July 2, 2024 by elegsabiff

Generation Jones singles, and men who lie about their height, and A Team

I actually don’t usually mind when single men lie about their height. It’s a handy short-cut to their level of self-deception because we Generation Jones singles, like it or not, have shrunk at least a little bit. Height isn’t something one measures very often. At school, when they did, I was 5’ 9” which is (grabs calculator) 1.75m. Most of us remember our height in feet and inches. I’m still taller than most of my buddies but since they’re mostly Generation Jones too, reality is I’d probably have to breathe in and stand tall to top 5’ 8” these days. I do look for men describing themselves as around 6’ and do expect them to be shorter than that but still taller than me. If he is significantly closer to my height he’s – how to put this – a wishful thinker at best. Or genuinely delusional. Or thinks no-one will notice. Riiiiight. The short cut is to work out which, but at least you know instantly there’s something to work out.

I don’t actually hang around the singles websites now much, because we well-matured singles of this generation are past the last flush of youth and there’s a growing tendency to assess each other as future carers, or a financial lifeboat. The fun new relationship stuff of walking miles along the beach, dropping everything for a spontaneous weekend away in a quirky little B&B, or going to an all-night party, is definitely not going to be on the table much longer. So we look for companions who can hear, and follow the thread of a conversation, and can be presented to friends in the hope they won’t drink themselves into a stupor, or insist on airing their pungent views on the tightrope subjects of politics, religion, and sex, or, for that matter, fall asleep. The bar is not as high as it was. Nowadays a Catch has a good pension and some dosh in the bank, and if he insists on using his camper for holidays, well, at least there’ll be others at the campsites to talk to, right? A REAL catch makes you quiver and laugh and doesn’t bang on about his departed former mate (deceased or bolted) and has a healthy circle of likeable friends and, this is really important, finds those things in you too. They’re nearly as rare as unicorns on the free websites but – inshallah. (I’m not Muslim but tell me any word that sums that up better.)

When I do look, and bear in mind I’m in Spain, so the local English-speaking pool is nearly as limited as my colloquial Spanish, the same faces crop up again, and again, and again. I’ve met a few of them (not ONE is the height he says he is), talked to most. There’s one who has fallen head over heels in instant love at least five times so far, and is repeatedly shocked and disillusioned when the evocative profile is flawed in reality. One is in ongoing pursuit of a fast-moving wealthy widow so you’ll need to be either a lot slower or wealthier to ever be more than the hedged bet he’s online to find. One alternates months at a time between UK and Spain but don’t imagine you’ll be journeying to the UK with him any time soon, his wife may not like Spain but she’s not about to be unseated on her home ground. One says he is open to all ages so long as you look forty, tops, and/or can rock a bikini. (No he doesn’t, and no he couldn’t). One is an absolute cracker but in such dire financial circumstances he needs a miracle. One clings like a leech and bombards you with messages (but never responds to anything you say in your replies, it’s all about him) – never met him, but when I blocked him he created a new profile to bombard me again.

I got into fostering unwanted dogs recently and last night when I looked at the singles website I was suddenly struck by the similarities. In theory all both want is friendly attention, regular meals, outings, and some affection but for the often-abandoned that will never be enough. They can’t help themselves, they cross lines which should not be crossed and are doomed to be returned to the websites again and again and again, always wanting more than can ever be offered.

And yes I’m a long-time single as well, so yes that applies to me too, but I do, thanks be, have a Team – men friends who make me laugh, a few who are truly interesting, the priceless ones who can do stuff for the house and car, and those always up for a drink and chat. Some are single, some in part-time relationships (usually long-distance ones) and some married (importantly, I like their wives and their wives like and trust me) so a bloke of my own seems hardly worth the on-tap benefits. We babyboomers who fall into Generation Jones (1954 to 1965) (couple of theories for the name and Jones was once a popular drug, but for my money we’re the competitive ones who kept up with the Joneses) know that any guy we hang out with has to be a social asset . . .

