Authors Electric

What I'm about to describe is not my usual way of editing and certainly not particularly recommended! Still, it seems to have worked this time. I had been worried all along that I wouldn't get the 29th novel in my mystery series finished before being summoned into hospital for my heart surgery. I worried that if I had to have a long break from writing, I would completely forget where I was going with the story, and the whole thing would turn out as disjointed as one of my previous novels in the series, the one entitled 'Unrelated Incidents' because that was more or less what the plot consisted of. Fortunately this title fitted in with those of some others in the same series ('Unpredictable Events' and 'Unsafe Distances', for instance). I have just completed this latest one, and edited and published it in record time, thanks to a more or less unexpected combination of circumstances. As I write this, there is still no sign of a message from the hospital, w...

Meow, this is a sad-but-true tale you should tell to all your kittens, particularly if they have white ears. Earlier this year, a nasty buzzing flying thing stung my ear. It hurt a bit afterwards, but my human cleaned the sore for me and I kept washing my ear with my paw. One must look one's best with so many handsome Toms in the neighbourhood, and I should know. I've had two litters of kittens in my youth, the last litter with two different fathers, before the vet took my queen-cat parts away so I couldn't have any more... don't ask. Suffice to say when I see the cat carrier these days, I hide. Since I'm such a clean cat with a well-trained human, little sores like my sting normally clear up in their own time. Only this one didn't. It grew into a lump. This is what my lump looked like in May. (I'm scowling at the camera because I like to look my best in photos - you never know if they'll end up on social media one day.) But the lump itself didn't re...

Hauntings  A week to Hallowe'en — party night for ghosties, ghoulies and witches. I don't believe in ghosts. Of course I don't. I'm far too rational. I just write about them. My parents didn't believe in them either. They were adamant about that. "There's no such thing as ghosts. Go to sleep." Except my mother would sometimes tell me about the house where I was born, which she hated. It had no water indoors and no bathroom. You had to go over 'the track' to the wash-house for water and walk to the end of the row for the toilets. No electricity in the house either, though it did have gas. But none of these were her reasons for hating it. She'd never lived in a house that was any better equipped. She hated it because it was haunted. My Dad often worked late, so Mom spent many evenings alone. She'd always loved reading, so she'd curl up in a corner of their third-hand sofa, with her library book, and her cat, Tiny, purring on her lap. ...

My picture book Nobody, Him and Me features a murderous, bullying cat, Biter the Fighter. Three small, smart mice trick him into chasing them up onto a high beam and then they scamper down, leaving him stranded and quivering because he’s afraid of heights. Ultimately, he’s carried off on a cushion to Mrs Kindly’s Rest Home for Distressed Moggies.    I had to change ‘Moggies’ to ‘Cats’ which was a shame, I thought. Anyway, after a school visit in which I used the book, a teacher came up and fixed me with a decidedly evil eye. ‘You don’t like cats, then,’ she snarled. I defended myself by drawing her attention to my other book featuring a cat, The Hob and Miss Minkin stories. Miss Minkin is a beloved tabby in a farmhouse modelled on the smallholding we moved to when I was in my teens. At night, when the family is asleep, she swaps stories and has adventures with Hob, who lived under the hearthstone.   "Hob lived under the hearthstone at Ghyllside Farm, but no-one had...