‘Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.’
Mark Twain
Thought for the Day
Totally energised after Turkey tonic – now ready to go Wilde…
I’ve just got back to Malta after two weeks in Turkey (& briefly Greece) on a gulet with ten friends and – thanks to Captain Mehmet and his crew Ergan and Hussein – a good time was had by all, despite the grisly murder of Texan tycoon Randy Alexander taking place at a dinner hosted by Molly & David Camper attended by the bekilted Bernard Haggis, the handsome Cecil Bellows, Sandi Toksvig lookalike Mermayda Swimmer, the lopsidedly mohicanned Claus Santos, the ultra-smooth novelist Robert Writer, the lovely but lethal Anna Paris and the somewhat bewildered science fiction writer Simon Fiction and his far, far, far younger Irish wife Valerie (whom it is rumoured had just left Dale Farm to escape eviction).
Now I’m ready to get going on the Amelia Wilde series, provisional titles being:
1) The Shocking Sins of the Mother-in-Law
2) Dicing with Death at God’s Acres
3) Prohibited Pre-meditation in Paris
4) Malicious Murder in Monte Carlo
5) Celebrity Slaughter in the Cotswolds
Onwards & upwards, here goes…
The Velvet Rage
Not usually one for ‘self-help’ titles, I chanced upon this one by accident. To be honest, I was quite rudely reading it over my friend’s shoulder and he kindly offered to lend it to me when he’s finished it. All I can say is that is confirmed a lot and – more importantly – offered solutions to problems and traits I had grown so accustomed to I thought they’d be with me for life. Thanks Damien and thanks Alan Down (the author). I’m not going to drone on about it (evangelists not being my favourite sort), but feel truly empowered and revitalised…
Agatha Christie meets Armistead Maupin (apparently!)
The temperatures here in Malta are soaring. I’m scared to look at the thermometer because it’s almost too hot to cope. At least it seems to have calmed the MMM down a bit – she behaved impeccably when we met to do the weekly housekeeping in Zebbug. Mind you, she’s off to the Costa Brava next week, so is no doubt revving up to hurl herself at the Spanish men.
I was very pleasantly surprised to see WHAT A PERFORMANCE in Amazon’s ‘Movers & Shakers’ list It’s in at 6th place (up 180% from 812 to 290). Along with a favourable review earlier in the week – ‘A great fast-paced read with a clever plot. Funny, sad, gripping and entertaining. In a nutshell, Agatha Christie meets Armistead Maupin’ – things are looking good for that little tale of murder & intrigue in the West End…
Meanwhile, I’ve finally sorted out the best (I think) order in which to work on my current projects:
1) BEASTWAGON – which is all but complete to my satisfaction (which it damn well should be since I started it twenty years ago, not to mention selling the film rights a decade later) – needs some tweaking at the beginning. I’ve engineered a new prologue (actually, it’s prologue number 4) and at the moment it’s at no.19 on YOUWRITEON.
2) WALKING ON EGGSHELLS (London Legends 3) – notes accumulating by the day. I’ll really get going on it once I’ve got BW done & dusted.
3) WILDE – Emilia Wilde’s character is taking shape, but there’s still a lot of planning & development to do before I can really get going.
In addition, CHASING YOUR TAIL (tv pilot) is finished. Still no word. Should I send it somewhere else? There’s also THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER (series of 4 radio plays), for which all the research is done and characters developed – in fact, 2 plays are almost completed.
So perhaps this means I haven’t in reality sorted out what I’m doing…
And it all looked better in the morning…
After a blissful night’s sleep, the whole situation didn’t look quite as desperate, so I trundled back to Zebbug to finish off ironing the Egyptian cotton, making the beds & cleaning the pool. The family from Lancashire arrived bang on time and were both delighted with the house and delightful in themselves.
Now I’m working on ‘Wilde’ – my new novel and it’s all coming together nicely (well, it’s coming together) – with Amelia ‘Mel’ Wilde’s character emerging quite stridently – which it needs to as she’s a thwarted ex-DC with a very big grievance.
Soon the sun’ll be over the yard arm & I can relax with a G & T and look at the photos from the trip to Sitges – which I have to say was the best holiday I’ve had in years…
Heat, dust & some unpleasant surprises in the wastepaper bins…
Landed in Malta (from Barcelona) at some time after 2am yesterday, having spent the (delayed) flight wondering whether anyone else on the flight could smell the alcohol emanating from my exhausted pores. The trouble with having fun is that is is very exhausting…
Having got my luggage – which took nearly an hour – I made my way to the car park to retrieve my trusty Freelander, which had been left there a few days earlier by my (clearly not so trusty) good friend the Millionaire Nightclub Owner, who shall remain nameless. Having forgotten to message me a clue as to which part of the carpark Fanny (Freelander) was in, it took me another 45 minutes to find her.
