Wishing You a Very Merry Christmas
Happy Christmas everyone. May all your dreams come true and your Christmas be merry and jolly.
Chris Longmuir
My Blog
Audiobooks – Why has it taken me so long to publish?
I have been a writer for more years than I like to remember. Let’s just say I’ve been scribbling for decades. I’ve won major book awards and published eleven books, nine fiction and two nonfiction, and a lot of people like to read them.
I publish both paperbacks and ebooks, so why has it taken me so long to think about audiobooks.
Well, when I say I hadn’t been thinking about this, it is not actually true. You see, I have been thinking about turning my books into audiobooks for quite a long time. I even at one time tried to narrate my own audiobook.
Now, as you know, I have a technical frame of mind, even to the extent I build my own computers. However, my confidence in the narration side of things was a completely different matter. So, although I narrated one book I never had the courage to upload it. I had to think of my other options and that’s when it became difficult.
Breaking News: Launch of Val Penny’s New Book “First Cut”
Most of you who know me are aware that I’m an avid reader. I gulp books down like there is no tomorrow, and it’s no wonder because at the last count, I had 1,422 eBooks in my Kindle and 133 audiobooks lodged in my phone and I daren’t count the number of paperbacks and hardbacks that seem to be holding up the walls of my house. I’ve never been really good at maths but even I know I’ll need several lifetimes to get through that lot.
That makes prioritisation important when selecting my next read, and that means I turn to my favourite authors first. And, when one of my favourite authors publishes a new book that tends to increase my stock of books to get through and I never know whether to cheer or cry. All I know is that I’ve got to get it.
So, why am I telling you this? Well, it’s simple really, Val Penny has just published her new book The First Cut and I really, really want it.
Here is the blurb to The First Cut and I’d lay bets it will whet your appetite:
I Lost a Good Friend when Eileen Ramsay Passed Away
It was with great sadness that I learned Eileen Ramsay had passed away. Among the many Scottish writers I now rub elbows with, she was my first friend in the writing community. That was way back in 1989. And she was a good friend who provided me with a great deal of encouragement to embark on my own writing career, but I was not the only writer she helped. There were many others.
Eileen led an interesting and varied life. She was born in the southwest of Scotland and had ambitions to write from an early age.
Happy New Year for 2023
Happy New Year to all my friends, readers and acquaintances. In the Scottish tradition, ‘Lang may your lum reek wi’ ither folk’s coal.’ I hope you have your bottle and your lump of coal ready for first footing. Not forgetting the shortbread and black bun. New Year wouldn’t be the same without a wee dram.
Now that we are ready, I’ll raise my glass and wish you the very best New Year and drink to your health.
May the coming year bring you health, happiness and success in all you do.
Happy New Year
Chris
Happy Christmas Now we’re Heading Back to Normal Living
Happy Christmas to all my friends and readers. By this time the presents will have been opened and the turkey eaten (I’m a wee bit late this year) and I hope you all had a wonderful time.
I spent Christmas day with my granddaughter and her family and we had a lovely time. The meal was delicious; the pressies were great and very welcome, and the games dafter than ever. I’m told one of my Pictionary drawings was quite rude although I didn’t see it because we’re not allowed to look at the screen when we’re drawing our pictures in the air. So, I’ll just have to take their word for it.
Anyway, now I’m relaxing on Boxing Day, there is time to catch up with all the undone tasks. Did I say relaxing? Scrap it.
And tomorrow I’ve pencilled in, finish checking book 3 of the Dundee Crime Series for my audio narrator, and get back to the book I’m writing. That’s an exaggeration, not much writing has been taking place. So, it’s time to get the finger out and get back to work.
Happy Christmas everyone.
Chris
Brechin Muckle Market Resurrected
There is something about a market that is irresistible and I’m sure, like me, many of you make a beeline for markets wherever in the world you are, whether that be a Moroccan Souk, a middle east bazaar, or a local farmers’ market. I’ve bought jewellery from market stalls in Italy, Malta, Spain, and many other places. I still have silver earrings I bought in Yugoslavia a few years before war ravaged the country. In case I haven’t mentioned it, I have a weakness for earrings.