Team structure has changed a fair bit over the thirty years I’ve maintained one but the essentials are the same. A good team is all blokes (female friends are worth their weight in gold but must set up their own teams to stay that way) – one who can fix anything in the house, one who can fix your car, one who thinks you’re wonderful, one who makes you feel sleek, (no, not the same thing, think about it) and one who turns the world sparkly whenever he’s around, which is never often enough. At least two confidantes you can discuss anything with, ideally at any time. and get you laughing – gay friends are priceless, and in fact a team can fluctuate around the dozen mark if none of them are full-time. The downside of a full-time friend, be aware, is that you get possessive about each other over a long period and when they let you down, even by falling in love elsewhere, it’s almost more devastating than a breakup. That’s also the downside of recruiting from the websites among the lonely unwanted, because they’ve all got issues. Be a good team manager, do no harm . . .

I wrote a book about this under another name while I was romping joyfully and less cynically through my Indian summer, Looking For Mr Will Do Nicely. Still plenty of fish out there but now their cry is a little more ‘look after me’. But will you look after me when I’m less fabulous? Hmmm?

Or you could foster a dog. Okay you might get bitten but someone in your Team will take you for stitches and shots. Even the nicest of them could be less sympathetic if you got mauled by a Single, knowing what you now know, which should be better.

Ever researching on your behalf, albeit not as often as yore.

March 8, 2018 by elegsabiff

How famous a writer would you really want to be?

Yup, I know, international best-seller and household name. That’s the kneejerk reaction, right?

When I first starting publishing books I was convinced I was putting myself under a spotlight for the whole world to see. I’m pretty sure other writers can identify with that, because of course we are. Some are cautious and call themselves totally different names. Some do use their real names, or switch to using their nom de plume all the time, bring it on.

However, the world has quite a lot of calls on its attention. Several million writers, for starters, and unless they are phenomenally successful, writers come pretty far down on the list. From being terrified of the spotlight, we move to diffident attempts to attract it (er, hello?) to actively trying to get noticed, to shrugging and accepting that there may be a handful of people glancing our way occasionally. On a good day.

I genuinely hadn’t realised how far my own attitude has shifted until a member of the singles website which enjoys my patronage did a blog about one of my books – the guide to using a singles website, Looking For Mr Will-Do-Nicely. It was a decidedly barbed blog, wondering aloud how many people from the website would find themselves in the book, and the first few comments were definitely a little paranoid. A website friend sent me a hurried whatsapp, you have to get that blog deleted! Contact the moderators, they are very helpful, they can take it down.

Are you crazy?

I wasn’t thrilled – the blog was barbed – but as Barnum said, no such thing as bad publicity. The book doesn’t point any fingers at individuals, only at types. It gives really good advice. It’s even listed on my profile on the website, and more to the point, it’s not private. It is for sale anywhere in the world. Anyone can buy it. I wish more people would. Everyone on a singles website, for starters.

My website buddy was slightly horrified. But she’s being negative. Whatever you do, don’t comment on the blog! It will stir up all sorts of trouble.

Umm – like people talking about the book? I did appreciate her concern, but it came from her personal horror of being targeted by the malicious. Individuals crave privacy, writers crave publicity.

I commented on the blog, mainly to defuse the paranoia, and there was laughter and a little discussion before the singles turned their attention to another blog and the whole tiny storm in a tiny teacup faded into yesterday’s news.

Makes me wonder, though, having embraced the spotlight, how bright would I want it to get? It would certainly be nice to sell more books, and all the marketing in the world can’t replace being discussed. All advertising, PR and marketing is aimed at starting discussion! He who shouts the loudest gets the most attention, and I’m rubbish at shouting.

Can you imagine achieving fame, though? Shifted from behind the parapet, and hoisted into full view … after those early anxieties I hadn’t thought about it at all, but these days, ouch. To be even mildly or briefly in the spotlight is to be sniped at by any mean-spirited numpty giddy with the power of being able to fire their assault rifle from cover. To be so famous that every fretful tweet you ever wrote in a bad mood was hauled up out of context and shredded, every unguarded word you ever added to a public Facebook debate was given the rubber-hose treatment, and every decision you made was criticised by the following trolls? It happens to politicians, it happens to celebrities, and it happens to household name writers, good or bad.

So, not too famous. Selling a few thousand books a month would more than cover it. Ta.

(That singles one, you should tell any mature single you know to get it. No, seriously. Good advice. It’s not in the margin with the others because it isn’t fiction. Click here for an Amazon near you, ebook or paperback)

May 20, 2017 by elegsabiff

Goodreads and giveaways, grrrr.

Seriously, how hard should it be to set up a Goodreads giveaway?

