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Good morning

It’s Monday, and I’m sitting in Pret a Manger in Station Square, Cambridge.

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Now Is The Time Of Monsters

The first 11 of 60 chapters are completed. In the early part of the week, I was working on Chapter 60. The Denouement.

My notes remind me that

THE DENOUEMENT IS THE SHORT MOMENT OF CALM WHICH THE READER SPENDS WITH THE PROTAGONISTS TO SAY GOODBYE TO CHARACTERS THEY HAVE, HOPEFULLY, GROWN TO LOVE

In the latter part, I started work on Chapter 59. The Climax.

...

Good morning

It’s Monday, and I’m sitting in Pret a Manger in Station Square, Cambridge.

……………………………………………………………………

Now Is The Time Of Monsters

The first 11 of 60 chapters are completed. In the early part of the week, I was working on Chapter 60. The Denouement.

My notes remind me that

THE DENOUEMENT IS THE SHORT MOMENT OF CALM WHICH THE READER SPENDS WITH THE PROTAGONISTS TO SAY GOODBYE TO CHARACTERS THEY HAVE, HOPEFULLY, GROWN TO LOVE

In the latter part, I started work on Chapter 59. The Climax.

...

Good afternoon from Caffe Nero in Station Square, Cambridge.

Book Two, ‘The Half-Life Girl’ is done and dusted. It locks neatly into Book Three ‘Now Is The Time Of Monsters’.

At the end of Book Two, the brothers take a demon passage back into Brigid’s workshop in London on the 4th January 1794.

If you’ve ever been away from home for a long time, you’ll have experienced that sensation where half your mind is back where you were before, and half is in the place you’ve returned to.

Right away, it’...

Good morning from King’s Cross Station in London.

I’m aboard a crowded train heading for King’s Lynn. Cambridge is the first stop.

The UK has many placenames which we take for granted. I have no idea what the ‘Lynn’ belonging to the King was, but it was important enough to name a good-sized town on the east coast of England after.

I put Chapter 56 of ‘The Half-Life Girl’ through the ProWritingAid app yesterday morning. Chapter 60 has been revised many times already because it has to lock into...

Good morning from a sunny Caffe Nero, Station Square, Cambridge.

I put Chapter 48 through the ProWritingAid app (which picks up spelling, punctuation and grammar errors.) There are 60 chapters in all. Currently, I have 71,200 words written. I pulled 4 chapters on readers’ advice I’m aiming for 75,000 words.

I think ‘The Half-Life Girl’ will be done and dusted next week!

The third book is called ‘Now Is The Time Of Monsters’. Once again, my target will be at least 75,000 words. I’m delighted to...

Good morning from Caffe Nero, Station Square, Cambridge.

The new business venture I’m involved in has put a brake on my writing productivity recently. However, the second book is written. At the moment, I’m putting it through the ProWritingAid app, which picks up spelling, punctuation and grammar errors.

To get it over the line, I’m opening up the second of the three Facebook groups I’ve created for the ‘Portals’ trilogy. It’s called ‘The Half-Life Girl’. It’s here

https://bit.ly/3OUEJHC

Your...

Hi

Welcome to Caffe Nero on this cold Sunday morning. Twenty minutes ago, Station Square, Cambridge, was filled with Spanish teenagers and their teachers. Fifteen minutes ago, they had boarded coaches bound for … maybe London, maybe York, maybe Edinburgh.

I enjoy busy places. I’m not an author who sits in a cold garret, writing by the light of a single candle, sharing morsels of cheese with a mouse.

If you recall, last week, I wrote that I would turn the four-part story I shared with you into a...

Hi

Good afternoon. I’m still at home with my cold.

I’ve decided to turn the four-part story I sent you into a Reader Magnet - a taster for the Portals trilogy which fantasy readers can download via Prolific Works or Bookfunnel. It won’t appear in Book Three.

Thank you to everyone who contacted me.

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Some time ago, I produced a paperback version of the eight Tinker Tailor stories.

I recently looked at the book description and ‘that’s pretty uninspiring.

It’s here

...

Hi

Good morning. It’s -6C in balmy, sun-drenched Cambridge in the east of England, and I’m staying home with a Man Cold.

The final part of the four-part ‘Professor and Doctor’ story follows immediately beneath the list of my books at the bottom of this newsletter. It’s published exclusively here.

Book Three is called ‘Now Is The Time Of Monsters.’ By the end of Book Two, ‘The Half-Life Girl’, readers will have met all the dynatoi. They are formidable. The Maiden Orders will need every weapon at...

Hi

Good morning. I was going to greet you from the Cotswolds in the west of England yesterday. There was a big family get-together to celebrate my cousin’s birthday on Saturday. Unfortunately, I got separated from my laptop, which was in a guest house, because we got snowed in at the party.

