Ashamed!

I can't believe I have left it so long since my last entry.  I can only say that my hobby has completely occupied my time.  Am-dram, you are a hard mistress.  And I have had some time away in Turkey and the Algarve.

Istanbul

Tavira - Algarve

All I can say is a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Since then I have been busy building a series of sets for The Stables theatre production of Jeeves and Wooster, which is now culminating in full houses of veery happy people.  So it's back to the drawing board for my two writing projects.  I am concentrating on the Regency couple of Joe Malinferno and Doll Pocket and the novel of their exploits that is called "The Hieroglyph Murders".  Some of the characters from my short stories of the pair will reappear and be expanded from their cameo roles in the stories that saw the light of day in the Medieval Murderers books, "King Arthur's Bones" and "Hill of Bones".  French Egyptologist Jean-Claude Casteix and his wooden leg will figure prominently as Joe and Doll figure out why those attempting to decipher hieroglyphics are suddenly dying.  The ill-fated but intriguing Queen Caroline will also put in an appearance or two, along with other real-life people such as Champollion, the eventual decipherer of the Egyptian symbols.  IN this story, he gets considerable assistance in that task from an unexpected source.
Lovers of Falconer should not be disappointed though. I still have another tale in the pipeline, and I will finish it too before long.  If am-dram doesn't get too much in the way.

I have had an email from a fan asking about my progress on the Georgian novel featuring Joe Malinferno and Doll Pocket.  It made me feel guilty about the lack of progress I have been amking on both it and the new Falconer book.  I confess I have not been writing much for the last three months, and now I must remedy that.  I am split between making headway with either book, and need to decide which one I will concentrate on first.  The Falconer has been begun, and calls me more urgently, whereas the Georgian book needs more research.  But research fascinates me more than the task of writing!  Maybe I can dovetail both together.
In the meantime, my am-dram hobby calls and I am going to direct "Blithe Spirit" by Noel Coward in July.  It is a perennial favourite in the theatre, and I shall be looking for fresh ideas to revive it for a new audience.

No excuse

I have no excuse for leaving it so long between blogs.  Except I do.  I was heavily involved in my other hobby of amateur dramatics.  I played the part of the drunken photographer, Henry Ormonroyd, in J B Priestley's "When We Are Married".  Take a look at some of the pictures on artypharty.com, Peter Mould's website.  Click on the relevant play and look for the red-faced man!  The play went down well, and we all got plenty of laughs - all for the right reasons.
And now I am embarking on directing an Alan Ayckbourn play called "Taking Steps".  We present it in May in Hastings, then take it in June to our sister drama group in Chicago Heights, USA.  These are Alan Ayckbourn’s words about the play.
“In the first act you take the audience by the hand and lead them across the floor.  In the second, you start to walk them up the wall.  And in the third act, you begin to walk them on the ceiling, so they end up hanging upside down saying ‘Hey, what am I doing?’”

I am working on some new books also - honest!  As well as the Georgian novel with Joe Malinferno and Doll Pocket, which will revolve around grave robbers and surgeons - I have an idea for continuing the Falconer series.  I know I had bade him farewell in book nine, but I feel another one coming on.  This one will be set in Trebizond, and William and Saphira are on their way to far-off Cathay.  It is a location I have used in the latest Medieval Murderers book "The Deadliest Sin", in a story told by their son David Falconer.  So, you see, there is more story to tell about them anyway.   I want to fill in the gaps, as it were.

I have also had some interest in my stories in Italy, so there is a chance that they may appear in Italian in the future.  There are some editions in German and French out there too, though they may only be available second-hand.

And there I must leave it, as I am soon to go to a rehearsal of "Taking Steps".  If you want to buy tickets for the show, go to stablestheatre.co.uk.

A New Year

Happy New Year, everyone who reads this blog...and to everyone else who doesn't!  Last year, my agent and friend, Dot Lumley died.  I sincerely hope better things will happen this year.  She was someone who kept me on the straight and narrow - from a writing perspective - and was always optimistic about my work.  Without her, some of the later Falconers would not have come about, so I have a lot to thank her for.  I am now beginning to plan out the full-length Georgian novel I have been thinking about.  Using my characters from short stories - Joe Malinferno and Doll Pocket - I will start what I hope might be a new series taking them through the events of the 1820s in England, and off to Egypt in pursuit of their interest in all things Egyptian.  The life of Giovanni Belzoni will be my guide to the times and the place.  A real-life (even larger-than-life) character, Belzoni was responsible for bringing some of the first artefacts to England from under the noses of the French in Egypt.  In return he was poorly treated, perhaps because he was not a gentleman, and a foreigner to boot.  He died in Africa, searching for Timbuktu.

