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The long and the short of it ...

8/25/2014

14 Comments

 
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This week at The Coffee House I’m looking at Shorts. No, not the kind you wear when the weather is warm, (chance would be a fine thing) but the kind you read. Short stories – novellas - collections - anthologies. Basically anything that isn’t a novel length piece. And why am I concentrating my efforts in this area? I hear you ask, well, No1 – because I was always told – ‘there’s good stuff in little bundles’ and No2 - because I’m interested in why writers choose to write them, whether they’re successful from a sales point of view...and if I’m honest, because I’m tempted to try one myself and I like to do my research before taking the plunge. In the course of my investigations I’ve unearthed a treasure trove of goodies that you may not have come across before and I’ve invited a few folk along to talk about them. So welcome, in no particular order to: Paul Trembling, Jean Gill, Rod Glen, Karen Charlton, Claire Stibbe, Gerry McCullough, Jane Harlond and Bev Allan. I did attempt to order the following by genre or type, but what the heck- you’re getting it as it came to me. There’s an order of sorts... at least, it makes sense to me.

If you’d like to find out more about the authors just click on their name. If you want to discover more about their fabulous books for yourself, just click on the title. Please do! And if you have any questions or comments for the authors don’t be shy, leave your comments and we’ll get back to you.

First up - Collections by the same author. 

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Paul Trembling is a master in the field of collections. I’ve read most of them and they’re 5 star reads. I asked him to fill us in on his writing process and why he loves short -shorts...

 “As a writer, I've always liked short stories.  I fear that there may be an element of laziness involved.  (With me, there usually is an element of laziness).  For a writer, a short story is a quick fix.  Instead of labouring for months over tens of thousands of words to make a novel, a short story can go from conception to completion in a week or so, or even less.  For those of us addicted to unreal worlds, it's a quick fix.
Having said that, I would vigorously deny that the short story is somehow a weaker or lesser literary form than the novel.  Everything that a novel should have, should be in a short story.  Plot, background, character development, twists, depths, layers, resolutions, confusions, dilemmas … and so on.  It's all there, but shorter.  Which means that, paradoxically, the writer sometimes has to work harder.  One sentence must do the work of a whole paragraph, even a page.  Instead of describing a scene in detail (for example), you have to reduce it to the most basic elements that will show the reader what you want them to see.
Short story writing is a great way for writers to hone their skills, to learn to be succinct and precise without losing anything.  Plus which, you get the satisfaction of a completed story much quicker!
One problem you can get with short stories is trying to pull them together into a collection.  If they have a common theme or character, that's not a problem.  My crime scene short stories – 'A Pattern of Murder' – were all written around different aspects of crime scene examination, and so had a natural link.  Plus which most of them had the same main character, the rather obnoxious Ben Drummond.

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My 'Dragon Slayer' series of fantasy stories follow one character, Rimsey Stolworth, through her career, forming overall a novel-length narrative (now collected together in one book).

But how do you fit together a group of stories without a common theme, a common, character, or even in some cases, a common genre?

My solution was 'The Minutes of the Reality Escape Committee'  - an unusual title, and a bit of a mouthful, but it gave me an excuse to bring together some of the odds and ends of stories that I've written over the years and who's only connection was the author's desire to escape from reality.  As one reviewer (so far the only one) mentioned, it makes for an 'eclectic' collection. 

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And it offers room for expansion.  Volume One was fantasy and horror, but I'm already planning a Volume Two, which will be Science Fiction.  You can cover a lot of ground with short stories!”


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My next guest should be a dab hand at collections as in life she mixes writing with photography, dog training, translating and beekeeping...can’t get any more varied than that! But in fact Jean Gill has just published her first collection, a delightfully eclectic mix of poetry, prose and original artwork.

