Taken in the water

1 Recent goings-on.

Hello!

I’ve recently been enjoying the therapeutic joys of wild swimming in the sea. I purchased a waterproof phone cover and took a few pictures in the water, including the one above.

In the “Haunts of the Black Masseur” Charles Sprawson’s famous study of swimming, he describes how, as a child, he “began to form a vague conception of the swimmer as someone rather remote and divorced from every-day life, devoted to a mode of exercise where most of the body remains submerged and self-absorbed. It appealed to the introverted and eccentric, individualists involved in a mental world of their own.”

2. For the Misfortunate.

Amazon recently introduced dedicated pages for book series. So, Cape Misfortune is officially a series! “Cape Misfortune” and “Cape Misfortune II Agata’s Story” are “standalone” so you can read them in any order. Paperback and Kindle versions are available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08ZYSNKMY

Meanwhile I’m halfway through the third book, provisionally called “The Lost Gods of Misfortune.”

3. For the Daydreamers.

It’s probably not an Internet-breaking observation that characters can sometimes seem to take on a life of their own when you are writing fiction.
Writing day-in and day- out for months some characters start to become almost as “real” to you as anyone else in your life.

Obviously these imagined creatures don’t have some kind of actual supernatural life. But it is weird sometimes when they detach themselves and become autonomous!

There are many authors who say it never happens to them but in my experience characters can surprise – sometimes having enough imaginative life to break out and rewrite the plot.

Which may not be a bad thing. Perhaps a well-drawn character makes us follow the cadences and rhythms of real life – rather than an author trying to squeeze characters into a high concept plot.

I say, encourage them.

4. Upcoming events.

There’s still a few weeks of summer left. Hoping they are good ones for you.