I have just signed another contract . . .
This time it’s the book I’ve been working on for some months already, which is FALSE GOLD. The delivery date is to be August, which is sort of all right by me. As you know, I do like to go over and over and over the text, making sure as far as possible, that I haven’t made any crashing mistakes/typos/grammatical errors. One of my biggest problems nowadays is an inability to read small print. When I go to the library and pick up a book by an author I like, I open it up at any old page, see a page full of text in tiny print and return the book to the shelf.
I’ve tried reading glasses and magnifying glasses and one of those pieces of plastic which you can put over a sheet of paper which is supposed to make the text larger. I can’t say that they help much. Reading glasses; yes. But then you look up and the room has gone all fuzzy around you, so you take them off. Then you pick up the newspaper and start looking for your glasses . . .
Paperbacks are usually printed in a small font size. This is understandable as it keeps the cost down but renders them hard to read. Plenty of space on the page, and I’m reasonably happy. Large print books are great, but there aren’t enough titles of the authors I like. I’ve brought this up for a reason. My books used to be 85,000 words long. The new contract says I must cut this down to 80,000 which means the books will still be in a large enough print for me to read with glasses.
So how did I resolve the problem of including a short story in this newsletter? The best result was the first chapter of the very first Ellie Quicke – MURDER AT THE ALTAR – which you can find here. Enjoy!
More stories from Joffe . . .
On May 12th Joffe brought out MURDER IN MIND, and on the 27th it was MURDER WITH MERCY. If I can make it work, I’ll attach a cover of the latest. Also, an innovation: Joffe brought out five (Yes, five!) of the first stories in the Bea Abbot series on May 26th in a boxed set. A brilliant buy, if I may say so.
Click here for these Joffe issued books and more.
Still available: the story of how some Christian writers got started in their career. You can find it in MY FIRST NOVEL . . . details to be found here.
As for the Owlets, Awol is still trying to get them to leave the house. He got his Mum to climb the ‘stairs’ to look outside and the others are following. Slowly. See them here.
A blessing on all who can talk about anything except their health. And another blessing on those who can listen to people talking about their health.
Veronica Heley