Here’s how it should work. Click on your book. Look for the ‘would you like to set up a giveaway?’ option. Select yes, the start / end dates, and how many paperbacks you are actually throwing into the pot. Click save.

As a bonus, a little note will pop up on your profile for the duration so anyone actually looking at your profile, you know, interested in your writing, will see a helpful note saying ‘this author currently has a book on giveaway, click here to see details’.

HAH.

One particular little refinement of torture would have got me if I hadn’t already learned Goodreads’ little ways in earlier times. Before you can save / complete the giveaway (which includes some fiddly info supplied when you listed the book in the first place which should come up automatically and doesn’t, and a wheedling coaxing intro) you have to click a little box confirming you have read the T&C. Hmm, I thought, better read them. And because I learned the hard way once before, I copied my wheedling coaxing intro, which had taken some little while to tweak into shape, to a safe place. Then I went to the T&C.

When you finish reading them, you have to press a button marked BACK. Back, indeed, you go. To your profile. Giveaway details deleted.

Feel the love.

And is GR not owned by Amazon? I write under three names. On Amazon, they are linked. On GR, I cannot link the books under my other names to my main profile, because they have already been created under the other names. Uh uh uhhhh.

Feel the love.

So hi. There’s a giveaway of The Money Honey coming up on GR. Or not. Who knows?

Ever researching on your behalf,

Elegsabiff.

March 19, 2017 by elegsabiff

Happy endings (no, not that sort. Although mentioned.)

“If you want a happy ending you have to decide where to stop your story – Orson Welles”

I am slightly addicted to twists whether I’m writing a whodunit, a microstory, or any of the other ways in which I kowtow before my muse. The one on the drawing board has several twists. There’s one, though, which turns the whole story from a slightly OTT love story (the alert reader is already saying hang on just a minute) to a slightly creepy stalker story, to abrupt terror. In two paragraphs it goes from mildly steamy (and wildly romantic) to chilling, and I didn’t even plan it that way. I love it, though.

Hence the Orson Welles quote. I could literally stop the story at its happy point and leave most of its readers contented.

Not going to, though. The book in question (and I only say this because I am personally annoyed by dangling hints and coy half-references) is still in process, The Money Honey, and it’s odd in many ways.

Only once before have I had a young protagonist*, because I find mature characters much more intricate and interesting, but Miranda’s story starts when she’s around twenty, in 1996, and the reader follows her for the next twenty years.

She only came into existence because she’s a large part of the backstory for Seventeen Eighteen Past Lies Waiting, which is being published soon. I wrote her story separately, to get it clear in my head, and then I got engrossed in the challenges it presented. I hadn’t a clue who my target reader was, but sometimes books take on a life of their own and this is one.

There was tons of rewriting for Seventeen Eighteen, as it happened, but the beta readers who have now read both books were pretty positive in their feedback. However, the beta readers who only read Money Honey weren’t. They found the ending, with its sudden introduction of a bunch of amateur sleuths from the Lawns, thoroughly confusing.

By the time that feedback was trickling in, I quite liked my Money Honey but I could see their point, as a stand-alone book she would need an ending of her own. So I borrowed from a few other authors faced with similar situations, and Money Honey has three endings.

Miranda’s whole story is about the unorthodox choices she makes (the working title was Step By Step) so it felt right to let those readers who have engaged with her make the final choice for her. They will choose whether she calls an old friend for help, which is where Seventeen Eighteen came into the picture – or whether she tackles the situation herself, the way she’s always done – or whether the original storyline from Seventeen Eighteen holds true, but this time she and her son take on the challenge together.

No confusion there, then.

It really has been a very challenging book, I’ve put it aside at least five times and every time it has come yammering after me demanding attention. She’s so unlike any of my other characters, and so very in need of a happy ending.

And yes I know the other meaning of that phrase. In fact that’s why Money Honey is going out under the Clarissa name, not EJ Lamprey. Lots of happy endings, and never, it seems, one for her.

Seventeen Eighteen has finished its rewrites, gone off for editing, started its countdown, and will be out shortly. Oh, and one other oddity – they share the same cover photograph. Slightly different cropping, a lighting difference, but the same photograph. I’m not being cheap, I’m not even being Scottish and practical, I simply couldn’t decide which cover to use it on. It feels right to have it on both.