Then, when I got back to my crumbling (but very well reviewed) abode, couldn’t find a parking space for love nor money – probably because I used up my entire year’s quota of both over the preceding days in Sitges. Finally parked in the shadow of the church, left all my luggage in the car & staggered home to get some sleep. On entering the front courtyard I fell over several large bags of rubbish, then when I got into the house, I couldn’t fail to notice the smell; having known that the MNO had been there I wasn’t altogether surprised. Too tired to do anything immediately, I went to bed & spent a few fitful hours thrashing about because the air conditioning seemed to have been upset by someone (any guesses?). Finally gave up trying to sleep when the screams of the Mad Maltese Maid reached my ears at 8am – she’d arrived to help me get the house ready for a family of eight from Lancashire – as she’d found some very unpleasant surprises in the bathroom bins. Evidently the MNO & his partner had imagined that they were in Greece rather than Malta. Along with sheets that needed to be boiled (twice) and the surfaces of the stone kitchen worktops having been eaten away by some sort of acid (or possibly hub cap cleaner?!), I set to with my best (albeit tired) cleaning head on and went to top up the pool… only to find that the well was empty!
Suffice to say, it was a very long day, during which I eventually persuaded a tanker driver to bring me a tankful of water (who cares whether or not it’s from an illegal bore hole), prevented the MMM from walking out (by promising to go and eat roast pork one day in her father’s pig shed) and gradually got the house back into the state in which it had been left. I love Egyptian cotton, but I don’t like the ironing it entails – and the MMM refuses point blank to do it even on a good day. By the time I’d fetched Oliver (parrot) from my good friend the Artist Turned Writer and got back to the flat, I was ready to drop. My suitcase – which had been getting gradually hotter & hotter locked in Fanny by the church – literally burped when I opened it and the washing machine, if it could have done, would have baulked at the hot pants (not hotpants) spilling out of it.
There was, however, a silver lining to the cloud as my old desktop computer, which hasn’t worked for weeks, decided to come back to life and I was able to watch the last two episodes in the first series of ‘Scott & Bailey’ as I collapsed on the sofa with a can of cheap lager…
‘What a Performance’ available on Kindle
Olivia Greenstreet – former star of stage and screen – celebrates her sixtieth birthday by upholding her decision of twenty years to stay out of the limelight and live peacefully, if slightly precariously, in her crumbling country mansion with an array of companions whom she has helped to opt out of the rat race.
Justin Featherstonehaugh (‘it’s pronounced Fanshaw, actually’) – writer, producer and theatre entrepreneur – is risking millions in a West End musical production based on the film ‘The Ball’ in which Olivia – who also happens to be Justin’s ex-wife – starred twenty years earlier.
Susie Venables – Justin’s vitriolic, pushy and opportunistic current wife – is playing the lead in ‘The Ball’, but her lack of acting talent is causing mayhem and concern at rehearsals.
When Susie is found hanging from a chandelier in a macabre re-enactment of a scene from the film just before opening night, the hunt for her killer and the quest for a new leading lady turn chaos to pandemonium in the back-stabbing world of West End Theatre where secrets, lies, long-term deception and career-changing sex scandals seem to be the order of the day. A sexually frustrated vicar’s wife, a busty Jewish impressionist and an unfortunate case of mistaken identity lead to more confusion as suspects and motives multiply. The pace quickens, culminating in an unexpected but satisfying conclusion to the convoluted plot of this heart-warming tale of the importance and realisation of dreams.
The Book Shed
The shepherds hut I built with my father last year provided the haven needed over the last two weeks to get the final edit done on the rewritten version of WEIRD SEX. The view has been of rolling green Northamptonshire countryside with sheep lazily grazing – a bit different from the island of yells, bells & smells to which I’ll be returning on Monday…
WHAT A PERFORMANCE – new cover
And here’s the cover design for the second novel in the ‘London Legends’ series. I think I like this more than the WEIRD SEX one – or maybe the fact that I like the book more is influencing me. They both certainly meet the remit with their retro 90s look – and even though you can’t judge a book by its cover, let’s hope they entice loads of people to buy them when they’re out…
Drew Thomas 