Time to relax at least for a bit.

I finished another psychological thriller on my TBR pile about a week ago and decided that I needed a break from all the tension. I have to say that, thanks mainly to Twitter, I have been able to pick up some excellent thrillers and I am grateful for that. But I felt it was time to turn to the gentle world of Jane Austen and so I took Emma down from my bookshelves. I have read it so often that I nearly know it by heart but this does not lessen the enjoyment. You know that line in the song The Second Time Around? Well, reading Emma is "like a friendly home the second time you call". It is like visiting old friends where you can talk as if you had seen each other only yesterday. Randalls, Hartfield and the village of Highbury, they represent a sheltered world which is gone for ever. The no-nonsense Mr. Knightley and Emma, who we have to like even though she thinks "a little too well of herself", because with all her faults, she is basically like us all: good at heart but liable to make blunders.

I should, of course, be editing my Sergeant Alan Murray novel. I have finished the first draft and now comes the hard work. But I do it for fun, I keep reminding myself. I hope to have this fourth novel in the series ready for publication by September at the latest. A plot for a Christmas novel is also starting to tick over in my head but I haven't got beyond thinking about the main character. 

Writing is a wonderful pastime. It beats knitting bed socks, let me tell you, at least for me. I never could learn any kind of handicraft. At least if you are a writer you can repair, unravel and start anew without having to pick up wool and needles or scissors or whatever. 

Maybe I'll just read one more chapter of Emma to keep the feel good effect going. Might start on editing tomorrow.

The Sweetest Words for an Author's Ear

The sweetest words that an author hears are when someone says "oh, you write those Romance novels I'm so fond of" or "Just read your crime novel and loved it" or anything in a similar vein. It just makes all the hours of hard work, editing, re-editing the editing, struggling with the plot, having a really bad day - or days - and having a really good day - or days, when all goes right and the writing flows.
These -ahem - deep thoughts cross my mind recently when I met two readers who had read both my Sergeant Murray crime fiction books (written under my pen name P.B. Barry) and my Sunshine Cafe Romance novels which I wrote as Peggy O'Mahony. It really did give me a lift, especially as I was having a hard time getting part of the plot of my third Sergeant Murray mystery to gel into a suitable shape.
Authors are very sensitive creatures, I think. We constantly need encouragement, we need to know that yes, there are people out there who enjoy reading what we write. It's the human condition, isn't it? the need for reassurance, even if, like me, I write for the fun of it and not for fame or fortune. Of course it would be nice to have a list of best-sellers to my name and to appear at book launches and sign my name on my books for all the adoring fans, but that isn't going to happen and I'm not sure if it would suit me if it did. Being a self-published author, I can choose my own time to write (no pressure!) or not to write. I am not tied to any deadline. I do work hard to make my novels as good as possible and I am a very harsh critic of my own work, but aside from that, I don't let it dominate who I am or what I do. It's just great fun to spin these tales and invent this little world inside my head.

But when someone comes up to me and says they loved my novel, well, that's a very special feeling and one I wouldn't swap for anything.