to give: to put effort in, particularly in a fight or row

Lep: leap

Luckenbooth: a folding stall in the street

Meschant: coward

Midden: rubbish pit, dung heap

Pannel: in Scots law, the defendant

Pollis: police

Provost: the Lord Provost is the equivalent of a Lord Mayor

Rammy: fight, squabble, punch-up

Receipt: recipe

Recryand: villain

Reiver: border raider, particularly in the 16^th and 17^th centuries

Risp: twisted metal bar, against which a ring was rattled to alert people to answer the door – a type of doorbell, really.

Sakeless: harmless, simple

Scurryvaig: wander

Skelet: skeleton

Snippy: mean

Stavell: wander

Tron: weighing scales, weighing point for a market

Wald: yellow

Water-caddies: people who carried water in barrels from the street fountains to customers’ flats

Whaup: curlew

Whin: gorse