17th September, 2008

I’m slowly coming back to something like normal—perhaps I should say back to life—after recent events, and starting to feel more like myself again. Thank you to all who sent me such kind messages after my Mum’s death. I appreciate your warm wishes very much indeed.

In the wake of all that’s happened, Cas and I felt in need of a break, and our chance came at the Tall Ships Festival, which this year took place in Falmouth, not far from where we live. The festival marked the start of the Funchal 500 race, and the sight of the magnificent sailing ships, some recently built and others genuinely old, setting out for the open sea was something to be remembered. We’ve recently got our own boat (haven’t told you that before, have I?). She’s just—and I mean just!—big enough to sleep on, so we took her to Falmouth and stayed there for the festival week. Falmouth Shout, the shanty group we belong to, were taking part in the fun. We sang our socks off for five days! Any more and I think we’d have been reduced to miming along to our CD!

Here are some photos, which I hope will give you an idea of the lovely atmosphere, beginning with our lottle boat… and me!

Falmouth Shout at an evening gig (I took the photo, so I’m not in it!)

A magnificent Tall Ship passes the lighthouse on St Anthony’s Head

Now, writing news! I’m delighted to say that The Golden Circlet, the fourth and final book of my “Mermaid Curse” children’s quartet, will be in the shops on October 2nd. This completes the story of Lizzy and Kes, and their efforts to thwart the evil mermaid Queen, Taran, in her bid for ultimate power. As always, Puffin have come up with an absolutely superb cover! (Ah! I tried to upload it but for some reason it won’t… Sorry about that!) If you’d like to get yourself a copy, the ISBN number (which makes ordering easier at bookshops) is 978-0-141-32228-5.

And this week sees the publication of L’Usurpatrice – the French language edition of the second Chaos Gate volume, from  Bragelonne. Again, another superb cover! People keep asking me for Ygorla’s ‘phone number… but I’ve warned them that they might get more than they bargain for if they ask her for a date!

I hope to have more news about further publications before long. In the meantime, I’m working on some new ideas; and one in particular that I think might be just a little bit different. Not wanting to tempt Fate, I won’t say more yet. But I’m planning a very active winter, writing-wise. Oh, and so is Simba. Well, when I say “writing”, in his case it means dictating the next episode of his Blat to me, as he hasn’t mastered the computer keyboard yet. In fact he’s beside my chair now, giving me That Look…so I’d better obey orders and get my notebook out!

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September 1st 2008

The past few weeks have not been happy ones, as on August 3rd my mother, Pat, passed away. She was 93 years old, and had been in a nursing home for some years following a stroke, and I can take some comfort from the knowledge that her passing was peaceful and without pain. But such a bereavement still hurts, and I will miss her very much. Though she had no formal training, she was a wonderfully talented artist—her favourite thing was to paint portraits from her own imagination, of people in historical dress. Cas and I called them ‘instant ancestors’! She also made beautiful costume dolls, many of which I still have and will treasure. From an early age she encouraged me to write and to follow my own star, and that is something for which I will always be grateful. So I’ve included a photo of her here, taken on her 80th birthday—what a long time ago it seems—to show you the lovely person that she was…

As I’m sure you’ll all understand, this is just a brief journal entry. I should have written it before now, I know, but it’s taken me a while to find words to say, even though they express only a fraction of what I’ve been feeling. But life is returning to normal now, and there’ll be more news, hopefully of a happier nature, soon.

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I’m thrilled to be able to announce a hat-trick of ‘firsts’—including a forthcoming new eBook of a fantasy novel I wrote many years ago, and which has never been published before in any form! The book is THE ANGEL OF VENGEANCE—a title which I know will ring a bell with one or two readers. I wrote it in the late 1970s, and the rights were bought by Sphere Books, who had already published the original Lord Of No Time. However, shortly before publication Sphere decided to pull it from their schedule, and it never appeared on the shelves. The years that followed brought all kinds of changes and upheavals in my life, including several house moves, during which the typescript of the book went missing. I knew I had it somewhere—at least, I thought I did—but I couldn’t find it. Now, however, it’s finally come to light again. And Cas and I plan to publish it as an eBook under our Dancing Mackerel imprint.It will take a while. The typescript is what its name suggests—typed, and to make matters worse it’s a faded carbon copy that is a severe challenge for even the most sophisticated OCR software. Much of it, in fact, needs to be keyed in again; there are also a couple of pages missing which I will have to rewrite, and I want to edit it to a degree—it was written thirty years ago, after all! J But it’s a very Louise Cooper kind of story, involving rebellion, injustice, love and the intervention of supernatural and potentially highly dangerous archetypes. I’ve started on the task of putting the eBook together, and hope that it will be available later this year.   

First Number Two involves music. Did you know that as well as being a novelist I’m also a songwriter? Neither did I! J Or at least I’d forgotten. But someone remembered, and a few months ago I was contacted, through the website, by an old friend whom I hadn’t seen for the best part of 40 years. Ken Okines is an absolutely terrific singer and musician (who also teaches guitar); he came across this website, suspected that I was the same Louise he used to sing with on occasion in the 1960s, and got in touch. I was astonished and delighted to hear from him, and even more so when he asked my permission to record, on his new album, a song I wrote in 1967, called Harbour Of Days Gone By. To my eternal shame, though the title sounded familiar I couldn’t recall the song at all. To jog my memory Ken sent me an MP3 file of his recording… and it all came back to mind.Of course I said an eager ‘Yes!’ to the recording request—and the song is now the title track on Ken’s latest album, HARBOUR OF DAYS, which he launched at the recent Falmouth Sea Shanty Festival where he and his lovely wife, Barbie, came as our guests. I know I’m biased, but I think the album is really fabulous. If you want to see what you think, you can listen to clips from the tracks—including the only Louise Cooper song ever recorded! J—on Ken’s website. Go to:

 http://web.mac.com/okines

and click on the Harbour Shop page. There’s a player button just below the album cover photo. I think you’ll be impressed! And I’m very proud to be a recorded songwriter for the first time ever!  

