Book update

I have now seen the Kindle, phone and tablet versions of ‘Symi, Stuff & Nonsense’ and it looks excellent. Just waiting for some proofreading notes to come back, and I still need to send the artwork form off to the cover designer (today), and so I should have a cover in a week or two.

In other book news; it was thrilling to hear that Penzance library now has a copy of ‘Village View’ on its shelves. Normally, libraries order books through a central agency, with whom the book has to be registered. It isn’t, in this case, so I’m not sure how our friends in Penzance pulled that one off, but if you’re in the area and want to read it, I’d phone first to make sure they have it in. Apparently, it is already out on loan. If you have nothing better to do, you could always petition your local library (assuming such things still exist) and ask that they stock ‘Symi 85600’ and the rest – see what they say. Or, if you are part of a book club, you could suggest ‘The Saddling‘ as a read, or any of my titles. One book club has already used that as one of their monthly reads. All these things help authors get some notice, a couple of sales and also those all-important reviews on Amazon. On which note, here is a post I have put on my author page on Facebook, for those who don’t use Facebook.

Two more excellent reviews for The Saddling! Three more and I will hit the magic 20 reviews. Can you help? https://goo.gl/mIpQQB

“I was cold the entire time I was reading this book, I could feel the cold mud seeping in my shoes and the icy winds, the cold rooms and atmosphere. James Collins has the ability to transport you right into the story, so you are aware of wearing the smelly sheepskin and almost being able to reach out and touch naked flesh.”

Thank you for the review! Wait until you read ‘The Witchling’, you should warm up a bit as the element behind that story is fire (summer), whereas with The Saddling it was water (winter).

“I read ‘The Saddling’ for book club. Really gripping story and once I started, I was compelled to pick the book up whenever I could. Excellent sense of anticipation in the build up to ‘The Saddling’ ritual. Definitely scope for a sequel. Quite dark at times but also a beautiful romance underlies the narrative, which I found very touching.”

Thank you for the review. A sequel is on its way (second draft stage now). The romance continues and is tested, there is another ritual too. ‘The Witchling’ is set against the summer solstice, whereas The Saddling was the winter solstice.

Enough about books for now. We are off to Nimborio today (Tuesday) for lunch, and I will take the camera. If I can, I will take some photos of the waves that are being white-horsed by the wind this morning. It’s a north wind too, which means the temperature in the house has dropped suddenly. No more shorts or sandals. It’s not quite thermal underwear time, but it’s getting there. The sad thing is, the chilli plant has just come into flower but I think it’s rather late in the season for it to survive and give us chillies. But then, what do I know about any kind of plants? One to keep an eye on.

Some news

There is some more news about the film, ‘The 13^th‘ which showed at a film festival in London last night. It has been nominated for Best Actor, Kurtis Stacey, and Best Screenplay, James Collins & Chris Hastings. The announcements will be made on or just after Sunday.

In scintillating home news, the winter drapes have gone up across the front door in the porch to keep the draft out of the one-inch gap, and across the living room/hall entrance, which has no door, to insulate the living room a little. The quilt is ready to go over the duvet on the bed and double up as a cover for the balcony windows when it is really cold. Extendable shower curtain rails are worth their weight in aluminium as they are so easy to put up and take down again; no need for a drill. With my non-existent DIY skills, that’s a great advantage.

On Symi generally, the breeze is cooler now, there are few boats in the harbour, though three day-trip boats have still been arriving each day. The winter chairs are outside the bar, in limited form, and the atmosphere inside has warmed up, not that it was cold before, but you know what I mean. The village is quiet, there is cloud cover today (Tuesday), and the sea is grey, but some blue sky can still be seen. The Panormitis festival is coming up in less than a week, but we’re still not sure if we will make it this year, we shall see. And right here before me, my keyboard is now sticking on the keys for O and A, which is making for some very interesting typos, unless I go back and check very carefully. And that’s it for today.

Symi, Football & Nonsense

What stunning news have I for you today? Well, not a lot. I put out a call on Facebook to see if anyone was willing to check ‘Symi, Stuff & Nonsense’ for typos, and had many offers. Thank you, everyone, I’ve emailed the first few who offered, and so taken down the request – in case you posted there and thought I was rude by not replying. I’ll gather the notes together, hopefully later this week, and send them on to the editor who is probably tearing his hair out because of the need for changes after he’s already formatted the book. Here’s a photo.

