NaNoWriMo update

My project "Andorra Pett and the Oort Cloud Cafe" has been verified as a winner of this year's NaNoWriMo at 67859 words!

Stay tuned for news of the publication date.

Beetroot Rolls

The mystery of the bowl of beetroot is solved.

I put it into my Wholemeal Rolls, 500g of chopped beetroot in 1000g of flour, 675g water and 20g each of yeast and salt.

That gave me 18 rolls of about 120g each

And I used the spare Sourdough Starter in a white loaf. 400g starter, 500g flour 350g water and 10g each of yeast and salt. This is a conventional bread, the starter has no function other than to add flavour.

I do love a gadget.

I once wrote a short story on my mobile phone. I had an idea whilst I was on my way to give blood and, sitting down to await my turn I typed out the rough story on my smartphone keyboard. It was hard work, my fingers are too banana shaped and the keyboard was too small. If only, I thought, there was a keyboard that I could plug into my phone, life would be so much easier.

I've upgraded my phone since then but not my fingers, however, I found this online while I was looking for a  case for the phone.

It plugs into the charger slot and turns the phone into a laptop.

Look at this,

That was the first thing I could think of to type and I've made one mistake but I'm dead excited. Queuing will never be a problem again.

A Bit late

I'm a day late, and this post will not be the usual wordlesWednesdayay one. Largely because I haven't got lots of enigmatic pictures.

What I do have is news that I'll be on the RADIO next week, December 2nd to be exact, talking about Scifi and whatever else comes up. Its a local radio station and my interview will be posted as a podcast so I'll let you all know the link when I get it.

We have overdosed (if that's possible) on cake; Totnes Sunday market had a few we couldn't resist, Yvonne had Lemon Cheesecake and I had Chocolate Orange tart.

I also found  a Black Pudding Scotch Egg, not a cake but a delicious treat!

Linda from Red Earth Kitchen had said she was not making Millionaires Shortbread anymore, hence the alternatives but she surprised us with her last two pieces...ever!

We had them on Monday with a beef chilli scotch egg for our lunch. Very sad.

And yesterday, we found these little festive beauties in Torquay. Bite-sized and very nice, they were perfect with a cup of tea after a hard days Xmas shopping.

As I said last time, I've been very busy with the novel writing challenge, and I can announce that I've done more than 50,000-words so I have "passed." I'm not finished yet so I'll keep going and see where we get to by the end of the month.

There are Xmas markets all over this weekend, I think we have four to go to, plus fireworks on Saturday night when Brixham switches on its festive lights. There will be no rest until January now.

Black Friday Special

There is a special edition of Flash Fiction available from now until Christmas.

Read all the amazing short stories and at the back of the book, there is a link which takes you to my website. Enter your e-mail address and you’ll be set the link for a FREE novel, hosted by bookfunnel.com. You’ll also be put on the mailing list for my newsletter, where you’ll get all the latest information from me, including extra short stories and pre-launch offers for my upcoming releases. Of course, you can unsubscribe at any time, but I’d rather you didn’t. I promise never to spam you or pass your details on.

Here's the link myBook.to/Flash just follow the instructions that you'll find inside.

Happy reading.

And finally, as they say. What am I doing with a bowl of chopped beetroot?

Find out next time.

Christmas is coming.

And we have been to our first Christmas market, at Hannah's near Newton Abbot. Hannahs is a local charity http://discoverhannahs.org/seale-hayne/ which does wonderful work.
The place has such a wonderful atmosphere and this year, even though it's only November they had a bouncy Snowman,if it hadn't been full of kids we could have had a go!

We did manage to have our first mince pie of the season though,and very nice it was too.

Now we are into the festivities, there are things to go to just about every day, next weekend we have a choice of about four or five different ones.

If you remember, I said that I would make some Wholemeal Sourdough this week,  using the  "do nothing" method.

I did and this was the result, it had a beautiful sour taste and makes delicious toast.

There was enough dough for a Focaccia as well, to which I added Garlic and Olive Oil. I don't know why it stuck, but it did, it gave me a sample to taste and showed the interior structure, considering it had no added yeast and no kneading it was well aerated.

Before baking.

It was cloudy for the supermoon,I did manage to get a quick picture but there was no chance to set up the tripod, just a break in the cloud long enough to get my phone out.

Yvonne has finished two more cross-stitch squares for Lovequilts, this time for girls quilts.

More beautiful work!

And my Short Story collection, Flash Fiction has a five-star review. You can see it HERE, and of course, you can get the FREE e-Book while you're there as well.

Testing my new Phone, Wordless.

Just a few pictures from my new phone, testing out the features and the zoom. A great day for a walk as well. Who needs a separate camera these days?

Mind you, when your subject is this stunning, it's easy to get a great picture.

Sunday Crossover

I have an author website, which I normally keep separate from this blog, but this month, what with it being NaNoWriMo, and all that entails, I haven't got much to say, largely because that has been keeping me from doing much else.

As you might know, the idea of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words during the month of November, which should be enough for a first draft, it will give you a plot and most of the background for a novel. 

I know, because I actually wrote "Ribbonworld" in November 2014, while I was off sick from work and had time on my hands awaiting surgery. In the end, it was finished off at 73,000 words in April 2015 and published in November.

So this year, as a project, I took a short story that has had a good reception and decided to turn it into a novel if I could.

The story was "Andorra Pett and the Oort Cloud Cafe," my homage to the "Cupcakes on the beach" genre that one literary agent suggested that I should write instead of sci-fi.

If you haven't read the story, you can either download it here or take the plunge and get the full collection of short stories that it's featured in here.

Anyway, after 12 days, I have around 25,000 words done, so I'm coming along nicely, I have the full plot, I know the end and which character did what. All I need to do now, in the remaining 25,000 words,is complete the dialogue and scene setting and I'm done.

And I found the most amazing website, that I expect everyone else knows about, to design a cover. 
I normally use the wonderful Cathy Helms at Avalon Graphics to do my covers but this one needed something quickly. It will only be an e-book for the moment, assuming that I actually finish it and that it's worth publishing.

The site is Canva, it's very easy to use and full of great features, this only took me a couple of minutes (I expect you can tell!), and felt in keeping with the spirit of the story.

Once I have finished writing it and my editor had given it a wave of her magic wand, I'll be asking for opinions and giving away some free copies of the first edit before the whole thing goes live. Stay tuned for details!

In what little other news there is, I have made another month's supply of Onion Rings, they now reside in the freezer. Made with sourdough starter and beer in the batter they are the perfect side dish for just about anything. As well as the larger size rings, I also batter and fry the little bits from the core, delicious!

And my new mobile has arrived. I had an email to say that I was due an upgrade and this was the result, 

for the same monthly payment and nothing to pay for the phone. I also got an increase in my data allowance, which will come in handy.