“Last time I dropped in for coffee I discovered my inner werewolf so forgive me if I sit facing the door, not the mirror. Strange things happen here! And in my new book too ... Like you, Babs, I write in a wide variety of genres and I hear all the advice that an author should keep to one genre, build a readership and so on. I also hear the advice that publishing a short story in between novels keeps your readers interested. I’ve broken rules all my life so what actually reached my imagination from all this advice was, ‘Why don’t you bring out a full book of short pieces in all your genres, illustrated by your own art work.’ I sounded out my critical friends, was given encouragement (always a mistake) and now ‘One Sixth of a Gill’ is available for pre-order. The funny thing is that everyone who’s read it is really excited by it and I’m a bit bemused by the fantastic responses I’ve had to my ‘in between novels’ book.

Some of the pieces have been published in journals and anthologies, some have even won prizes but I didn’t have enough in any one genre to publish a book of the ‘Stories of Love and Loss’ type, nor enough poems to make up my third poetry collection. Since e-books arrived, it has become even more difficult to find readers for poetry and yet everyone can recite a line of poetry that’s touched them, long after they’ve forgotten the stories they’ve read. Perhaps even more than previous books, this one is written from the heart in a way I didn’t expect. If you read it, I think you’ll know which parts I mean.” 


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Gerry McCullough is an old hand at short story writing, in fact, she cut her author teeth writing stories for Magazine’s. An accomplished Belfast writer and poet, Gerry is here today to talk about her lovable rogue, Old Seamus.

‘I love short stories. One of my favourite writers is Saki, whose short stories are the thing he’s known for, although he’s also written novels. And often the books I like best, by writers whom I love, are their short stories, like Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Mr Quin. So it should come as no surprise that I’ve had nearly seventy short stories published by now. Over half of those are about the lovable old rogue from Donegal, Seamus O’Hare.
I wrote my first Old Seamus story, A Tale of a Teacup, years ago, and to my delight it was accepted and published by Ireland’s Own – and I was paid for it. At last I was a published writer! The For this reason if for no other I would have a soft spot for these stories. But quite apart from that, I enjoy writing them. Old Seamus is a poacher with a heart of gold who spends a lot of his time happily sorting out problems which crop up in the lives of his friends.

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Each story shows Seamus telling his friend Jamie another such anecdote. The stories are light hearted, often funny, sometimes romantic, and sometimes even a little bit sad – though always with a happy ending.

They are set in the fictional village of Ardnakil in Donegal, and usually happen at some time in Seamus’s past. I enjoy the beautiful setting and the nostalgia of looking back to a former age, but an age which I myself remember. (Unless it’s Seamus’s early childhood, and in that case, I’ve heard all about it from my parents!)

A year or so ago my publisher collected the first 12 of these stories and released them in eBook and paperback under the title The Seanachie: Tales of Old Seamus

(A Seanachie is simply the Irish for a traditional storyteller.)

Now it’s time for the second collection of twelve stories, The Seanachie 2: Norah on the Beach, and this will be out in September. In fact you can pre-order it right now. I hope people will enjoy it at least as much as the first book.

Moving on to single short stories/novellas



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My next guest Karen Charlton appears to be ticking all the boxes where readers are concerned with her regency detective duo, Lavender and Woods. Attention to historical accuracy, a knack for the vernacular and a razor sharp wit, have Karen’s readers clamouring for more, so how does she do it?

“I originally wrote my short story ‘The Mystery of the Skelton Diamonds’ as a promotional piece for my ex publisher. It features the two main characters in my historical mystery: ‘The Heiress of Linn Hagh.’ She did nothing with the story apart from using it as a freebie give-away on her website, which I always suspected was a waste of time.
I regained the publishing rights to all my books earlier this year and promptly self-published them.  Since April, my regency whodunnit, ‘Heiress’ has sold really well but all the positive reviews on Amazon said the same thing: the readers wanted more stories about Detective Stephen Lavender and his sidekick, Constable Ned Woods, ASAP. Knowing that the second novel in the series wasn’t coming out until Christmas, I took some time out from writing to organise a book cover and editing for ‘The Mystery of the Skelton Diamonds’ and published it as an eBook six weeks ago, priced at 99 cents. The first chapter of ‘Heiress’ is in the back.
I didn’t really expect to make any money from it at that price. It was published to keep my current readers happy and hopefully, to introduce more potential readers to my novel.  But 'The Mystery of the Skelton Diamonds' is now selling between 20-50 units a night and has earned me $500 since I published it. (Over 1050 copies sold.) Reviewers are starting to comment that they've read both the novel and the short story. I’m not sure which one they are reading first, but I suspect that ‘Skelton Diamonds’ is now working as a promotional piece and is introducing more and more people to my dynamic crime fighting duo.”


