Valentine’s Day – fact and fiction

Why spend a bucket load of money on flowers, chocolates and cards with overweight teddies, holding hearts, for your loved ones when you can give away a book? This sounds like a very dire ad and it makes me ashamed to even think suggesting this to anyone. So, I won’t. Instead, I will tell you that the good St Valentine was prosecuted for marrying soldiers (who, for some reason or other, were forbidden to have spouses). A criminal! A goodhearted person would say that he broke the law for a just reason (Ah, we’re talking love here) while others would definitely put a nasty comment online and argue that a crime is a crime and he should get a lengthy prison sentence.

Some sources talk about two St Valentine’s and some even three. Did they all arrange illegal weddings? Are we talking about organised crime here? I’m beginning to get worried, what kind of role model was this guy?

Maybe St Valentine was set up by the manufacturers of chocolate boxes and heart-shaped cards so they would sell more stuff? Ancient Rome had a massive army and all those men who were not allowed to have girl friends and get married must have caused an economic recession with their personal austerity.

On another note, I have no flowers or cards for you but you can download The Wall to Protect Us All, by going to Amazon, for free for the rest of this week. This will give you more in your pocket for the roses to that special person.

On Grammar and Free Books

Someone said it doesn’t matter with punctuation, or even grammar when you send your finished novel to a publisher and maybe that goes for some – I know I’m sitting here going over my text over and over again on the hunt for any mistakes, fearing there will be a whole new novel before I’m finished.

I used to think only evil people became English teachers, those who loved stomping on your baby – that master piece of an essay or poem – you had spent last night sweating over, berating yourself for having left it to the last minute – again.

If I were a good girl I would tell you that all our teachers were good people, whose only aim in life was to instil good work ethics and impeccable spelling and grammar. Truth is, I’m not good. And I’m still stuck here, with my third coffee of the morning, pondering over a specific sub clause on page 11.

There are good things happening too: the sequel to “The Wall” is coming along nicely (I will post bits and bobs from the ongoing work very soon) and on Thursday you will be able to download The Wall to Protect Us All for free.

The Wall to Protect Us All: Hunted

She was not going to die without a fight and she scanned her surroundings for shelter, but it was too dark to make out anything. The attackers stopped dead at a thudding, as something huge had materialised seemingly from nowhere. Something was hanging from the ink black sky, a behemoth with huge yellow beams for eyes and it had sensed human presence with its heat sensor camera. Whether friendly or dangerous, it hovered just above Astrid, close enough to stir up a cloud of dust, and she immediately knew what it was even if she had never seen one before. Within seconds she was alone and she shrank back into the shadows from the buildings, creeping along the street, away from the Blessed helicopter. She doubted the men in the helicopter would be able to spot the difference between a Blessed and a Cursed in the dark so she was safer avoiding it. She crept, ever forward, as the helicopter continued its journey, oblivious of her presence, and eventually she found herself in an old cemetery.