I am not technically minded. Mind you, I have progressed from turning out books on a portable typewriter, via an Amstrad to different generations of computers and am now working on a Dell. I write, I edit and I send my stories off by e-mail. I save my work on floppies – the publisher likes floppies – and on USBs and I keep records of what I’m doing. All right, I’m not that consistent about backing up but nobody’s perfect.
We were going off to Bruges for a much-needed holiday so I put the work-in- progress – another Ellie – onto a netbook to take with me. The uncompleted draft went on a treat, if you except the fact that the netbook refused to accept a mouse, so my aim was erratic. I wrote twenty pages of story and felt very pleased . . . until we got back and I tried to transfer my work back to the Dell. You’ve guessed it; nothing would make it move. I tried talking to it nicely. I tried Words of Command. I rang for help to my tried and trusted computer guru but he couldn’t retrieve it either. It had disappeared, completely. Unbelievably. So I have had to re-write those twenty pages from memory. Well, I managed it, but here we are at the beginning of another month, and not a whole lot forrader.
When I started on this Ellie story, I didn’t think the boy Mikey would turn out to be the hero, but with flu raging in Ellie’s household and some nasty wrongs to get righted, he seems to have taken on the mantle of the Lone Ranger. (To be continued)
On a lighter note, the Methodist Recorder published another short story from me on September 28th. It’s called ALL CHANGE, and is about the expectations of ministers moving to new parishes at Harvest time, and what the parishes might expect of them in return. The tag line is ‘Kindness pays. Pass it on.’ If you can’t get hold of the original and would like to read it, send me an email and I’ll forward it to you.
Suddenly everyone is asking me for the E-rights of my early books. Sometimes they intend to bring out a large print version, sometimes a short print run, and sometimes just an E-book. These are books I wrote way back in the last century and I am thrilled to hear they are going to have a new lease of life. The first ones out will be the very early crime books, with women as heroines. I’ll keep you posted.
My webmaster has turned the second of the Eden Hall quartet – The Lady of the Hall – into an E-book, too. There were two favourable reviews on it within days, so we are going to look at transferring the third book pretty soon.
Finally, I am very much looking forward to the two talks I’m giving in London this month. On October 10th I’ll be at our local Pitshanger Library in North Ealing for a free talk and on the 24th at the Townswomen’s Guild in Ickenham, Uxbridge. Details from the website. Perhaps I’ll see some of you there?
Veronica Heley
Last out . . . MURDER IN MIND . . . May 2012
Ellie is asked to look into two ‘accidental’ deaths in the family of the local big estate agent because her daughter Diana intends to marry him once he’s got rid of his current wife. The surviving members of the Hooper family appear to be self-centred and unsympathetic but as their numbers diminish, Ellie begins to understand the reasons behind the way they act. ISBN Hardback 978 0 7278 8179 3
Also the paperback of MURDER MY NEIGHBOUR. Ellie looks into the case of a wealthy lady who tells everyone she’s moving to a retirement home – but never arrives. ISBN Paperback 978 1 84751 360 1
NEW in July!
The large print version of FALSE PRETENCES. Bea finds all is not well at an old established charity. The death of one director may have been from natural causes, but those which followed definitely were not. ISBN 978 0 7278 9884 5
FALSE REPORT is coming out as an Ebook. Bea discovers that assisting a vertically challenged musician to get some home help is asking for trouble, especially when a pretty girl has been trafficked into this country by a gang who target wealthy men. ISBN 978 1 78010 201 6.
Also: LADY OF THE HALL, second in the Eden Hall series, is now out as an E-book.
E-BOOKS. Find them at http://www.veronicaheley.com/ebooks.php?l1=102
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