*Lucy, in Time Before Time, by Joanna Lamprey

December 9, 2016 by elegsabiff

Question to writers – when your guest character’s iceberg is getting invasive, how do you solve it? #amwriting

I’m assuming it’s the same for every writer, that each character is an iceberg, only 10% of them showing in the story but the writer has to know the other 90%, see it clearly, to give that 10% credibility – not only what they look like, you have to know the main events shaping their lives, how those brought them to the point of your story and made them into the person they are.

Oh, I know in some books that is the story but in whodunits, murder and the solving of the murder is the priority. There simply isn’t the time, and the reader certainly doesn’t have the patience, to delve off into hugely detailed backstory for every character. That’s the huge advantage of a series, of course, but although my main characters can drift amiably through the shipping lanes of the series, each book is stand-alone and has one-off characters.

Those destined to die are easy. Pick out the traits which made them ideal cannon fodder.

Those who are to live, but will not become series characters, not so easy. I’ve got an iceberg of note on my hands now, because I’m throwing words at the first draft of Seventeen Eighteen (Past Lies Waiting). My guest character accidentally killed a man when she was in her early twenties, which is the direct cause of her deliberately killing a man in her early forties, and she’s on the run. Her eighteen-year-old son is in direct danger and she ropes in his biological father, who is Donald. So that’s where 17 18 starts (and gets its title) but I’ve never before wrestled with a twenty-years-and-counting backstory. Tell you what, I never will again.

To keep her history straight in my head, I kept jotting separate notes, and writing out little scenarios, and populating the twenty years with the people who shaped her into a woman I could identify with, yet who would kill a man. Eventually I had written nearly more about Miranda’s backstory than I had put into 17 18 itself, and all I needed of it was enough to explain her to the 17 18 reader.

Here’s the thing, though. There’s ten thousand words in my jotted outline and I’ve barely scratched the surface. She fascinates me, she’s taken on a life of her own and that twenty years just keeps growing in my head. Hence the title of this blog. How do you solve a problem like Miranda, stop her sinking your crisp and tidy whodunit with the massive iceberg she has become?

TV has long since given us solutions – a spin-off – and I’m trying it. As if it isn’t hard enough to write one book, I’m now writing two. At the same time. Bouncing from one to the other as details need to be clarified and tidied, and trying not to think ahead to the time when they come out of their resting period and need editing . . . EJ Lamprey only writes whodunits, so Step By Step (working title) will be a Clarissa book, and Clarissa books are a little more, er, worldly. They do have a strong storyline, that’s important to me, so right now the focus is on Miranda’s story, I’ll flesh in the sexier bits on the second draft.

I’ve spent my whole life reading voraciously but I’ve not knowingly come across this solution to the character iceberg before, and I’m wondering how common it is? Anyone?

November 5, 2016 by elegsabiff

Public relations – the holistic process. One topical example, Donald Trump

I’ve worked for a PR company in my long and chequered career and they had a great definition posted up on the wall, wish I could remember exactly how it went, maybe someone can remind me? It was based on a first date

He tells her ‘I’m the best dancer / cook / lover / (pick one) you’ll ever meet’ – that’s advertising

He tells her ‘ask that woman over there, she’ll tell you I’m the best dancer / cook / lover you’ll ever meet’ – that’s marketing

She says to him ‘I hear you’re a wonderful dancer / cook / lover ‘ – that’s public relations.

We of course insisted PR was the best way to package anything.

It can go either way, once the word is out there it takes on a life of its own. Donald Trump, then and now, is a wonderfully topical example. Three years ago if anyone had said ‘Donald Trump’ you’d picture that bizarre hair, the hectoring thuggish image, oh yeah I heard of him, Ivana Trump’s ex? Today, whether you’re a supporter or bug-eyed that he has supporters, you know the guy better than you know your neighbours. Power of publicity.

Right now I’ve got three areas of my life that need work. Dating, looking for a new job as redundancy is happening early next year, and selling books.

Dating, the advertising part is setting up your website profile, sure, but marketing? It’s an area where you don’t really want to promote the fact you date a lot, that doesn’t imply permanence and that hand-in-hand walk into the sunset! And frankly, double standard is still double standard, is it really good PR if a man says hey, I hear you’re hot in the sack? So the trick would be to find a website with a public forum, set up a good profile without over-selling, make engaging comments on the public forum, and build up exactly the right image so that others find you fascinating and queue up to date you. What could possibly be easier?

