I went into hospital to confirm that I didn’t have a blood clot and caught an infection. Now I can’t stop coughing and everything aches.

I’m giving up and coming back in the new year.

Hugs to everyone!

I am useless at planning, which annoys me. Many, many years ago I worked in jobs that demanded accurate and speedy work with seriously hard deadlines, but those skills are long gone. For ages I’ve tried to stick to a timetable of a little fiction on most Mondays, a little chat on some Wednesdays and an occasional book review on Fridays. Recently that has gone so far out of the window that it can’t be seen with a telescope.

This doesn’t just apply to my writing, by the way. I have a mound of knitting projects that have been started and forgotten that is large enough to hide a lost city. I am on Christmas card terms with all the delivery people around here as I have so many internet impulse buys. And my poor husband has learned to live with my erratic attitude to grocery shopping.

To be fair to myself, I’ve recently been busy with a lot of projects. This is partly because in nearly sixty years of life I have not learned how to set realistic goals. The quirkiest project that I’ve been involved with is #HazardousToYourSanity where a number of different bloggers write about projects that interest them. I’ve contributed a couple of posts about British Superstitions, here, here and here and there have been all sorts of topics from other authors, such as soup recipes, music playlists and some very spicy ideas. I’m committed to regular spots in the roster and I’m a couple of pieces ahead now, which is a relief. I was also incredibly honoured to be asked to write the Afterword for the next Kindle edition of A Place Called Paradise by Essie Summers. I’ll share when that comes out, but my part in that is now pretty much done so that’s off the list.

Of course, October is rapidly approaching and as so much of my writing revolves around the supernatural, I feel that I have to go for it. October Frights is back between October 10th and October 15th again, organised by the amazing AF Stewart. I have already got some stuff sorted out for that, and I’m planning a few good things for the rest of October, so watch this space!

Of course, Invitation Accepted is continuing and I have a lot of plans for that.

I am always reluctant to post that I am going to do something, as chaos always follows. If I say I’m going to turn right then, no matter what I do, I turn left every time. However I’ve finished the next instalment of Invitation Accepted and cued it up to be published on Monday, I’ve picked a book to review in eight days time, so the next realistic Friday, and I’m making notes about what I can chat about next Wednesday. I’m hoping that I can get back on track in time for October.

Now all I have to do is try and rein in my imagination and be realistic about what I can do in October – but I think it will still be worth it to watch this space!

The reason for doing research is so that you don’t look like an idiot.

The reason that you stop doing research is to avoid boring your reader and losing your sanity.

You should only research when it makes life easier for you.

In my opinion, when you are starting a piece of fiction, when should be a question that is asked early in the process. If you nail down that time then you make life a lot easier for yourself.

Let’s consider a sweet and gentle heroine, Gwendolyn, and a strong jawed hero, Kurt. They first meet during a magical moment at sunset. In the soft glow of the fading light, they smile and perhaps their hands touch as they part and go their separate ways towards… towards what?

I live in Leeds, UK. If they met today, 21^st June, at the end of my street (possibly the least romantic place in the world), sunset would be 9.40pm. She could be wearing a floating dress and cute sandals while he would be wearing jeans and a tight t-shirt that of course showed off his manly muscles. They would part and go towards their separate beds. However if they met, say, on March 21^st, then sunset would be 6.20pm and they would be going back to their evening pursuits, perhaps in snug sweaters and waterproof jackets. Gwendolyn will be embroidering a picture for a friend and Kurt will be rebuilding a motorbike. And if that first, tingling meeting was on 21^st December then sunset would be at 3.46pm and they would be rushing home for their evening meal. They are wearing warm boots and scarves and Gwendolyn’s meal probably involves a cupcake while Kurt is definitely having steak.

Most readers will probably not go around marking in pencil the different times of day and keeping track. On the other hand, those who notice that Gwendolyn and Kurt are suffering from irregular sunsets will find it incredibly annoying. Having a sunset at 5pm one day and 8pm the next isn’t great continuity and could jar if it’s noticed. It may not only stop them reading the book, it could stop them recommending the book and, worse, stop them buying more of your work.