(I just re-read that. I men here’s a Symi photo, not one of Allan tearing his hair out.)

We popped into the Rainbow Bar on Sunday night for an end of weekend glass of wine and ended up being part of an AEK Athens F.C. fan club. Yiannis is a very strong supporter. As were several other men who came to watch the match on one of the screens. The other TV was jumping between another football match, where the players wore similar colour costumes – to basketball where the players’ shorts were long enough to reach their shins, thus making them middies, not shorts – to a very interesting documentary about Richard II. Sadly, I only caught a few seconds of that before we switched over to one of those ubiquitous cooking programmes hosted by a chef you’ve never heard of. Tasty though his keftethes looked, they were no match for a football match, and AEK won. The battle of the TVs, I mean, not their game. Well, they might have done. I was far too interested to catch up on news with Jenine and Terri to notice. Our conversation was interrupted by missed goals, corners, and things that were claimed as fouls but were, in fact, two men bitch-slapping each other over a costume clash, or something. Anyway, here’s another photo.

I should point out that there is a connection between paragraphs one and two today. If you like the style and content of para two, you will love ‘Symi, Stuff & Nonsense.’ There’s a fair amount of that kind of thing in it, hopefully without typos. And here’s a final photo. I’m off.

Symi Sunday Ramble

Sunday morning at either six thirty or seven, depending on which clock I am looking at and which one I’ve remembered to alter by an hour, and the ground outside is wet. I was woken at 2.30, or actually 1.30 by then, by a thunderstorm which I heard even through my earplugs. I thought I should go and unplug everything vital, just in case, and check the windows where we’d not closed the shutters. I put a few towels down there just in case, wondered about staying up and getting some work done and then decided against it. I fell back to sleep with thunder rattling in my ears, and the room being lit up in flashes like a scene from a horror film.

The annual Oxi Day parade and church services took place on Saturday. Neil was down in Yialos early and took some photos of the morning before everyone arrived. The school paraded, the music played, and the commemorations were held. You can see that things were still a bit damp following rain on Saturday as well. The wind was low, nearly non-existent actually, and it was warm enough to have the balcony doors open during the day. I spent most of the weekend at the ‘typewriter’ as is my way, and only really saw the outside world on Friday night when we were taken to Georgio’s for dinner.

There are very few visitors around now. We met a late-season couple on Friday night, there are some sailing boats still in the harbour and out at sea; I often see quite a few in November, it must be a good time for sailing. Otherwise, the village is quiet, slowly settling back into its usual winter routine, as are we. Fewer invites and appointments mean more time for tapping away at the old keyboard and doing what I do, and the next big festival to look forward to is that at Panormitis on November 6^th, 7^th and 8^th. I’m not sure yet what we are doing for that. Previously we have walked across the island to the main festival day, been to Kokimides a couple of times, Roukouniotis, and have stayed at home or simply been around the village. We have also been away for it, holidaying at Marathounda for a few days over the three-day festival. That was several years ago now (10 I think) and the time I went swimming in the sea at seven in the morning… in November. It’s possible. In fact, some people swim every day through the year, including the winter, as long as it’s safe to do so.

Anyway, that’s a quick Sunday morning ramble ready to start our week today, and Neil took the photos. Now, I must return to the usual work routine. I love Sundays, they feel like free days where I can do anything I want. I look forward to a whole day of uninterrupted writing, and then think, ‘I must just prepare a blog… And maybe attend to my author blog (not done that for ages)… And then check my listings on Amazon and see if I can drum up any sales… And then I should think about putting the wedding photos into a book… I need to read through ‘Symi, Stuff & Nonsense’ one more time… And check if the cover designer has got back to me… Oh, and the courtyard needs sweeping, must get some shopping, better stop for a coffee on the way back… And before you know it, it’s Monday.

Symi Saturday Photos

Let’s round off the week with our usual Symi Saturday Photos. This week has given us rain (yippee! Say the plants), Neil’s last day of the season working at The Rainbow Bar, my wonderful editor finishing off the interior of ‘Symi, Stuff & Nonsense’, me making progress on the screenplay commission I am working on, a football tournament for our youth teams, a last lunch of the season (for us) at Meraklis – it’s open until mid November, Vasilis tells me – sunny days, some warm evenings with the windows still open, and the first of the Christmas shopping orders arriving. So, before you head off into your weekend, here are a few photos from this week. Have a good one, as they say, rather vaguely.