Job-hunting isn’t something I do very often and I suspect I am both very good and very bad at it. My ad, the old faithful CV, is good. My record is good, and my verbal references are great – I rarely go for an interview without being offered the job but, here’s the crunch, I never get offered top salary. Ever. That needs salesmanship or amazing PR and I am rubbish at selling.

Take selling books, oh, I know the process. Putting link after link on social media and trying to word them exactly right to hit that elusive demographic, the reader who clicks and buys, is the learning curve.

Marketing, that even more elusive demographic, the reader who reviews, who is prepared to put on record that they (a) bought the book (b) enjoyed it and (c) will buy more – oh how we love them. That gets abused, too, especially by the professional publishers, within minutes of a book going on sale several hundred, or thousand, readers (numbers depending on budget) rush to record it is the Very Best Book they ever read ever EVER.

PR is the reader who tells friends about the book they enjoyed. The priceless word-of-mouth recommendation. Dream world, that friend tells friends, conversation starts and spreads like wildfire.

I did write a how-to book about dating as a mature single. Perfect world, it could sort out the employment and increase sales of my other books as a by-product. Any PR gurus out there – call me? And oh yes I do realize putting Donald Trump in the headline was an odd attempt at a demographic. Politics aside, though, he’s a type of older man us autumn roses would come across and seriously, picture him without the billions, would you date him? Should you?

October 23, 2016 by elegsabiff

Don’t accept the first offer, haggle. Apparently. Does that cover first dates as well?

I have been offered job relocation to a much more expensive part of the UK, but it wasn’t a very good salary offer, so I said no. The offer was instantly pushed up to around 25% more than my existing salary.

Hang on – if you want me, why make a mediocre offer to start? I said I would think about it but all I can think is hmm, should I refuse again and see if it goes higher? Push my luck?

As it happens, my car insurance just came due. 9 years no-claim bonus, 16 years with the same insurer, £400. In the same post I got a letter from Saga offering car insurance starting from £109 a year. So of course I got an on-line quote. Like for like, plus lower excess than my current insurer, plus a couple of handy extras, the quote came in at £258.

I rang my current insurers to say I wouldn’t be renewing and they instantly dropped my £400 renewal cost down to just over £300. Pass. But I did ask why, with 16 years loyalty, I didn’t get the best possible offer to start with?

Like why, with my existing proven track record with my current employers, who do want me to relocate, I didn’t get the best possible offer to start with?

How far does this haggling thing go, anyway? Has it spilled over into all sides of our lives?

I’m a mature single on a dating website (write books about it and all) but have I missed a trick here? When someone suggests a first meet over a pub lunch somewhere, should I be responding ‘not unless you send a taxi and make it a proper lunch at the Ritz Grill with you picking up the tab’ just to start the negotiations?

I looked on Amazon – with over ten million titles available, I reckoned there’d be at least one book on the subject. There was one on how to haggle to save money on everything. It was quite expensive – I emailed the author a counter-offer.

But there was no book I could see on haggling for the BIG things.

Income.
Politics afloat on a sea of money but offering us crappy choices.
Lots on religion but nothing comparative, you know, to compete for our patronage and donations.
The start of love has millions of books, but none on haggling up front. Once love is launched, there’s some financial advice but most books covering finance are reserved for the end of love, the really expensive bit. May the best haggler win.

It seems that for the really big things we either have no choices at all, or need iron nerve and bluff.

That’s seriously worrying because my how-to book on successfully meeting mature single men is already on pre-order and if I missed an entire haggle culture, it’s not going to be as seriously useful as I thought it was.

October 20, 2016 by elegsabiff

Are you a glowing autumn rose? How-To meet a Mr Will-Do-Nicely … coming soon.

A couple of the reviews on Rainbow, while friendly enough, remarked they had bought the book thinking it was a guide to flourishing as a mature single. Well, in a way it was, the men (and women) Dorothy came across were exaggerated for fictional purposes, but they are distinctive types to be found on every website for mature singles. A small cross-section in a very large field, you could say.

I’ve written blogs about the types, and I certainly had plenty of material. Write another novella, pulling in more types, and more advice? Or do a how-to book?