It doesn’t matter if you are on the exact second. To a normal mortal like me, I couldn’t tell you the exact minute that the sun sets as I’m going about my daily life. I just know that the sun sets later on some days than on others and hang out my washing accordingly. When I’m writing, however, I know that I can use a rough rule of thumb to know whether the exciting chase through the woods is in dappled sunshine (which makes it harder to spot the dropped clue in the light and shade) or in darkness (which makes it easier for the dastardly ambusher to creep up on them).

Setting the time based on the present is one thing, but how about having Gwendoline and Kurt battling Victorian Vampires. They are creeping around 19^th century London, valiantly stalking the bloodsuckers. If the vampires struggle with daylight, knowing when the sun is likely to set is really important and, fortunately, sunrise and sunset times stay roughly the same for millennia. You can look up the times for this year and apply them whenever. In this scenario, the year is the important detail.

Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837. She died in 1901. That’s roughly 64 years, or the difference between 2023 and 1959. A lot of stuff happened in science, industry and politics and many people know enough about that time to quibble. If the characters are huddled together under a streetlight, is it powered by gas (from the 1820s) or electric (in general use from around 1878)? And as Lord Kurt has one manly arm around the fainting Miss Gwendolyne, does his other hand hold a Colt Walker (introduced 1847), a Colt Peacemaker (1873) or a Colt New Service (1898). While someone in 1898 could absolutely be using a well-maintained Colt Walker or even a blunderbuss, it’s slightly harder to have a Colt New Service in 1847, but that depends on the plot.

In general, on the whole and by and large, it doesn’t matter too much. If you are getting complaints, you can look the critic firmly in the eye and tell them, ‘It’s like that in my world.’ After all, vampires aren’t real, so what does it matter if a young Charles Dickens is using a commercial typewriter? If you want to give your story authentic bones (with room to fudge a year or two if the plot needs it – plot comes first) then if you pick a date at the start then you can always look up information as you feel you need it. Perhaps Bram Stoker writes Dracula after learning about vampires in a chance encounter with Gwendolyn and Kurt. Dracula was published in 1897, so let’s have the story set in 1875. That means that Kurt can have a shiny new Colt Peacemaker and Gwedonlyn will be wearing rigorous corsets and a bustle. And as you rattle through their amazing adventures, if you are in doubt, you can just have a quick look to see what was around in 1875, fiddle with stuff to make the plot work and carry on.

Fantasy writing is not too different when it comes to time. You may be creating a new world that is stuffed with elves and goblins and magic, but if you do a little bit of research at the start, you can make life a lot easier for yourself.

Kurt the Barbarian may be meeting the sweet Gwendolyn the Healer in the fabled city of Tarsh, but unless you feel like worrying about planetary physics, you can use the same rules for their daylight hours. Are they meeting as the sun sets and the gates of the city are closing? You can absolutely use the prosaic timings of Leeds. Perhaps it’s winter, and the sun dips below the Virnoth Mountains early and Kurt the Barbarian, resplendent in his furs, wraps a warm woollen cloak around Gwendolyn the Healer before leading her to a sustaining meal in a local inn. Or is it later in the year and the hot summer winds are swirling up from the plains of Redumar as the incense rises from the temples on the soft evening air.

By the way, did you know that sunrise and sunset are different depending on where in the world you are? Let’s take a sunset on 10^th November. In Leeds, where the modern day romance between Kurt and Gwendolyn is progressing nicely, the sun sets at 4.16pm. If you are being extremely detailed, the Victorian Vampire Hunters in London have sunset at 4.18pm on November 10^th  (and the chance of those two minutes being significant is extremely small). But perhaps Lord Kurt and Miss Gwendolyn have followed the vampires across Europe to the capital of Romania. Sunset at Bucharest on November 10^th is at 4.54pm. But wait, the fanged fiend has fled to an unexpected lair in Hong Kong. As they scull across the bustling harbour on that fateful 10^th November, the sun sets at 5.41pm. Alas, they miss their chance, and the bloodthirsty Count is now in Santiago, Chile. November 10^th is late spring or early summer in the Southern Hemisphere and as Lord Kurt escorts Miss Gwendolyn into the International Exposition in the Quinta Normal grounds, they fear that the sunset at 8.18pm will awaken their nemesis.

