Editing...

...is a game, a tennis match, a battle of wits, an exercise in horse-trading, and whatnot, but every once in a while you just have to concede the point to your editor. So (sadly) the following lines will not now appear in White Crow, when it's published in July.

I know some who have seen great fissures in the earth, rent cave mouths and slit rock, wherein lies the entrance to the path to Hell. I spoke to a man from the North of England some years gone, who told me he had seen such an entrance with his very eyes. I understood from him that the gateway to Hell is somewhere outside Bolton.

Maybe it's for the best...there are some nice librarians in Bolton, after all.

I think I might start posting more deletions. Could make a whole new book out of them...

White Crow

So I wrote this book and it was supposed to be called The Angel and the Devil and then I changed that to The Angel or the Devil, because prepositions make all the difference, and then, well, shucks, after many 'discussions' (please imagine really exaggerated air-quotes at this point) with my publisher, it has been changed again. It's now White Crow, and actually, I'm pretty happy with that.

And also, and VERY strangely for me, I'm really enjoying working on the rewrites for it. Usually I hate this bit so much, and I figure it's the bit where I actually earn my money, because it's the only bit of writing that feels like work... Maybe this time is different because writing the first draft was harder than usual. It all comes out in the wash, swings and roundabouts, what goes around comes around, somebody up there must really hate me....*

* please supply your own cliché if these are not to your taste.

Magic and Mayhem...

...is the title of Raven Mysteries Book V, which I am writing at the mo. I'm about halfway through which is good, because I promised myself I'd have it done by Christmas, and if I'm still writing at five minutes to midnight on Christmas eve, I'll nod at Santa as he comes down the flue of the log burner and jolly well keep on writing.

All is going fine so far, and the 'plot' has frequent mention of cabbages, bunnies and the lethal combination of the two. Obviously. I have to confess I'm getting some help with this one; rabbit names are being supplied by the best rabbit namer in the country (that's official), and my very own daughter told me the funniest thing I've heard in years the other day, so that's going in too!

Now, how many hours till Christmas exactly? Oh, dear...

Blooming Christmas

Except I'm actually quite enjoying it this year. Of course the house always looks better with a giant inflatable Homer Simpson Santa outside ;-)

Apologies for the profanities displaying on my Twitter feed - I've deleted it now as it seemed to have been infiltrated by people with lots of bad words in their naughty little heads...