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So what about a stand-alone short story that’s unconnected to previous work? Jane Harlond has recently done just that with an uplifting tale of a boy and his magnificent horse, set during the Spanish revolution. Available in both English and Spanish, Jane is going the extra mile to ensure all her readership is catered for.

“Dark Night, Black Horse is a long short story based on a true story I was told by a friend who breeds Pura Raza Español horses in Coín in rural Andalucía, Spain. In the first year of the Spanish Civil War, Nationalist troops came to requisition his grandfather Diego’s favourite black stallion. Diego’s son, aged about eight at the time, then goes down to the town square where all the requisitioned horses, mules and donkeys have been gathered and ‘steals’ the horse back and hides it. There is more to the story than this but I can’t say more without giving the game away.

Diego Martín was a contrabandista: in those days, duty was paid on basic goods such as flour, oil and chickpeas when they were brought into a pueblo, but Diego had a way of circumventing these taxes. He also ran a side-line in American tobacco. His son (aged 8) was actually put in prison for selling it.

After piecing together the various elements of the black horse incident and Diego’s background, I created the story Dark Night, Black Horse. Anyone who knows anything about horses in Spain will understand the importance to the family of the horse, Lucero (bright star); black stallions are still ridden – shown off – in fiestas and romerias, when men of all ages put on their finery for one special day and parade around the streets of their town. Anyone who has ventured off the tourist trail into real Spain will perhaps understand the social background of the story. In the 1930s Andalucía was a backward-looking province reliant on agriculture and steeped in poverty. Getting by, for most families was a major challenge: the black stallion was Diego’s pride and joy, and only possible luxury.”

And what about anthologies, collections by numerous authors?

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Rod Glenn
is the man behind Wild Wolf Publishing, who specialize in dark fiction and horror. He’s here to tell us about an anthology put together by Wild Wolf authors.

‘Wild Wolf Publishing was set up to champion new and emerging writers of predominantly dark fiction as we felt that this was an area that was being neglected by the market. Wild Wolf's Twisted Tails was put together to showcase some of our authors in one volume. The idea was to give readers a 'taster' of each author so that it would wet their appetites to read more of their work.’


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My next guest, Claire Stibbe, is best known for her Historical fiction novels set in Egypt, but she’s turned a short crime story first published in the anthology Fusion into a full length novel to be published later this year. 

“I was invited to join a writing group about a year ago and they decided to compile an anthology. It was a no-brainer to want to be part of this chorus of voices, all sharing a glimpse of their favorite genres. Mine was short suspense story written specifically for this anthology, only I had no idea it would morph later into a full-length novel. I've certainly enjoyed the experience since Fusion was nominated for the 2014 eFestival of Words for Best of Independent Book Awards.       

Police interviews have always fascinated me. It's one of the most difficult jobs in the department. Watching detectives/sheriffs dissecting criminal activity through menacing interviews, inspired crucial events in my book. I enjoy being immersed in the study of people but most of all, the satisfaction of that 'gotcha' moment as the police unwind the clues one by one. With the release at the end of 2014 of the full version of this book titled The 9th Hour, here is a short description.”

“Until a man loses his daughter to a serial killer, until he loses his best friend, until he is down on his luck, Darryl Williams must put all thoughts of retaliation out of his mind.”


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My final guest is Bev Allen and I think she takes the prize today with her inclusion in a Dr Who anthology. Whether you’re a fan or not...wow!