This may all seem like a lot of research, but it’s just a few clicks on the internet and then you have some bones to hang your story on. If you choose 10^th November in Leeds for the modern romance between Kurt and Gwendolyn then you can use the run up to Christmas with the city Christmas lights, the displays in Roundhay Park and all the Christmas shopping events as easy ways to frame their encounters as the story progresses. And if Lord Kurt and Miss Gwendolyn are searching Victorian London, it’s so much easier to know if a London Underground station would be open in a particular area if you can just check the history pages of a website for 1875 rather than worrying about making something up and then contradicting that two chapters later. And surely it’s easier to remember if Kurt the Barbarian and Gwendolyn the Healer are battling ice or heat waves if you have nailed down an equivalent real world date. After all, you don’t want the heat of the summer sun shining on the gilded domes of Tarsh if you’ve described the snow storm two paragraphs and three hours earlier.

My opinion is that a reader wants to know about the characters and the plot. The most important thing is absolutely the story. I believe that it’s easier for a reader to savour your wonderful writing if those minor, background details work together, support the story and help things flow. And if research gets in the way of the story – junk the research!

Happy Writing!

You can find the rest of the posts on this here – Research and the Author, Collected Posts

Sites that I have used when writing this article

Time and Date – for all those sunset times, and it’s also great for scheduling across time zones.

Military Factory – because while I remembered about the Peacemaker, I knew that there was a lot that I didn’t know

Fashion History Timeline – And if I had chosen 1876 instead, Miss Gwendolyn could have been wearing a sleek princess line dress instead of being encumbered by that bustle.

Just so you know, Whisper in the Shadows is free in eBook until 29th April 2023 11.59pm PST.

It’s No1 in the ‘Horror Short Story Collections Free on Amazon UK’ Bestseller list as I type, so I guess that I am officially a best seller of sorts.

As I have mentioned, Whisper in the Shadows is a collection of short stories with a slightly darker cast to them or perhaps a supernatural leaning. Eight of them were previously on my blog, though now have been moved to the eBook, and there are four new stories. It seems only fair that I give at least some value for money.

I thought that it would be a chance to talk about the inspiration of a couple of the new stories. Or, perhaps, make shameful admissions. I read posts about writers struggling to find inspiration, to find ideas and characters and places. I’m not one of those. I get mugged by inspiration. I have a list somewhere of dozens of plots, characters and settings. The actual writing is the thing that slows me down.

The short story First House on the Left was inspired by four houses in a row at a junction. I’m often stuck in traffic there, and I started to wonder about them. I couldn’t see any easy parking nearby, and I’m usually too rushed to park and walk for much distance, so I took a screen shot from Google Maps.

I checked for copyright, and as far as I can tell, as long as I don’t go overboard with the screenshots and credit Google Street View, this is okay. I’m definitely not trying to pass this off as my own work. It’s not only blatantly from Google Streetview but I can’t take pictures as good as this. Anyway, I’d be stuck in traffic here several times a week and wondering about these houses. Why were three boarded up and not the fourth? Who would own these houses and let them go to ruin? What would it be like to live in that last house when the others were boarded up? Would there be ghosts? I have no idea who lived there or anything about this terrace, but my imagination took over and the next thing I knew there were just over six thousand words of a supernatural story.

That was inspiration that grew over months. On the other hand, I was happily shopping at the supermarket with most of my mind drifting away as I tried to remember whether we needed breakfast cereal and I noticed a woman forget the coin in her supermarket trolley. As someone chased after her, I wondered if that was a failed attempt to get rid of an unlucky coin and the result of that train of though was that I forgot breakfast cereal but wrote The Coin. I had to go back to the shop, but I don’t regret it as I had a blast writing the story.

This is the final reminder that Dark Picture, Under Dark Hills and the stories associated with At the Fireside will be removed from the blog on 30th April. Dark Picture and Under Dark Hills are likely to be converted to novels after a serious tidy up, so watch this space.

I’d love to hear what you think, so feel free to drop a comment, thought or question.

Hugs and good vibes to all.

I fail at Newsletters. I fail so epically that it is almost visible from orbit. I have been planning newsletters for years. There is still no newsletter. I have a few draught newsletters on my laptop that have never been sent out. I’ve plans for Mrs Tuesday’s household hints with lists and copies of ancient housekeeping manuals that are currently going nowhere. The biggest obstacle is that legally I need to include a physical address in my newsletter and it can’t be a post box.