This year heralds the arrival of the tenth Medieval Murderers book "The Deadliest Sin".  Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins are swapped by pilgrims in Norfolk, as they vie to claim the deadliest of them all.  Look out for it.  Plans are afoot for the next book.
That's the new year for me as a writer.  My enthusiasm for amateur drama will also take up some time, as I will be acting in a play at the Stables, Hastings in March, and directing in May.  I also have the trip to our 'sister' drama group in Chicago coming up in June.  Lots to look forward to in 2014.

An ending and a beginning

It's taken me some time to get back to writing in my blog.  I have been struggling with the final Falconer novel, which I had planned to finish by the end of September.  It took me to the end of December.  It was as though William Falconer himself did not want to 'die' (spoiler alert - he doesn't die in the book).  I write in a pretty tight fashion, such that I will never be able to write a 500-page blockbuster.  But when I completed the first draft of 'Falconer and the Rain of Blood' it was very short, so I had to work through expanding my ideas and descriptions.  I even added another layer of the story, bringing King Edward into it.  Finally, despite all his delaying tactics,Falconer's final story was completed.
I hope it will appear some time in the new year (2013), which reminds me to say Happy New Year to everyone.  Come on, I'm only two weeks late!  Another year has begun, and I have a couple of short stories to write for the Medieval Murderers' tenth book.  We were going to write tales based on the Ten Commandments, but it was thought that, though 'Thou shalt not kill.' was a fine theme for a story, it was too difficult to make something of 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' and some others.  Much better to work on the Seven Deadly Sins, and I volunteered for Greed and Gluttony.  Don't ask me why.
I am also giving some thought to expanding my stories set in Regency England.  I do like the characters, Joe Malinferno and Doll Pocket, and the chance they give me to inject more humour into my stories.  So far they have only appeared in short stories in anthologies and in other Medieval Murderers books.  They deserve a full length run, I think.  I will pull together their story so far, and send them off to Egypt to uncover tombs and mummies.  More on that when I get time.
That's all the news to date, other than to mention that I am pursuing my hobby of amateur dramatics still.  Tomorrow I start to work on a production of 'Crown Matrimonial' that I am directing.  For those of you who don't know, it's a play about the abdication of Edward VIII which concentrates on the personal lives of Queen Mary and her sons David (Edward VIII) and Bertie (George VI) and the impact David's decision had on those around him.  If you are in Hastings in April, come along.  It's on at the Stables Theatre from 12 to 20 April and the website is www.stables-theatre.co.uk

Strands

Life has been a little busy of late, so I apologise for not writing anything until now.  I have managed to squeeze in a walking holiday in Gran Canaria, and a trip to my old haunts in Cornwall.  I have also started rehearsing for the Stables Theatre's production of  "A Christmas Carol".  I have several lines in the Chorus, and two small parts as Scrooge's headmaster, and a dealer in rags and second-hand goods called Old Joe.  This latter character is describes as grey-haired and seventy, so why did I get the part?  My great acting skills, I guess.
In between all this, I am still making my way towards the end of the last Falconer.  I seem reluctant to finish, but I am getting there.  Of course Falconer may still figure in the stories I write with the Medieval Murderers.  Who knows?  We have a contract for our tenth book due in 2014, and being the tenth it will be based on the Ten Commandments.  With five or maybe six of us writing, it means two stories each, especially with a prologue and an epilogue to write.  So there is ample scope for two of my regular characters to appear.Who will it be?
What I also have in mind is to write a full-length novel using my Regency characters, Joe Malinferno and Doll Pocket.  They are a little bit more fun to write about than either Falconer or Zuliani, and there's plenty of new historical facts to mine for stories.  Malinferno was imagined after my reading of the engineer and Egyptologist Giovanni Belzoni.  He was no 'toff' like most people involved in mining Egypt for relics at the time, but a simple working man with a background as a circus strong man.  He worked for the British Museum, figuring out how to move vast statues in impossible conditions, and was responsible for digging out Abu Simbel.  In the end he was badly treated by the establishment - I suspect because of his lowly origins.  I have only written short stories so far using Malinferno and Pocket, and want to expand their lives into full-length books.  Go to my website to discover the books where they have appeared.
Ah well, back to Falconer.