‘I like writing flash fiction and short stories, I like the challenge of finding a beginning, a middle and an end within the confines of a tight word count. It’s fun.
I’ve written loads over the years and for a while I entered a lot of competitions without success, but in the end I got very disillusioned by the amount of money some of these were asking for entry and a bit suspicious about who won. One in particular seemed to favour a very small group of people who always won.
However, in 2007 I entered SFX Pulp Idol competition. It was free and Gollanz were judging it. I didn’t win, but I was one of the top ten authors chosen to have their full story published in an anthology given away with magazine.
You can read mine on my web site “Maud: A Garden Story”
The real excitement came a month after when I was contracted by a publisher called Big Finish. They published Dr Who stories under license from the BBC. Would I like to pitch a story for one of their anthologies?   Hell YES!
It was hard work; there were rules about which Doctor you could use, on respecting the ethos of Dr Who and a very strict word count. It also had to be a Christmas story and, in my case, set in New Zealand. I’ve never been to New Zealand, but travel guides can be your best friend when you are lost.
After a few rewrites and some advice from the editor they commissioned me to write “Autaia Pipipi Pia”, which is Maori if you squint hard and have a big enough pinch of salt.
It was published in 2008 under the title “Short Trips: Christmas Around the World”.
It is out of print now and a silly price on Amazon.

Since then I have gone on to write novels and am currently published by Thorstruck Press, but I still write shorties for my blog and you can read them on my web site.’
                                                                                            ................................

A big thank you to all my guests today ( I won’t mention that they’ve eaten me out of house and home) They’ve all been very generous with their time and I hope you’ve found today’s post as interesting as I have. As for me... well my early efforts at short story writing were successful in competitions but quickly morphed into full length novels. Bedlam and Twisted are to be published in 2015 by Caffeine Nights Publishing. You can sneak a peek at the opening chapters here on my website. In the meantime I’m determined to master the art of a short story - that stays a short story...watch this space!

                                                                                        Babs x

14 Comments

Jean Gill

1/22/2014

9 Comments

 
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Today The Coffee House welcomes Jean Gill. For the benefit of those who don’t know, Jean and I met on Authonomy some years ago with a shared interest in Historical Fiction and have remained in contact through a writing group, which I shall refer to affectionately as The Hysterical Fiction Group. Jean is the author of many bestselling books. She’s also a superb photographer and a fellow dog lover. She lives and writes from an idyllic spot in France and when she’s not writing, researching her historical novels or undertaking photography assignments, she can be found walking with her two wonderful dogs in the countryside around her home. She has enjoyed a very successful writing career and is a very busy lady so I’m especially pleased that she’s found the time to drop in for a chat and share some of her tips with us. So, Jean, make yourself at home. Hang up your coat and kick off your shoes. Feel free to sprawl on the sofas or grab a chair by the stove.

1 - First things first. What are you having? Name your poison, Jean, or in this case the hot beverage of your choice. Are you a latte or a lemon tea?  A shortbread or a chocolate cake? Or perhaps you have some local French delicacy in mind?

JG - Cheesecake and a strawberry milkshake please, seeing as this is a special occasion. I love dairy products!

2 –Let’s get to know a little bit more about how you ended up here on my sofa. A quick bio if you please m’dear. Feel free to shock and entertain us with your exploits to date.

JG - My mother would certainly be shocked to know that I spend a lot of my time talking to strangers and sometimes meeting up with them, in the name of ‘marketing’ and ‘training’. Thanks to the Internet connecting like-minded spirits, I have three friendship networks at the heart of my creative world; our hysterical fiction group J dog forums and photography forums. I didn’t hesitate to accept a lift from an online Slovenian friend to get me from Salzburg Airport to a small village in Austria for a photography workshop with a group of total strangers. As expected, we all got on just as well in person as online.

Before moving to France and expanding these three passions – writing, photography and dogs – I taught English in Wales. My claim to fame is that I was the first woman to be a secondary Headteacher in the Welsh county of Carmarthenshire and although there were many difficult aspects to the job, it gave me great satisfaction. However, Wales is wet and I needed time to write so, when my husband retired, we headed for Provence and sunshine.