I went with the how-to. Well, I went with two. There’s one coming out On Meeting Mr Will-Do-Nicely, and there are times you’d think I was trying to keep all the single mature men to myself, it is so crammed with cautionary tales. I’m not, honestly! The fact remains that most of them pass from hand to hand like hot potatoes (leaving burned fingers in their wake) because eligible men in their fifties and sixties, especially the ones who have been single for a while, are a whole new ballgame.

So why even bother, risk being hurt, heartbroken, scammed, poorer but wiser? Because we are gorgeous, and still fizzing with life and adventure, and forewarned is forearmed. Go have fun. Do no harm.

As I wrote Mr Will-Do-Nicely I kept adding bits of advice I’d been given, or discovered for myself, which have nothing to do with dating and everything to do with making the best of the totally unexpected surge of energy and sunshine suddenly lighting up life and turning us into autumn roses. It’s an odd reality that women in their late forties, even early fifties, menopausal and irritable and mourning the loss of fertility, are the most resentful of our Indian summer. You’re how old? You cannot be feeling healthier, fitter, more interested in sex and life generally, than we are, we feel old, you are old!

Ooooh, ffssssssssst. Whether they like or not (well, they don’t) you can feel better than them. You do. They’ll find out, if they can shake that attitude. Sometime after the menopause the rush of life comes roaring back, for at least a while, and it is wonderful. It is so easy to waste it, with the wrong mind-set. Eventually I’d added so many notes about that it was diluting the singles book. So I moved them to another, On Perfecting The Indian Summer.

Am I an expert? No. Qualified to give advice? Only by experience. These aren’t books that order you about, lay down the law, they are How-To books based on reality. I’m in my late fifties, I didn’t expect the Indian summer myself, and I did waste the start of it. I briefly joined a mature singles website to research one of my whodunits (Five Six Pick Up Sticks) and later I joined another for Nine Ten Begin Again so I could ask some fairly direct questions, and eventually I wrote A Second Rainbow. I’ve had a lot of fun, in the name of research, along the way. As for the Indian summer itself, I’ve met many women enjoying the sunshine, including my own half-sisters over a decade ahead of me in age, and they’ve all been generous with sharing advice. I played with the subject, in Eleven Twelve, where I called it the gloaming, and that put me in touch with more autumn roses. There are a lot of us quietly out there.

It will be interesting to see how the books do but if a single reader, just one, enjoys herself more as a result of reading either, they did their job.

Out sooooooooooooooon

June 30, 2016 by elegsabiff

Past it? YOU? Not now. Maybe not ever. Sometimes, though, it is up to you. (Steam up your specs, go on)

I’m taking a few books off the Select program on Amazon – they’ll still be selling there, but I want to sell them elsewhere as well. And because this is my last chance to promote them for free, I am. About half the series will be on promotion over the next weeks.

It just happens the two liveliest books I’ve written fell due at the same time so steam up your specs and warm up your weekend with these two. Just click on the covers below, or in the margin, and help yourself. Enjoy! By the way – if you’re a Lawns fan, be warned, Rainbow is not a Lawns book. It’s even released under a different pen-name to avoid misunderstanding. Nine Ten is not the usual sort of Lawns book, but Rainbow is really across the rainbow and into a whole new world of mature singles. Just saying. Brace yourself.

A comment about the heading of this blog, and a bit of back-story on these two books …

I was soooo past it when I started writing a whodunit about predators stalking the mature singles websites. Date? Me? I’m in my fifties, you’re having a laugh – but I did join a mature singles website to do some of the research. I even went on dates, clumping along in low-heeled shoes (because men always lie about their height and I’m quite tall), was a jolly good sort, had a few laughs, heard some very good stories, and turned down second dates because what was the point? I was well past it.

Then a whole bunch of coincidences changed all that: a buddy ‘met’ through the site found his perfect match. Both in their late sixties, there they were gadding off on weekends and holidays together, and having a wonderful time. Hey, you’re both ten years older than me! WHAT? (They still are, by the way. One of the success stories.) Another factor, my daughter was getting married, and I had to lose a bit of weight and generally brush up a bit. Yet another factor, Five Six, the book about the website murderer, turned out to be my most popular so far, maybe I should look at another . . . well, long story short, I joined another website around the time I was writing Nine Ten, and this time I was asking the sort of questions you just can’t ask a social acquaintance, not without getting some extremely odd reactions. It is, in its way, quite a raunchy book, the sort of book that makes you (well, me) think maybe I should go out and find a man. So I did. That was a couple of years ago and, um, there’s been more than one. Huge fun.

