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.

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.