My life has been crazy-busy with five children, who are all very tolerant of my oddities; I grew one baby myself from a seed and accumulated the others along the way, as teenagers.

3 – How did you get into writing and which came first, the photography or your novels?

JG - University studies of English Literature stopped me writing for a few years. Writers were ‘great men’ and I was a very ordinary woman. Who was I to think I could write? Then a need to express myself led to poetry, and to shaping that poetry for others to read. I turned to prose at 40 J Maybe, as Wendy Cope says, I wasn’t miserable enough for poetry J

Moving to France in 2003 turned me into a photographer. I started sending a regular album to family and friends as a sort of diary, then I had articles on lifestyle and food accepted by France Magazine so I had to shoot the accompanying images. For my cookbook ‘A small cheese in Provence: cooking with goat cheese’ I created the recipes and shot all the food images. My husband grew used to being told ‘Your meal will be on the table in 10 minutes; I just have to shoot it’. The book mixes local landscapes, some shot by my husband, with cheese-related quotations and of course, all the info and recipes for goat cheese. I still love shooting food and my photos have appeared in cookbooks and magazines, which gives me a big kick.

I’ve worked hard, learned from the pro friends I’ve been lucky enough to meet online and my photography balances the writing perfectly. Photography gets me out and about, living in the moment and I get instant gratification. A novel takes two years to complete, including all the historical research. Also, I now earn money from my photography, more than from my writing.

4 – What was the first thing you had published and how did you go about it?

JG - I sent my poems away to Johnathon Clifford, Editor of the National Poetry Foundation, and he collected a  few at a time until there were enough he considered worth publishing in ‘With Double Blade’ 1988. I owe Johnathon thanks for the quality of his editing and support, not just for being my first publisher.

5 – From your experience do you have any tips for those not yet published?

JG - Good editing is rare and essential. Regardless of whether you seek a traditional publisher or self-publish, find a good editor! Nowadays, publishers expect a typescript to be polished and well-edited so forget any idea of an editor turning your rough diamond into a gem  – those days are gone.  If you don’t know any editors, I can recommend Famelton Writing Services
These are people I trust and their prices are up-front.

6 – I love to genre hop, how about you? Do you write in a specific genre? Which is your favourite and why? Is there a particular genre or type of scene that you would avoid and if so why?

JG - I am the Queen of Genre-Hoppers with 15 books published, including historical novels, military history, autobiography, poetry, translated books on dog-training and YA. I love all my babies but it is especially pleasing to see ‘Someone to look up to’ in amazon uk’s top dog books because it’s based on the true story of a rescue dog.


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7 – Promotion and marketing, most writers see this as a necessary evil. What do you do to try and make sure your work reaches your readers?

JG - Last year was an experiment in marketing methods and it says it all that my amazon No 1 bestseller had no marketing at all! You just never know what you did right so it’s worth trying a variety of Internet approaches – goodreads, giveaways,ebook promotions. Smashwords has a useful free guide to book promotion. This year I have a novel to write and I will only do the marketing I enjoy and that allows my readers to reach me. I like blogging Here and I love chatting over coffee with other writers and readers J. I also love hearing from readers and always reply.


8 – As a child which was your favourite book? Were you read to as a child and did that develop your love of books? Do you have a favourite book and author now? What are you reading now?

I remember ‘Listen with Mother’ on the radio as a special time with Mummy when I was about six, and ‘Five Minute Tales’ was the obligatory book at bedtime, so yes, I think my parents started and encouraged my habit. ‘Jean always has her nose in a book’ was just a fact. I discovered Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book’ at my grandfather’s house and knew at once that my real parents were a black panther and a bear.

I can’t imagine not being in the middle of a book and always feel a sense of loss when I finish one that really gripped me. I have hundreds of favourites, too many to mention, but I do like a good, complicated but coherent story. I feel flattered that reviews have compared my historical novels to those of Dorothy Dunnett. I love her Lymond and Niccolo series.

