No, sadly I’m not off anywhere in the van just yet. Making A Move is the title of my latest short story collection.

Here’s the blurb –

No matter if it’s taking a walk, catching a bus or jumping out of a perfectly good aeroplane, the way we move can get us where we want to be. Our journey could be on land, sea, by air or all in our mind. We might travel with others, get there by ourselves, or need help to make the journey.

The moves we make aren’t always from A to B. We may change direction, take steps to improve our lives or start a relationship. We could be the driver, passenger or equal partner in a dance into the future.

Whether they’re making a move on someone, moving upwards and onwards, or going round in circles, anyone who doesn’t stay put has a story to tell. This book contains 24 of them.

The book is available as an ebook or paperback or through kindle unlimited here. The paperback can also be bought from some other online retailers, ordered in bookshops or requested at your library.

This is a figure of speech in which the natural order of events is reversed. It occurs in well known phrases such as ‘born and bred’ ‘put on your shoes and socks’ and ‘thunder and lightning’.

Be careful of accidental hysteron proteron in your writing, for example ‘Fred jumped in the air. A loud crash from the dropped tray of glasses had startled him.’ Unless you have a good reason for doing things differently, cause should come before result.

Can you think of other examples of hysteron proteron?

I’m in the process of making my books available from more outlets, rather than just Amazon. While I’m doing that I’m taking the opportunity to update some of the covers.

Two of those which have had a makeover are All That Love Stuff and With Love And Kisses. They’re both collections of 24 short stories all with the theme of love and romance.

Originally they had white backgrounds, which showed off the cartoon images well. However if displayed online anywhere which also had a white background the entire cover got lost. There was also the issue of them looking so much the same I’m not sure people realised they were two different books.

My clever husband has given them pretty sunrise and sunset backgrounds, which I think are very pretty and help distinguish them as different books.

If you’d like more details on either book, click on ‘short story collections’ in the menu.

If you’d like to read either book you can still get All That Love Stuff and With Love and Kisses from Amazon as ebooks or paperbacks. Paperbacks of both books can be ordered from bookshops and many online retailers or requested from your local library. The ebooks are also available from a range of different retailers. You can find All That Love Stuff here and this is the link for With Love And Kisses.

Whether they’re together forever, broken-hearted, or still trying to make it work, anyone who has loved has a story to tell. These collections each contain 24 of them.

Do you like the new covers?

I’ve got a story in each of two very different magazines at the moment – and they each have appropriately different illustrations.

My bright and cheery tale ‘A Fresh Outlook’ is in the always upbeat The People’s Friend Magazine.

Despite its title ‘Comfort Food’ is rather darker and less jolly. That’s in the current Take A Break Fiction Feast.

I wouldn’t call Fiction Feast downbeat, but it’s certainly grittier than The People’s Friend and you can’t always be assured of a happy ever after ending.

Which do you prefer? A guaranteed happy ending, or to not know what you’re going to get?

I’ve just updated the ‘For Writers’ page on this site. You can navigate to it from the menu, or via this link.

Athirst can mean thirsty (from the Old English ofthyrst apparently). It also means eager or strongly desirous as in athirst for knowledge. I think I’ll combine them into athirst for a nice cold glass of wine – and as it’s my birthday today I reckon I’m entitled.

The second definition surprised me. I’d heard the phrase and understood the meaning, but had thought it was written as ‘a thirst for knowledge’.

Parbuckle is … what I get when I ask my husband for a word of the week suggestion. A parbuckle is a rope or sling used to raise or lower casks or other cylindrical objects.

When used to right a ship, I suppose parbuckling is the opposite of careening. I used to talk about careening in my day job but as I don’t do it any more, I’ll spare you the details. When not used in a nautical context careening means to swerve about.

Here’s a picture of a ship. I careened (slowly) up a nearby mountain to take the photo.