Before I start with my overview of the year, I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. I hope your turkey is nice and plump, you’ll probably still be eating it at Easter. I trust your wine is nice and chilled and you empty the bottles on Christmas day. And I hope Santa will fill your stocking with plenty of goodies and lots of books. As the old saying goes, ‘You can never have enough socks at Christmas’ well, just change the word ‘socks’ to ‘books’ and it’s spot on.
So, what has this year held for me? It started out well
enough, although there were these rumours of a new disease in China. But China
is far away from Scotland, so what was there to worry about? I was finishing my
new book, Dangerous Destiny, and getting it ready to publish once my editor had
taken her pruning scissors to it. Cathy Helms of Avalon Graphics had done a brilliant cover for the book and I knew people were waiting for it, particularly at
the markets I regularly visit with my bookstall.
In agreement with what Rabbie Burns said in his poem To a
Mouse ‘The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley’, my plan withered
and died in front of me.
My last market was at the beginning of March and I was gaily
promising my reader customers – the new book will be on my bookstall in April.
But, as we all know, by the end of March we were all in lockdown and there was
no April market.
I now had 150 copies of my new book with nowhere for it to
go!
From March until July, I never ventured outside my garden
gate. So, when lockdown ended and I gathered enough courage into my hands to walk
up to the High Street (I was forced, I had to post a book to a keen reader) it
felt very strange indeed. Next, I tentatively ventured to my newsagent, and it
wasn’t too bad. However, I wasn’t yet prepared to cancel all my online
deliveries, so I stayed well clear of the supermarkets.
It was at this time I was contacted by a television company wanting
to commission me to take part in an episode of Secret Scotland with Susan
Calman to talk about Devil’s Porridge, the explosive not the book. This was an
offer I couldn’t refuse, but it meant travelling to Gretna, which was a hotspot
for the virus at that time.
With Susan Calman at Eastriggs filming Devil's Porridge
I enrolled the help of my granddaughter and she drove me to
Gretna, where we stayed overnight before filming at Eastriggs the next day. I must
admit I was scared silly at the thought, but we did it and it all went
smoothly, and no, I didn’t contract the virus, neither did my granddaughter.
Susan Calman and the whole TV crew were lovely, and it was an experience I
would have hated to miss. Oh, and if you’re interested, it was the Secret
Scotland series 3, episode 4, Galloway and the Borders and it was shown in
October on Channel 5.
Back home I became a hermit again and I’ve remained very
much a hermit ever since. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever feel confident
enough to brave the wide world again, outside my garden wall?
Looking on the bright side, I’ve become adept at Zooming! I’ve
done several author panels on Zoom, as well as some interviews and talks. It’s
a strange old virtual world.
The other bonus is that my new book, Dangerous Destiny, has
been trickling out due to readers messaging me on Facebook to order it and online
sales are also ticking away. Quite surprisingly, though, I’ve had a sudden rush
on a Salt Splashed Cradle, which is not one of my crime books. It’s a historical
family saga set in the 1830s in the fishing and whaling communities in
north-east Scotland. I suppose you could call it a gritty romance. I’m
absolutely hopeless at writing anything fluffy or light-hearted. My characters
are more salt of the earth types.
Well, that’s about the strength of my year and I really must
put my head down and try to finish my new work in progress. If it ever gets
finished, it’s a contemporary thriller, the fourth in my Dundee Crime Series,
and it’s all about the sequence of events when my main character, Tony Palmer,
wakes up next to a dead body.
Have a lovely Christmas everyone and let’s hope the coming
year is a lot better than the year that is now finishing.
Chris Longmuir
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