I’ve always read a lot of non-fiction for research, and for pleasure, everything from popular maths to evolutionary theory. I’ve just finished a great book on ‘Night Photography’ by Lance Keimig and I’ve started a biography by Carolyn Burke. ‘Lee Miller, both sides of the camera’ is about an amazing American photographer, who was also a very beautiful model, born in 1906. I was hoping for inspiration but the start shows how traumatic her young life was so I’m re-thinking!

9. – Can you give us a hint at what you have planned next?

I’m deep in the 12th Century again for my third novel about the Troubadours, Dragonetz and Estela. I spent last year on research and letting the story stew in my imagination and am happy with all the possibilities in my head, the politics and romance, dangers and settings. Although I have a vague idea of the story, the characters will determine what actually happens, within the constraints of historical fact. This is why I need to be steeped in the history of the time so I know what is possible and what isn’t. It’s a very challenging genre and my readers will pick up on any mistakes, not only in the history but also in continuity from the earlier two books. The fans of my historical novels definitely keep me on my toes!

I do play music while I write and thanks to your recommendation Santa bought me Sting’s ‘If on a winter night’, which is perfect. In each Troubadours book a different song of the period has been a motif re-appearing throughout the story and the new one will continue this pattern. I can reveal here that ‘the song’ for my Troubadours book will be ‘O Ignee Spiritus’ by Hildegard von Bingen, an amazingly talented 12thC physician and composer, abbess of an Alsace convent.  I do play medieval troubadour songs while I’m writing and this is a superb recording of Hildegard’s work, including the key song for my novel. For the lyrics quoted in English in my books, I translate from French and Latin, and for the Occitan I work from the French, English and Occitan versions.
I also confess to a weakness for heavy rock and if you call round while I’m writing, I might not hear you ring the bell because I’m playing Metallica at full volume. My musical tastes are as wide as my writing!

10 – And tell us even more about the one you’ve brought with you. I did explain about reading an excerpt later didn’t I? Oh good. Don’t think you get coffee and cake for nothing.

JD - I’ve chosen ‘How Blue is my Valley’ because it’s my bestseller and because it’s likely to be the only autobiography I’ll ever write. Imagine me with a laptop, in the only corner of an old French house that isn’t being demolished by workmen in the name of renovation, with no idea of the plot because I’m writing what happens, as it happens, and you can imagine how stressful it was writing this book. For some reason that makes people laugh J


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12 – Pick one of your characters and sell him/her to us in twenty words or less.

JD - He’s big, independent and would fight to the death to protect someone he loves; Sirius, a dog you won’t forget. (the Pyrenean Mountain dog in ‘Someone to look up to’)














12 – While I top up your coffee would you like to read a short excerpt from your book?

        How Blue is my Valley (autobiography about moving to France)

It is true, however hard to believe; I am wishing for rain. I am a changed person after four months without the wet stuff (unless you count a few drops which didn’t even change the colour of the paving stones).

We play out the scene in ‘Jean de Florette’ where the townie shakes his fist at departing thunderclouds which have passed by his garden yet again. We use all our old standard guaranteed rain starters. We hang out the washing, John waters the garden, we walk the dogs… nothing works. The air steams with humidity, our shirts run with sweat, we snap at each other as we wait for the storm that doesn’t come. It is like going through labour without giving birth. We are exhausted by two complete days of nearly-about-to-rain-honestly-perhaps-well, maybe not. Then the sun comes out again and we get on with our rainless lives.

It is August so all roadworks are suspended while the council workers holiday. Even my optician is shutting up shop and I won’t be able to get my new varifocals until he comes back, by which time I will have thought of a way to raise the required cash. If you live in Dieulefit, where do you go for your holidays? My optician is off to … Ireland.

When he heard I was from Wales, he sniggered, then apologised. I asked him to explain, He said, ‘No, I shouldn’t say,’ I said, ‘Go on,’ and eventually, he did. He had just watched a film about a mountain in Wales, no, he corrected himself, about the mountain in Wales. Did I know how high it was? I did. He laughed, ‘And they are proud of it.’ I told him that if he only had one mountain, he’d be proud of it too.

