Confessions of an Author

Feeling Frazzled 5 Feeling rather frazzled as I write this. There are several reasons, but the main one is a mouse, in the house, which is never a welcome adventure. Now, I am quite good with animals in general, and I think that other than spiders, I could sensibly handle any animal, big or small, that I needed to – if it was contained. But there is something about rodents, especially mice and rats, which, when I encounter them running around freely, makes me scream like a girl. Not really sure why. We still have the painter/decorator in the house (possibly another reason for feeling frazzled) and he had just started to prepare the recently emptied lounge, when he mentioned that a mouse had run the length of the hall and disappeared under the study door. Super news, just what I was hoping to hear. Old incontinent cat. I collected old incontinent cat from her new home in the garage (she can’t live in the utility room while the painter is here) and dumped her in the stu

Researching a Psychopath (and how to avoid being killed). 1 Do you know how to stay safe from a serial killer? I have spent the last year discovering as much as I can about psychopathy. This was mainly as background for my books, so they are authentic. However, I did also learn a few things that might be useful in real life. You probably know a psychopath. Have a think, do you know someone who’s fun to listen to, but tends to be a bit ‘glib’ – they’ll move on if someone more interesting comes along? Someone who might have been in trouble as a child – perhaps stealing or vandalising? Someone who sometimes speaks in quite a muddled manner, so if you ask them a question, you’re not always sure what their answer was? Someone who is mainly concerned with themselves – so they rarely comment, or ‘like’ other people’s posts on Facebook, unless it will benefit themselves. They won’t let you know whether or not they’ll be attending an event – and are very likely to not show up at the

Psalms In my read through the Bible I have reached Psalms. I didn’t find it a very easy book to read through, as each Psalm is like a poem, and if I wasn’t in the right mood, it was hard to connect with what the psalmist was writing. Lots were written by David, when he was fighting for his life, so he was in a different situation to most of us. It’s quite difficult to hope all your enemies will die horrible deaths, if you don’t feel you actually have any enemies. However, there is still lots to glean from reading them. This book is made up of songs, which we tend to read as poems (and is actually divided into five separate books). I used the books by Michael Wilcock to help me understand them, and if you want to study individual psalms in detail, I would recommend it. (It’s part of The Bible Speaks Today series, ISBN 9780851115061) He describes the Psalms as being like “a photograph album, full of pictures that show us a variety of places in a land of spiritual experience.” I r

A Low Cholesterol Diet…(sort of) 1 The low cholesterol diet is not going as planned. You may remember that the doctor (who I will never visit again) did some blood tests, and when I phoned for the results, they said my cholesterol was too high. Which was a major blow. At first, I wondered if there was a mistake. I eat very little processed food, and have a fairly active life-style, and am not (I think) over weight for my age. So I decided to ignore it. But it did make me more aware, and I began to notice that I do eat rather a lot of chocolate, and cakes, and cheese sauce, and crisps, and so on. All of which are very high in saturated fat. The trouble is, everything that is nice seems to be high in saturated fat. But I decided to try and cut down, a little bit. So far, it’s not going very well. I started by switching from semi-skimmed milk to skimmed (yes, I know that won’t make much difference, but I figured I would edge into healthy eating rather than give my metabolism

Breakfasts and Dummies 6:30 am. Husband kindly woke me with coffee and cake. He was clearly worried that I might cause him to miss his train. It was also clear that I had  not  been clear that my event in London started with a breakfast. 8:30am. Arrived in London. My event didn’t start until 9:30, so I followed Husband into Pret (for another breakfast). Jubilee Line had problems, so I walked with Husband to Bank, and caught the DLR to Canary Wharf. It was very crowded. Tried hard to behave like a seasoned commuter and avoided all eye contact. At next station about 50 extra people rammed themselves onto train. I was now completely squeezed on all sides, broke commuter rule and shared a joke with the woman pressed into my right armpit. Everyone else pretended they were deaf/blind/hadn’t noticed that we were close enough to be sharing the same coat. Arrived in Canary Wharf. Still too early, so wandered around. Lots of tall glass buildings, steel tubs of tidy flowers – no s