If anyone pays the slightest attention to me, they almost certainly can find me. I have a habit of wearing my heart on my sleeve and saying what’s going through my mind at the time. This has got me into so much trouble at times, but it means that you can pick up all sorts of details about me. However I don’t quite feel comfortable putting my home address down, and while you can pay to have a physical address somewhere, it’s a little more money than I want to spend, at least until I earn a little more from my writing.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and when I found out about Substack, it seemed like the answer. Anyone who wishes can set up a Substack account for free. There are paid for subscriptions, but I’m not going there. I may later, I’m not ruling it out, but I’m not currently comfortable with it. If you subscribe to me on there Lyssa Medana’s Writing (it is such an unoriginal title but I couldn’t think of anything else at the time) then whenever I post something on there, you will get an email letting you know. It’s like a newsletter, but not a newsletter and I’ll take it.

There are two main downsides to this. The first is that there will probably be something like a chatty bit like this most weeks, or maybe two or three times a month and it may feel like spam. The other main downside is that apparently you can do podcasts through there, I am very good at talking indeed. I’m not very good at shutting up, however, and I lose the thread a lot. My train of thought often leaves the station without me. Me having access to the chance to talk without interruption is not necessarily a good thing. By the way, it looks like there are a lot of interesting writers and accounts on there to browse.

There are some instalments of Invitation Accepted on there at the moment, but they are likely to go. I may well be sharing the fiction I post freely on here on other sites but I’m working that out. As I went to link to my account on Substack, I realised that there were still references to books published by Three Furies Press which no longer exist. And that made me realise that I have a lot of places where I need to go and edit. I’m still finding it a little hard.

I was looking on Unsplash for pics to represent the notes I’m currently taking, then remembered the pic above. I was trying to sort out the blog and found over 170 stories on here. Around eight, I think, made it to Whisper in the Shadows (I added some new stuff, of course). As I work out what I’m going to do now and what direction I’m going, the stories will be a little reduced and there may be other stuff going on. I’ll share when I work it out myself.

As I have mentioned a few times over the last month or so, Dark Picture, Under Dark Hills, and all the stories that aren’t really speculative fiction, such as those found under At the Fireside will be taken down on April 30th. Dark Picture and Under Dark Hills will eventually find their way into ebooks, but I don’t know when that will happen.

There are likely to be a few posts like this over the next few months as I work out what I’m doing, make mistakes, try and correct them and generally dither. I hope that you can bear with me, and I would love to hear from you. What do you like? What gets on your nerves? What do you want to know?

I hope to hear from you. Thank you for reading.

I am easily distracted, and far too easily bored. I found myself wondering how someone who found the blog for the first time would see it, and whether they would find the fiction easily or whether they would get bogged down by all the notes and articles.

That is why I spent most of this weekend going through the fiction and poetry on here. I found 170 separate pieces, which is a lot more than I expected. Most of those pieces have been collected together and you can find them on the menu above, on the right, under ‘Collected Fiction’. There is a drop down menu and you can find collections of poetry and fiction. Please feel free to have a rummage and see if you find any old favourites. I’ve also left them in place in the blog for anyone scrolling through.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be doing some blog housekeeping. I’ll delete any duplicate posts, junk any stuff that I think is below standard and I am going to force myself to go through and properly tag all the posts. I’ll do a little editing, tidy up punctuation and hopefully find a way of formatting that means that all the posts have the same line spacing.

I’m also considering removing some stories and perhaps placing them in an ebook. So many stories are lost in the crowd here, and I think thinning out some of the posts will make it easier to read. If I do put them in an ebook, though, I promise that I’ll add plenty of new material as well.

By the way, the pic above shows some of the notes I was making.

I’d love to hear any opinions you have on this, so please leave a comment if you have any thoughts.

It’s World Meteorological Day and I found this quote:

The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for use to ignore it and wrong to often for us to rely on it

Patrick Young

I’ve been thinking of the myths and stories about gods recently and it’s led me to all sorts of snippets. For example, did you know that there is evidence for a thunder god in the reconstructed Indo European language of four thousand years ago? There is a whole section on weather gods from prehistory here in Wikipedia.