I ask about Ireland to distract myself from the pain of the estimate, barely eased by having a pair of prescription sunglasses thrown in – for that price I should be getting a cute guide dog thrown in. My optician is looking forward to the countryside, the culture, the people, the unspoilt beaches, the swimming… The swimming? Ireland is a lot like Wales, I tell him, gently, and it might not be as hot or as sunny, as it is here. I don’t tell him that I remember the swimming all too well … every time I opened my back door.


When I walk out of his shop, I can see the encircling mountains, the ridge of Dieu Grace, the St Maurice range, Mielandre … all of them around a thousand metres or more and considered nothing by the locals, who live within an hour of the Alps.

It finally rains, with cymbals and drums that send Sensitive Dog into a frenzy. She has almost got over her fear of men in yellow jackets, thanks to the daily immersion therapy provided by Dieulefit council; she’s no longer scared of ambulances and fire-engines as she now sings along  - the particular note in French sirens has taught her to howl for the first time in her life; she has not had a recurrence of the blue-balloon-in-the-sky trauma; fire risks have led to a fireworks ban so we are spared that bout of hysteria; but the natural bangs in the sky turn a dog, supposedly of the only breed capable of taking on a wolf, into a hyperventilating, shaking, whining Mummy’s girl.



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14- And let us know where we can find it?

AMAZON

SMASHWORDS


'Laugh out loud in many places, this autobiography from Welsh writer and photographer Jean Gill tells the tale of her first year in Provence - complete with challenging situations and thought-provoking musings. Jean takes readers on a tour of the beautiful Drome area, painting such a vivid picture of the fields of lavender, sunflowers and olive trees that you could almost be there with her.'  Living France Magazine



Blurb...

The true scents of Provence?
Lavender, thyme and septic tank.
There are hundreds of interesting things you can do in a bath but washing dishes is not one of them, nor what writer Jean Gill had in mind when she swopped her Welsh Valley for a French one.  Keen to move out of the elephant's stomach, that stew of grey mists called weather in Wales, she offered her swimming certificate to a bemused Provencale estate agent and bought a house with good stars and its own spring-water. Or rather, as it turns out, a neighbour's spring-water that is the only supply to the kitchen, which, according to the nice men from the Water Board, is emptying its dirty water directly and illegally onto the main road... and there's worse ...
But how can you resist a village called Dieulefit, `God created it', the village 'where everyone belongs'.
Discover the real Provence in good company ...


You can find out more about Jean at the following places :

Website
Blog
Twitter @writerjeangill
Facebook
TvTropes


15– And finally if you’ve been paying attention to previous posts we’re playing a little game that I hope all my guests will contribute to. Can you give me 100 words of your choosing to follow on from this? your last line will be picked up by the next guest... and so on:

JD - I always give 101% so I’m afraid it’s 101 words J

His gimlet-eyes spotted a figure standing in the gaping maw of the alley…
The figure was indeed grey but no woman. In the flickering lamplight ,  he saw grey fur, oddly matted and sticky. Balefire eyes pinned him to the pavement; invisible claws ripped into his most private thoughts.
‘Rose,’ the gruffness invaded his mind seeking something, someone… ‘Rose, come back…’ and his elfness melted, turning, returning with a stab of pain to her own Rose self.  ‘They turned the power up too high,’ a voice pawed at her, sheathing its claws in velvet.
‘I had to find you,’ Rose said, remembering.
‘You found me,’ said the greyness, wrapping the girl in soft fur.


Thanks so much for joining me at The Coffee House today, Jean. It's been great fun and a privilage to learn a little more about your life. Good luck with all your future endeavours.

                                                                       Babs x

 










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    As a writer I'm interested in what makes other writers tick. In the real world I'd invite them round for coffee and a chat. In the virtual world I can do just that. Welcome to The Coffee House!

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