The largest market I’ve visited over the past few years was St Jacob’s Market in Ontario, Canada. If any market deserves the name of muckle market, it is surely this one with masses of outside stalls where a wanderer could easily get lost and an indoor market on two levels. Food and produce downstairs and crafts and artisan goods upstairs. A market-goers paradise.
I love to wander around markets whether they are indoors or outdoors. The stalls vary from those selling food to ones selling all kinds of crafts. And you can always tell when you are in the vicinity of the fish stall by the smell.
Have a Great Hogmanay and a Happy New Year
Tonight I’ll be the despair of all my Scottish ancestors. I’ll be going to my bed and sleeping the old year out and the new year in. I won’t even stay up to hear the bells and drink the toast to welcome the new year. When you’re the only one in the house, there seems little point. Not like the old days when we might go on the razzle for days on end.
Why should it matter? Well, in Scotland, Hogmanay and New Year have always been the biggest celebration. Far bigger than Christmas. In fact, Christmas was never an official holiday in Scotland until about 1958. It was only after that date Scots were allowed a day off work at Christmas and that has built up over the intervening years to be the same as the English holidays, two official days. But New Year has always had its full quota of holidays.
When I was a child, everyone worked on Christmas Day, but like most other children in Britain, Santa did come on Christmas Eve and we hung our stockings up, hoping for them to be filled. But I recall some children who did this at New Year, particularly if their parents were from the older generation.
I suppose the situation in Scotland was a hangover from the Scottish Protestant Reformation, John Knox and all that jazz. In fact, Christmas was banned in the sixteenth century due to the views of influential reformers that it was a Popish or Catholic feast.
So, back to Hogmanay and the New Year, the biggest Scottish celebration when everyone celebrates with a dram. Being Scots, alcohol and celebration go hand in hand.
It was certainly a riotous time when I was in my teens.
Christmas Greetings From My Hermit’s Cave
Last Christmas I wrote about Christmas in the strangest of years. Well, it’s still a strange old world and while I’ve been occasionally venturing out from my hermit’s cave, it certainly doesn’t feel normal.
I now visit a select few shops but am still shunning all supermarkets. Delivery to my doorstep is the new norm. As for travel, I don’t think I’ve been further than 30 miles from my own doorstep for the past two years. Book festivals and conferences are a no-no unless they’re online. I’ve become quite adept at Zoom and have done a few Zoom events and readings for libraries and other places. If you search for my name on YouTube, you’re bound to find them.
I have plucked up the courage to do some live events, as well as taking my bookstall to various markets. Masked and sanitised, of course. And it’s marvellous to meet real live people and readers in the flesh as well as on Zoom. I think I’d started to think flesh and blood people were figments of my imagination and that we were all avatars.
The one good thing is that I’ve read a massive number of books. Kindle for bedtime, paperback or hardback for midday, and audiobooks when I’m exercising or doing mundane household tasks.
I will be dining out on Christmas Day, but it won’t be in a restaurant or a hotel – I’ve forgotten what the inside of those looks like! I will be joining my granddaughter and her family, maintaining my social bubble, and we’re going to have a great time.
As for the new book, it’s progressing slowly. I think when lockdown first happened, my brain decided to go into lockdown as well. I really must get my finger out and finish it.
In the meantime, I want to wish everyone a happy Christmas and to those of you who don’t celebrate Christmas, happy holidays. I hope Santa is good to you and fills your stockings with all kinds of goodies, particularly books. What’s Christmas or a holiday without a good book.
Chris Longmuir
So Excited: Mel and Jeff McCracken have returned in Alison Morton’s new book – Double Pursuit
I haven’t seen writing friends in the flesh for a year and a half and I was delighted when thriller writer Alison Morton and I agreed the other day to meet up in person at the next Crimefest in 2022. But neither of us have been idle – writers are used to a certain measure of self-isolation.
Alison has spent her time writing a sequel to the first in her new Melisende series. Although she’s written Double Pursuit (publication date 19th October) as a standalone as all her books are, it follows on naturally from her first book, Double Identity.
In this new book, protagonist Mel is investigating a loose end from a previous case. And her efforts are going nowhere. At least, that’s what she thinks. Here’s a bit more from Double Pursuit.