I don’t believe in weather gods and thunder gods, but I can see the appeal. When you’re counting on the harvest to keep you alive as the first farmers did, being able to appeal to a deity that might help must be a comfort, even if they are capricious. And, despite knowing the science, a thunderstorm feels supernatural. If you are in the middle of a loud one, when you can barely hear yourself for the thunder and the rain and hail is battering the windows, it doesn’t help to think about electrons and convection movements. It feels like something primeval. I’m not surprised that there is evidence of huge sacrifices of horses and cattle to appease the destructive force.

And I am fascinated that stories and myths can be traced back all those thousands of years to a people whose language we can’t fully know but which developed into so many different tongues as far apart as English and Bengali. That the stories that they told are still echoing around and finding their way out. Thor, who is definitely a thunder god, is still having his stories told in cinemas around the world.

In the flash fiction that I posted on Monday, here, I wrote about a retired thunder god. I can imagine that a retired weather deity wouldn’t be a comfortable neighbour, but I bet he wouldn’t be boring.

It’s that time of year. People are dusting off their Christmas traditions and huddling inside away from the cold, dark days. In Iceland, there is a tradition of Jolabokaflod where people give each other gifts of books on Christmas Eve and then settle down to read them straight away. The more I hear about Iceland, the better it sounds.

Mind you, knowing how people are, those books may be read with different degrees of enthusiasm. I honestly think that there will be lots of happy people curled up with their favourite author, or a favourite genre, or even a completely new type of book that is perfect for opening up new ideas and thoughts in a wonderful and well-received way. I also suspect that there will be people muttering in corners, ‘My mother-in-law got me a book on Swedish Death Cleaning and I know exactly what she means by that!’

We don’t have that tradition in our family, mainly because my lovely husband has mostly audio books and I read a lot of books on a reading app, so we don’t usually buy physical books. Son reads in fits and starts and I just let him get on with it. Besides, he’s old enough to raid our bookshelves now when he feels like it. I also don’t want to force reading on him because he is overloaded with schoolwork and I would feel guilty trying to make him do anything more.

Speaking of schoolwork, son has been blessed by some amazing texts for his school syllabus, and one of them is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. We don’t have many Christmas traditions, but one of them is watching A Muppet Christmas Carol every year. We snuggle in, have the room nice and toasty with a scented candle, pile up snacks and drinks and enjoy. It’s years since I read the original, but I dipped in again the other night. I was pleasantly surprised by how much of the original work made it into the Muppet version. I have watched dozens of versions over the years, but I think that the Muppets get it the closest. Drop a comment if you agree or disagree. I’d love to hear what you think.

One thing that struck me was the original story, written in nineteenth century London, doesn’t have much to do with religion. It refers to Christianity, but that was natural for a nominally Christian writer in a nominally Christian country. However, it doesn’t really bother with theology. It talks about people, and a reminder that people are important. That it is worth cherishing the bonds of love and friendship. That it is a human duty to look out for others who cannot look out for themselves.

The language of the original is dated. Some of the expressions are unfamiliar to a modern reader. It’s a cracking story, though, and the dozens of films inspired by it (some a lot better than others) take up the sentiment. It seems that there is a deeply ingrained impulse to have a celebration at the darkest time of the year and to remember those who need a little help. I have watched A Muppet Christmas Carol so many times I can practically repeat the dialogue along with the film. I’m still looking forward to it though. It’s not a bad Christmas tradition.

This is the response from Katy van Cuylenburg to this week’s prompts, which is also in the comments.

Oh wow, that sunrise is…is. I always enjoy a sunrise.It’s so beautiful. Now I have to deal with my sister. I don’t want to do this ever. She killed somebody. She just went out there and killed somebody…a guy. Sliced him to death. She said it was self defense. I believe her. I believe she was left to her own defenses…and her own weapons.

So I’m pulling up in front of the cottage to see her. We have always enjoyed being by the ocean. The rhythm of the tide and waves has always been our zen.

Dinner is on! The bbq is working. Loving this beach house. Okay Sis, tell me…
What gotcha there…How hard did he hurt you? Glad she didn’t go to jail.

This is a great space. Fine house. Beach, tide, sand. I’m happy being here. Glad to have this space. How wonderful she puts on the music.

And then the uniformed contingent arrived. Okay. I can listen. It’s time for alternative situations. Good grief, my sister has always been convinced quicker than me.

I say No! Nee! Nien! Nyet! She yells at me. I don’t care. I feel the need to be me.

I do not run. I do not hide. I leave. I

I love the madness of this!