Past it? Hell no!

Nine Ten is no more autobiographical than any of the books but it is decidedly livelier than the books previously.

As for Rainbow – when I started writing Fifteen Sixteen it kept trying to veer off towards the shenanigans of mature singles, which was infuriating. Finally I put it to one side and wrote a novella based on a singles website, and a woman’s complete metamorphosis after her husband of many years puts her back on the shelf and walks away. Again, not autobiographical, I’m no more Dorothy than I am Edge or any other of my characters, but it isn’t wishful thinking, either.

The pair of them scupper my whodunit series a bit, because they zoom off in a decidedly more raucous direction, but putting them out at the same time, although it just happened that way, should work out either very well or very badly indeed. Guess I’ll know soon enough . . .

Three cheers for sensible! Hip-hip-no way

If you’ve read my blogs, I talk a lot about singles, the second-time round variety. Now there’s a book on its way.

Dorothy is signed up on a singles website, the Yellow Brick Road Singles, by her forceful daughter when her marriage suddenly goes phut. The first bloke she meets has the profile name Scarecrowe . . . oh, have you spotted a pattern yet?

Simon Crowe, Tim Mann, Leo, and just in case the point wasn’t already hammered home enough, the book is titled A Second Rainbow. It’s not a copy of L Frank Baum’s book, or an adult version, that’s more of a sub theme. Later on in the book the women start appearing, which required a bit of fudging because The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has only one surviving wicked witch. Instead I collectively call them the harpies. Artistic licence, okay?

Getting the book title was easy. A writer name, not so much. I didn’t want to mislead my EJ Lamprey regulars, some of whom would love it, but some would be shocked. I wanted a name that made it clear this wasn’t a gently humorous whodunit and I learned with Eleven Twelve that splashing warnings in the title, the blurb, and the first page of the book, is simply not enough. Some readers were still taken aback to find they had been misled into buying a genre-crossing Halloween romp, I felt terrible for those who felt cheated. I had tried! (I know. I’m very trying)

Friends threw themselves enthusiastically into the challenge of coming up with an alternative name, and by far the best was Rogers-Briskly. I loved it, but I wasn’t sure the book was raunchy enough for a wonderful name like that. Still, I can resist anything except temptation. Clarissa Rodgers-Briskleigh is the youngest and newest writer in my small stable.

Writing a book about mature singles romping and skipping like lambs isn’t what you’d call a sensible move. As one of my (younger) beta readers said rather sternly, ‘Biff, make all the characters in their twenties and thirties, put the pedal to the metal in the sexy scenes, and this will blow like a geyser.’

Maybe. More likely not. There are a lot of those books already out there, and anyway that wasn’t the point. I was enchanted to find out there is a second rainbow, an Indian summer, in life. Clouds start gathering when you’re speeding towards forty, right? Mortgages, career pressures, teenage children, life begins here? What a crock. Those clouds keep building up for the next ten, fifteen, years – and suddenly they clear. The sunshine may be the late summer variety, warm and mellow, rather than blazing brightly overhead, but there’s plenty of it.

I’m on a mission to get contemporaries to realize that, because I wasted a couple of years wondering why I suddenly felt so good without doing anything about it. I’m in no way saying dump the current spouse and rush to the singles websites, if anything the book is a warning as much as a guide! But this is a great age and stage, late middle life.

Celebrate it with your partner, and if you don’t have one, go find one. Read the book first, though. It’s something of a handbook, in its own way. The characters are staying the age I want them to be – your age, too, if you’re my target reader, somewhere between forty-something and too old to care any more. And the sex stays this side of pornography, and isn’t the focus of Dorothy’s story. The main focus is the second timers, the mature singles getting out there and grabbing life in both hands and twisting out every last ounce. This won’t be a best-seller. But it is an eye-opener.

The countdown starts now. I’m setting the timer tonight. In less than a week you’ll be able to pre-order at a special 48 hour launch price, but don’t worry, I won’t let you forget. There will be blogs. Or you could really play it safe and join my mailing list.

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