Goatsucker Harvest: Yorkshire author reads excerpt from her novel

A couple of almost bloopers, weird morning lighting and a recalcitrant pigeon flying in for his breakfast in the background.

This is an excerpt from the beginning of Chapter 17 "Under the Milk Moon" from my historical fantasy novel set in Yorkshire in 1855 Goatsucker Harvest. Written in Yorkshire, set in Yorkshire, celebrating Yorkshire, here read by its Yorkshire author.

This is a few pages from the middle of the story where canal lass Thirza meets Bram "Dutchy" Beharrell, reclusive pinder and marshman and his kooikerhondje dog Piper, at his mysterious duck decoy in the remote boggy peat moorland known to history as Thorne & Hatfield Moors, South Yorkshire. For the first time, outsider Bram finds a kindred spirit, another soul with whom he can share his secrets.

No plot spoilers here, so you can listen with confidence!
The book is available to buy as a paperback (seen in this clip) or to download to your Kindle from Amazon worldwide.

Hope you enjoy and thanks for all your support.

Dribbles and Dabbles with Drabbles

Dribbles? Drabbles?

Not altogether gobbledygook if you bear with me!

When you're writing, "dribbles" often describes the fragmented way the storytelling progresses: a dribble of inspiration here, a dribble of frantic scribbling there, seasoned with a dribble of banging your head on the keyboard!

"Drabbles" on the other hand, are a method I find useful to help pull my "dribbles" of creativity together along the writing journey. I hope this idea may help you, too. Sometimes when those "dribbles" seem to be drying up, a "drabble" or two can prime the pump and get your story-brain refreshed, released and ready to weave those words into gold.

I'm reaching the tipping point of my new novel. The research is done. The plot is arced. The procrastinating side-projects are frustratingly complete. The blind alleys of my storyland are cordoned off with Hi-Vis "Do Not Enter" tape. The characters are alive in my head. I can hear what they'd say and picture the situations they're about to get themselves into. The sense of place just off the Yorkshire Coast is so real to me I can smell the seaweed and feel the spray stinging my characters' skin and the change of light before dusk. I've chalk under my nails from clinging onto the sheer cliffs in my imagination. I'm raring to go! My first draft is beckoning me to plunge over the edge of those risky still-blank pages and swim for dear life to the shore at the end of the tale.

So, when your dribbles run dry, maybe it's time for a dabble with a drabble!

The wiki says: Drabble: A drabble is a short work of fiction of around one hundred words in length, not necessarily including the title. The purpose of the drabble is brevity, testing the author's ability to express interesting and meaningful ideas in a confined space.

In other words, flash fiction. For me, it's just a great way of getting my writing flowing whenever it stalls. If I have a scene from the novel that's in my mind for later, getting in the way of the current plotline, a "drabble" dealing with that character, that plot twist, that conflict, that setting, is a way of getting creative instead of blocked. Maybe the seeds from the drabble will be grist to the mill of a new story, an unexpected turn, a deepening of some exchange within the book. It doesn't even have to be connected. A drabble can get you writing again when you're overwhelmed. It's non-threatening, expendable, achievable almost anywhere, anytime. It's that blank page clothed in purpose, colour, forward motion.

It can even become a part of your work in progress. It can ignite a dormant creative spark. It can be your own private pool of light-bulb moments. It can be a short holiday break for your imagination to go exploring again before coming home rejuvenated to the work in hand. It can be just what you need it to be!

Wishing you joy and word-woven blessings, whether you're a fellow writer, reader, a fan of GOATSUCKER HARVEST or you've just wandered in to do a bit of procrastination from your own personal challenges today! Welcome!

"Tropical Storm Zeta 2005" by NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center 

Here's a quick 102-word drabble I've written which may or may not get its seat at the banquet in my WIP:



Waves roll upside down, sucking the sky beneath through lips like a dolphin's. Head spinning now.
A guillemot skittles out of a cliff-face inverted inches from her nose. A vortex of fish oil tang closes her throat. 
"Did you see it? Careful! Sit down, you'll have us overboard!"
Disembodied voices far above.
"Below, I mean..." Trying to correct herself, steady herself. The strap creaks. Too much give in it.
Blood-singing, suffocating closeness all around, yet the salt spray's icy, flinging itself down in an arc and falling back upwards into stormclouds.
The scream seems to be her own as the sea explodes.

