The September issue of Ireland’s Own contains one of my short stories. Although Ethel, the lead character, has my mother-in-law’s name she’s not really based on her. When I write about people I know, I change the names!

This Ethel has embraced some modern technology (as has my mother-in-law) but isn’t a slave to it and thinks the younger generations might be better off looking up from their screens now and then. OK, so that could apply to my mother-in-law too! Maybe it’s an age thing?

The changes that people now in their 80s and 90s have seen in everyday living have been incredible. Most of those people have adapted to those changes, and now make use of modern technology. I wonder if those who are teenagers now would cope so well if the world wide web was to fail, satellites lose their connections and most modern technology cease to work.

An aphorism is a short statement of fact or opinion. They’re often catchy and quotable. If you snooze you lose, All for one and one for all, Forgive your enemies but remember their names, Little strokes fell great oaks. Actually oaks feature quite a lot, From little acorns grow mighty oaks, Storms make oaks grow stronger roots, Today’s oak is yesterday’s nut which held its ground, The only cure for sea sickness is to sit with your back against an oak tree.

Even when aphorisms are opinion and/or wrong they’re stated as facts eg Lightning never strikes the same place twice, Posession is nine tenths of the law, All things come to he who waits.

Sometimes they’re designed to encourage better behaviour or spur us to action, If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem, Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, Nothing ventured nothing gained. They can also suggest a deeper meaning, All that glitters is not gold, You can lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink.

Aphorisms often contradict each other, Oil and water don’t mix, Opposites attract, You’re never to old to learn, You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

One of my favourites is, Keep your powder dry. It’s good advice.

I have a story in the current issue of The People’s Friend Special. Just in case the title and beautiful illustration haven’t given it away, I’ll tell you that it involves sunflower seeds.

Quite some time ago I’d written a different story about sunflowers. That’s set in Little Mallow – the same fictional village as the cosy mystery series I’m working on, and due to be published in My Weekly very soon. As often happens, I had more ideas on the theme than would fit into one story.

Very soon afterwards, my editor at The People’s Friend forwarded me a lovely email from a reader saying how much she’d enjoyed one of my stories. The lady’s name was Olive and she mentioned that she’d been a teacher. I immediately decided to write about a kind teacher called Olive, and to have her use my sunflower seed ideas to help her pupils. I don’t know if the original Olive will ever see the new story she inspired, but I hope so.

Thank you to the kind people who contacted me after my last post, to tell me the new name of my story in the People’s Friend 2024 annual, and to share the illustration. The mine blurb used by The People’s Friend goes like this ‘Diane loses her beloved climbing rose, and struggles to find a replacement in “A Rose By Any Other Name”, by Patsy Collins.’

I thought the illustration would be pretty and wasn’t disappointed. Ruth Blair has done a great job, hasn’t she? The new title is appropriate too.

Last week I had another story accepted by The People’s Friend – my 50th with them. That one will be published in a Valentine’s issue. Yes – it is a romance!

In case you were wondering about Hunky Dory, the title of my last post, that was a favourite saying of the person who accidentally destroyed the original rose in the story. Sorry I didn’t explain that. I must have written the post before my second cup of tea that morning, as somehow showed the wrong publication cover. This is the right one.

To abnegate is to give up or deny oneself something, particularly a pleasure. It can also mean to renounce or reject something, such as a right or belief.

I’m no abnegator; I believe I shall enjoy eating the rest of this cake as much as I enjoyed the first slice. (I grated the zest of the lemon into the icing and the whole thing smells of citrus freshness.)

Oddly my dictionary doesn’t give either of the definitions I associate with these three letters. To me they stand for Take a Break. I’m not terribly keen on the weekly mag, but TAB‘s Fiction Feast is great. I have a story in the September issue, which is out now.

My story, Sandcastles, involves a variety of sand sculptures. The inspiration for this came partly from my childhood. My parents, being farmers, rarely got a day off but we did go to the nearest sandy beach (Weymouth|) for the day if the opportunity arose. We always looked at the amazing sand sculptures and sometimes attempted to make our own. In my memory these were impressive in scale and execution. In reality I suspect active imaginations as we made up stories associated with the boats, cars and animals were responsible for all the realistic details! There’s no doubt my love of making up stories began very early.

When writing stories I used to indent paragraphs using the tab key, but not so many places now want the indent and when they do I use the document formatting option.

Non writers probably think of a tab as a drinks bill (oh, OK writers might be familiar with that one too!) A small strip of material used for hanging up clothes is a tab and tabbing is the action of attaching these. A stage curtain can be known as a tab and it might need to be tabbed in order to hang it.

To keep tabs on someone is to keep them under surveillance.

I’m delighted to have had a 5 star Goodreads review for Not A Drop To Drink. The book is currently free to download, if you’d like to see if you enjoy it too. You can get it from Amazon or Apple here.

I upload lots of short stories, and some articles, to the Medium website. It’s a big site with loads of publications. The two I use most have several editors to deal with all the many submissions they receive. By now I do recognise most of their names, but it hadn’t occurred to me that my writing might stand out to them. This morning when I logged on I saw a message from one of the editors about my latest submission. I was expecting to be asked to clarify a point or fix a typo, but instead I read this –

One of the highlights of my week as an editor is to publish one of your stories. Keep up the good work! 🙂 Thanks for sharing.

I was beginning to feel a bit daunted about submitting my latest novel to publishers (which I’ll be doing very soon). Although it’s a completely different writing project and will be sent to places with very different requirements, those few words have given me a real boost and motivated me to keep going.