Posts Tagged ‘Zoe Sharp’
Landing in Deep Water And Getting Out Again
In my last blog I talked about the instances of flooding in the UK and touched briefly on the problems it causes. Or, more to the point, the mess it leaves behind. Of course, if you actually find yourself caught up in flooding, the last thing that should be on your mind is how you’re going to get raw sewage out of the living room carpet.
You have far more important things to worry about.
Like not drowning.
In a House
If you’re in a building, unless it’s in direct serious danger of becoming completely submerged, they reckon your chances of survival are far greater if you stay inside.
Turn off the mains electricity and gas.
Close all the doors and windows.
Fill empty containers with drinking water as tap water will quickly become contaminated.
If you’ve had enough prior warning, think about moving sentimentally important items onto tables or to an upper floor. If you haven’t had much warning, leave it. Nobody ever said during a eulogy, “She died trying to save her credenza. It was what she would have wanted…”
Move to the uppermost floor with water, food, spare clothing and flashlights. Also take a ladder with you, if one is needed to access the roof space, just in case the water gets really high.
If you are forced to take the the roof, rope together all the members of your party to the chimney, so no-one is swept away. If no rope is available, use bedsheets or blankets, knotted together.
Read the rest of this blog over on Murder Is Everywhere.
With A Little Help From My Friends
The brand new Charlie Fox crime thriller, BAD TURN, is due to be published this coming Friday—September 27.
Hard as it is for me to believe it sometimes, this will be book thirteen in the series. They do not get any easier to write.
Mostly, though, I feel that’s the way it should be. If something is worth having, it should be worth struggling for. And I do agonise over the story, the development of the characters and the continuing journey of my main protagonist, Charlie herself. I always try to find a slightly different problem to throw at Charlie, a different means of testing her.
This time, the question I posed at the outset was, having resigned from the executive-protection agency run by Parker Armstrong and been forced to give up her company-subsidised apartment in New York, has she gone over to the dark side by taking on a job for a shady international arms dealer?
Usually, you have the reassurance of your agent and publisher behind you. They are excited by the initial idea, approving of the outline, and then they get to go through the delivered manuscript, line by line, to give you their feedback and advice.
Or not, as the case may be. I’ve delivered books to publishers before now only to be greeted by weeks of silence before the copy-edits turn up with no comment on the work other than corrections to punctuation and spelling.
It can make the approach of publication day something of a nail-biting experience.
This time, however, is different.
Read the rest of this blog over on MurderIsEverywhere.
Win a bundle of signed books!
How would you like to win a bundle of signed print books by five Northern crime writers? Grab copies of NO TIME TO DIE by Andrew Barrett, KISS OF DEATH by Paul Finch, CRASH by Keith Houghton, THE BLOW OUT by Bill Rogers, and DANCING ON THE GRAVE by Zoë Sharp.
This simple to enter sweepstake has been organised by Manchester-based debut author, David Beckler, whose first novel, BROTHERHOOD, will be out on February 07.
The competition ends on December 11 at 7pm GMT, so enter today!
In Full Retreat: Writing in France
I went to France at the beginning of July planning to get a start made on the new Charlie Fox book. I’m happy to report that the tentative 15,000 words I’d hoped for morphed into 20,000 once I got into the writing, and I’m even cautiously pleased with the way it’s going so far. I promised myself I’d have a break when I hit that point, and do some driving around to look at locations for later on in the story, but at the same time, I’m anxious not to lose too much momentum.
No chance of getting out of practise with the writing itself, though. I also had a last-minute Q&A to write for the #BlogTour I did at the start of the month for the launch of the new crime thriller standalone, Dancing On The Grave. Thank you so much to everyone who took part or supported me along the way.
And then I was reminded that I’d promised to provide a short story for a proposed anthology earlier in the year. The editor contacted me and asked for a brief sentence or two about the story, and particularly the setting of it. Within a week, if possible.
Argh!
My mind was a complete blank.
ZS and Libby Fischer Hellmann at the American Cemetery, Omaha Beach, Normandy
To read the rest of this blog on MurderIsEverywhere, please click here.