Merry Christmas

A very Merry Christmas to both my readers

A very Merry Christmas to you all.
(The William Herschel Telescope has a laser to measure atmospheric turbulence, in order to correct for it. But really, it’s very low powered and no danger to flying reindeer. Santa is quite safe.)

Chain Blog Post

 Patsy Collins talked me into joining the Writing Process Blog Tour. She's a novelist and short story writer. Her short story collection is currently available to download FREE from Amazon HERE

I'm supposed to answer four questions, so here goes.

1. What am I working on? 
   I'm putting the finishing touches to an anthology of short stories for children. Technically, it's what Ursula Le Guin called a story suite. Rather than a bunch of random stories, the twelve stories in the book are interconnected: they all take place on the island of La Palma where I live, at specific places and specific dates in history, and they're all connected one way or another with the sky.
2. How does my work differ from others of its genre? 
   There's the focus on La Palma, which is unusual, and a lot of my stories have a thread of science running through them. And of course every writer inevitably produces different work. Your values tend to leak all over the page like a nose-bleed - particularly the ones that go so deep that you didn't even know you had them.
3. Why do I write what I do?  Like most writers, I write things I'd like to read. And in my case, I have a passion for the beautiful island I live on and the night sky (and La Palma has the best night sky in Europe).
4. How does my writing process work? 
   It varies. Normally  I like to have the story pretty well planned before I start. For this last book, I was chasing a deadline in order to qualify for funding, so I often wrote whatever bit I had clear, and hoped that my subconscious would supply the next bit tomorrow. I was surprised how well it worked.

And next week the same questions will be answered by:
Roxanne Snopek writes feel-good redemption stories with quirky characters and happily-ever-afters. Her popular Three River Ranch e-book series, published by Entangled Bliss, is set in Montana, and contains swoon-worthy heroes, strong heroines and various four-footed characters. Learn more at www.roxannesnopek.ca/blog


Tony Thorne MBE is a slightly eccentric author of quirky, speculative fiction, best known for Tenerife Tall Tales. The .pdf of his Best Selling Author Plan is available for free for a limited time.

Monica J. O’Rourke has published more than one hundred short stories in magazines such as Postscripts, Nasty Piece of Work, Fangoria, Flesh & Blood, Nemonymous, and Brutarian and anthologies such as Horror for Good (for charity), The Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra, and The Best of Horrorfind. She is the author of Poisoning Eros I and II, written with Wrath James White, Suffer the Flesh, and the collection, In the End, Only Darkness. Her latest novel, What Happens in the Darkness, is available from Sinister Grin Press. She works as a freelance editor, proofreader, and book coach. Find her on www.facebook.com/MonicaJORourke

Early morning photography.

The Big Dipper over Santa Cruz de La Palma

I got up early to try to see comet ISON (which is low in the east just before dawn).

There was only one cloud in the starry sky.

Yup. Right in front of the comet.

Since I was up anyway, I decided that I may as well practise a bit of astro-photography. I need the practice after all. So here is the Big Dipper /Ursa Major and a big ferry arriving in Santa Cruz de La Palma. I think the main reason that the ferry is blurred is that it moved during the 30 second exposure.

And I took some photos of Mercury and Saturn. To be honest, I was hoping that to comet would pop out when I tweaked the exposure a little with Photoshop, but no such luck.

Mercury (top) and Saturn (bottom left) this morning. The faint star at the bottom right is about where I expected comet ISON to be, but it's a star in the constellation Libra.

The end of a long day.

Yesterday I had my first private customers. I got an email: "Our friend went on a cruise, and you were the guide for her excursion on La Palma. She says you're great. We're coming on Nov 10th, please can you tell us which excursion you'll be doing because we want to be on it." Obviously this did my ego no harm at all, but I can't control which bus I do, and I usually don't know until the same morning. After a lot of emails to and fro, they hired me and a taxi for the day. So I got as much money as usual, but I only had to keep two people happy. We overran on time, but nobody minded.

Eventually the taxi driver dropped us in town, because they wanted to see a particular shop which I had to go to anyway - they'd just mended my necklace. And then we walked back towards the port together. We parted at the stop for the shuttle bus, everybody happy with everybody and me somewhat richer, and I went to my car nearby.

 No car keys in my handbag. And then I remembered putting the car keys into my jacket pocket. And then I remembered putting the jacket in the back of the taxi. Spit!

So I needed to phone the taxi driver. And then I remembered putting my mobile phone in the other pocket of the jacket. OK, so there's still a few payphones around. But the taxi driver's number was a) on my mobile which I didn't have, b) on his business card which I didn't have so it had to be in the jacket too, and c) probably on another business card in my little album of business cards at home.

I contemplated my chances of getting either of the people at home to find this album, and then the card within the album, before I ran out of change for a pay phone. My heart sank.

OK, so the best people to help me get in contact with the taxi driver would be other tax drivers. I took the shuttle bus to the cruise ship (and my customers were very surprised to see me get on board the bus!) but there were no taxis there. So I too the shuttle bus back to town and went to the nearest taxi rank.

My luck changed. The first driver I approached said, "Santi? Yeah, he's my mate. I'll phone him for you." So he established that Santi had gone home out of town to eat and sleep, and his partner would be bringing the taxi back to the taxi rank in half an hour. Result! I wasn't a bit surprised that the "half hour" was 40 minutes, just very relieved to get my jacket back, and more relieved to have the phone and car keys again.

 I had several glasses of wine when I got home.

Better

I went back to the dentist yesterday. Much better! I now have a temporary filling that hopefully won't need to come out. If all goes well, the dentist will put a permanent cover on it in three weeks. Meanwhile, it's sensitive to hot and cold, but doesn't hurt otherwise. The children's anthology is coming on nicely, too. I've started writing the last story in English, nine of the stories have been translated into Spanish and eight of the fourteen illustrations done. It's starting to feel much less overwhelming.