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HAPPY WORLD BOOK DAY!

HAPPY WORLD BOOK DAY to my friends and readers everywhere!

Overjoyed to say that reactions and reviews for my debut novel "Goatsucker Harvest" have been going from strength to strength since the publication of the Kindle Version on Christmas Eve and the launch of the title in paperback in January. You can read the UK reviews on Amazon here and Australian reviews here. All your feedback is SO much appreciated & helps future readers choose to dive into unknown waters confidently! Thank you!

While researching my second novel, set on the North Sea Coast of Yorkshire, this week I had an amazing dream involving characters from both books. This dream planted some fantastic seeds in my imagination and helped to give a whole new spin on the plot that will twist it in some unexpected directions that I hope will delight and intrigue my readers. They blew me away, so that's a good start!

I always find it fascinating to discover what my favourite writers are reading. After all, keeping the wells of our imaginations primed with incredible imput is precious creative lifeblood.

So here are some books I've been enjoying in the past month or so, which I'd recommend if they appeal to you:

"Alias Grace" by Margaret Attwood (fictionalised account of a 19thc female murder accused.)

"The Bone Clocks" by David Mitchell (mesmerising off-the-wall fantasy following the life of one girl from teenage years to maturity in the near future, told in a series of five very distinctive first person narratives. Often laugh-out-loud hilarious, sometimes disturbing, with extra-terrestrial good and evil struggles and including a closing vision of the world as it might well be if humanity carries on consuming and manipulating creation at the current pace.)

"Elizabeth is Missing" by Emma Healey (mystery narrated by an octogenarian woman with Alzheimer's - an incredible read, recommended to anybody dealing with dementia, which might include any of us at any time.)

"The Miniaturist" by Jessie Burton (thriller set in 17thc Amsterdam - mouthwatering literary fiction with a magical realism vibe.)

"Waterlog" by Roger Deakin (I just wanted to pack my bags and swim in all the secret watery places, the rivers, streams. spas, lakes and lidos Deakin explores in this beautiful journey through Britain. Haunting and unforgettable.)

I'll stop there for now! For many like me, with relapsing/remitting autoimmune diseases, brainfog and bone-crunching exhaustion sometimes means reading (and writing) can become almost impossible for wilderness months at a stretch. So when I'm having a relatively healthy period these days, I try to pack in as much as I can, whenever I can!

Whatever you read, or write, I hope you enjoy it, and celebrate it and share it!
Books help us dip through into different universes, timeframes and lives, so every moment we're breathing, we can live a life less limited. What a joy and a privilege, eh?

GOATSUCKER HARVEST (for UK readers)

GOATSUCKER HARVEST (for US readers)

GOATSUCKER HARVEST (for AUS readers)

Next Year's Words

"Looking at God's creation, it is pretty clear that the creator itself did not know when to stop. There is not one pink flower, or even fifty pink flowers, but hundreds. Snowflakes, of course, are the ultimate exercise in sheer creative glee. No two alike. This creator looks suspiciously like someone who just might send us support for our creative ventures." - Julia Cameron 'The Artist's Way'

New Year's Day presents itself as an open-faced virgin page. It waits for lives to live themselves in its playground of possibilities. For me and writers everywhere, the blank page is both a place of breathtaking expectation and a wilderness of dithering dilemmas, even fear and block.

New Years' Resolutions are often broken before I have time to put pen to paper or, these days, fingertip to key. A writer's not a writer unless they are writing. So I go on writing and never look back, unless to face down shadows that need to pour themselves into prose or poetry, or to gather half-forgotten scents and scenes and pin them to the page. This year, as every year, this is my resolution.

T.S.Eliot wrote the following lines in "Little Gidding" from his "Four Quartets":

"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice."

Better not keep them waiting, then! What on earth or in heaven would we be waiting for?