Continuing the theme of morning… Stick your fingers in your ears while I blow my own trumpet.
You never know what you are going to wake up to. Sometimes I wake up to the sound of liveliness in the harbour, if one of the later-night bars is still going at four; sometimes, it’s the sound of a large boat coming or going below, or the sound of the sea lapping at the quayside, because that can be heard from up here when the wind is in the right direction. Occasionally, I hear a ridiculously noisy motorbike passing the house, or the agonising strains of cat courtship nearby. Often, one of my first sights is the vine leaves in the porch, blown in there during the night. Usually, with tea brewed and loins girded, I get straight to work, and the first thing I get to see there are spam emails, bills and bad news.
This morning, though, the first thing I saw was a quote I can splatter all over the place with pride, because it was about me, and it was repeatable. This was in several groups on Facebook, where an erudite reviewer has spent the last several months giving honest and rather brilliant reviews of my Victorian mystery series (plural). All thirty books and two special collections of short stories. This chap is the Curator of Decorative Arts and Chief Curator Emeritus at New Jersey’s largest art institution, so I am inclined to listen to what he says, and what he said this morning, made the thousands of hours writing millions of words over the last ten years more than worth the enjoyable effort. Talking about me (as my penname) he wrote, among many other flattering words: “Marsh’s work is a monument in modern gay literature.”
It may not mean much to you, but to be called a monument is rather flattering, and having read all of his other reviews of my work, this is only one quote I could have pulled from many. So, that has brightened my day no end, and it’s only 04.40 in the morning.
The rest of the day will involve more writing, another trip to the dentist, and picking up a copy of my latest book from the post so it can go on the shelf with the others.
And if you want to know what this fuss is all about, take a look at my other website and/or my Amazon author page, where you can find the entire collection on Kindle, KU and in paperback.