It’s always good to have a real adventure from time to time!

Part Three of the four-part ‘Professor and Doctor’ story follows immediately beneath the list of my books at the bottom of this newsletter. It’s...

Hi

Good morning from Caffe Nero in Station Square, Cambridge.

Part Two of the four-part ‘Professor and Doctor’ story follows immediately beneath the list of my books at the bottom of this newsletter. You won’t find it on Amazon; it’s published exclusively in this newsletter. Part Three will be in the newsletter on Sunday, January 5th.

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Here's an update on ‘The Half-Life Girl.’ After I removed the four chapters that make up the ‘Professor and Doctor Adventure’, the book...

Hi

Good morning from Caffe Nero in Station Square, Cambridge.

I have an early seasonal gift for you :)

It follows directly beneath the list of my books at the other end of this newsletter. It’s the first of four chapters of a mini-book - like Agatha’s Story - but you won’t find It on Amazon. It’s published in this newsletter and nowhere else.

It’s a story I removed from ‘The Half-Life Girl’. Not because I think it’s poor but because there are too many separate stories running through the book,...

Hi

Good morning from Caffe Nero in Station Square, Cambridge.

You may or may not know that all the BOOK PROMOTIONS, BARGAINS AND FREE BOOKS that appear in these newsletters come from a single source. It’s called Bookfunnel.

It works like this. I subscribe one or more of my books to a book promotion. There may be 60 other authors in that promotion. And then, we all share each other’s books in our newsletters.

I usually share the same two books: ‘Agatha’s Story’ and ‘Loki and The Frost Giant.’

...

Hi

This is a good book and hot buttered toast sort of day, snug inside, with the rain lashing against the windows, and the wind howling around the houses.

Instead, I’m in Caffe Nero with a scarf wrapped around my neck eating a warm mince pie with cream, which is almost as good.

Talking of good books, I think my first book in the ‘Portals’ trilogy, meets that criteria. It’s ranked 4.8 on Amazon US.

When I finished writing the book, I sent it to a structural editor in Louisiana. Her 12-page report...

Hi

On 25th October 1999, a band called Sneaker Pimps released their second album. The first track was calming yet disturbing.

The name of that song sat in my memory for many years before I resurrected it and incorporated into ‘Beyond The Shining Portals’.

If you’ve read the book, you may recall that the song playing on the juke box in the Retro Bar, where Jack met Elektra and Leah in the calm world of the City and its disturbing counterpart in the Forest, was ‘Half Life’.

‘Half Life’, was the...

Hi

On Sunday, an update scrambled my files and I’ve just found them. It’s Monday evening now. I am in Caffe Nero in Station Square, Cambridge.

There is a huge glittering orb beyond the window. At least four metres (thirteen feet) high. It has a silver top with a hole for hanging from a giant Christmas tree. There are blue, white and gold lights coiled around the street lamps. Cambridge is one of the most prosperous cities in the UK. It does Christmas well.

https://bit.ly/3H4PzGt

I posted this...

Hi

It’s been a busy week.

On Monday, my wife travelled to Beijing to see her mum. The poor soul is not well. I think it is fair to say my mother-in-law has not the slightest idea where the UK is. Sometimes she will call my wife and ask her to order her a snack from a takeaway in Chaoyang City, which of course, my wife, as her dutiful daughter, does.

On Tuesday morning, I attended a round-table business meeting in London. And on Thursday evening, I was in London once again, for a concert. My...

It’s well and truly autumn in Cambridge, and my mind has turned to travelling to Edinburgh. I have an invitation to attend a Burns Night Supper on the 17th January.

Rabbie Burns is the national poet of Scotland. We studied his poems at school in their original form. I defy you not to read this in Lowland Scottish.

To A Mouse

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,

O, what a pannic's in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi' bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,

...

Hi

It’s well and truly autumn in Cambridge, and my mind has turned to travelling to Edinburgh. I have an invitation to attend a Burns Night Supper on the 17th January.

Rabbie Burns is the national poet of Scotland. We studied his poems at school in their original form. I defy you not to read this in Lowland Scottish.

To A Mouse

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,

O, what a pannic's in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi' bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,...

No trains are running between Cambridge and London this morning. Station Square is empty. It’s a cold, grey morning.

Normally, this would dampen my spirits just a little, but not this morning.

On Friday, I completed revising ‘The Half-Life Girl’. Yesterday, I worked on Book Three, ‘Now Is The Time Of Monsters.’ I hadn’t realised I’d already written 52,183 words.

‘The Half-Life Girl’ will now go out to readers for comments. The middle book of a trilogy is usually the weakest. That’s why I ended...