  Still on the subject of music, First Number Three is the new CD by Falmouth Shout, the shanty group that Cas and I sing with. It’s the first professional recording of my singing voice! This CD, too, was launched at the Sea Shanty Festival last weekend—and though we all sez it usselves, me ‘earties, we’re pretty chuffed with it! The title is FALMOUTH FOR ORDERS, and it has the honour to be the official souvenir CD for the 2008 Funchal Tall Ships Regatta, which will set sail from Falmouth, amid much celebration, in September. For a taster of some of the tracks, go to: www.falmouthshout.com. Oh, and that’s me duetting with shantyman Nigel on A Sailor Ain’t A Sailor ! (I also lead another shanty on the album, Skipper Jan Riebec) Have a listen and tell me what you think! (Isn’t that brave of me???)

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20th June

I was feeling lively, wasn’t I? So naturally when the sparrow flew past in front of my nose, of course I was going to chase it! It was a young one, and it really was a bit dim. First it flew in through the window of the two-legs’ bedroom and got itself in a tizzy because the wardrobe door was open and it just had to investigate. Then, when Louise finally managed to get it to fly out again, what does it do but charge straight for the fruit cage in the garden and get under the netting (which is supposed to be un-get-underable**). Cheep, cheep, flap, bounce, flutter squawk—you’ve never heard such a racket! Louise to the rescue again, and that was when the idiotic bird shot past me at about Mach 3. Well, I ask you! I’m a cat. Pure reflex took over, and I made a hurtling dash, followed by a magnificent leap, and—CRUMP! I landed wallop in the middle of a large fern, legs sprawled, dignity hurled to the four winds. That dash-dot-comma bird perched on a branch of next-door’s apple tree and smirked at me. And did Louise sympathise? No, she did not! She doubled up with laughter, hooting and cackling like a madwoman. I extricated myself from the fern fronds and stalked off with my tail lashing and ears laid back. I was so furious I wouldn’t speak to her for a whole two minutes! And if she laughs at me again, I will harden my heart and refuse to bring her any more presents of tasty mice at 5 o’clock in the morning!

Anyway, the two-legs went away last weekend. They sometimes make these extraordinary noises that they call ‘singing’, and apparently they and some of their friends were ‘singing’ at a ‘sea shanty festival’. I don’t really know what one of those is (as far as I know you can’t eat it, play with it or sleep on it) but no doubt Louise will tell you more in her journal. I think she’s up to something else, too, because she’s been muttering about ‘news’ and ‘See Dees’ and things. I’m as much in the dark as you are! Oh well, we’ll all find out soon, I expect.

Another of my servants, Kim, came to look after me while Louise and Cas were away. Having staff come to my home is far better than staying in a cattery. Cattery service really isn’t up to the mark, and some of the other guests can be very noisy or vulgar. I remember a Persian who had the room next to mine in a cattery a couple of years ago—pedigree as long as your tail, but her manners…  Anyway, I like Kim. She makes a fuss of me, and she doesn’t know me well enough to see through the pathetic ‘I’m-starving-to-death’ look that I can do so convincingly (I’m a very good actor), so I can persuade her to serve extra portions of food.

The only thing I do feel like grumbling about at the moment is the weather. It’s wet. I hate wet. In June I think wet certainly shouldn’t be allowed. I woke Louise up at 6:30 this morning and told her what I thought. For some reason she didn’t seem very interested. And all right, I know the duvet cover’s cream coloured, but it wasn’t clean on last night, and I think dark brown paw-prints on that pale background look rather stylish… prrrr.  

The only sensible thing for a cat to do in weather like this is sleep. So that’s what I’m going to do. I shall dream of sunshine, and what I’m going to have for my tea (salmon and shrimps is favourite at the moment) and wish you all many purry things until next time.

Wwwrr-mow, prr, prr (yawn) mmmpfff…

Simba

**L – There’s no such word 

S – Yes, there is. I just invented it. Mrow.

P.S. It’s me again. I’ve woken up, the rain’s stopped, and I’ve been outside playing with my new toy. I thought you might like to see it. I found it, though I’m not telling anyone where because it’s one of my secret places thateven Louise doesn’t know about, but I’m not quite sure what it is. But it’s lots of fun, and none of the other cats round here have got one. Here’s a picture of me and it…

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I’m excited to say that Thursday June 5th sees publication of THE RAINBOW POOL, Book 3 of my Mermaid Curse children’s quartet from Puffin.  

Taran, the evil mermaid Queen, is determined to get her hands on the silver pearl that will make her more powerful than ever. Only Lizzy, Kes and their friends from the undersea world can stop her. But when Taran takes a very special hostage, Lizzy and Kes are faced with a terrible choice. Must they give up the precious pearl? Or do they have the courage to challenge Taran, and defeat her?

Set in the wild and beautiful scenery around Mount’s Bay in Cornwall, THE RAINBOW POOL continues the magical adventure that began with THE SILVER DOLPHIN and THE BLACK PEARL.  

Published by Puffin at £4.99

ISBN 978-0-141-32227-8 

The fourth and final volume, THE GOLDEN CIRCLET, will follow in October – in the meantime, I’ll be posting a ‘taster’ from The Rainbow Pool in the Children’s Fiction section!

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