I thought I’d go for news rather than history today. Literally new things rather than old things. I’m all ready for the writing circle this evening in Melksham, Milktown Writers. It’s a great group set up by Jeff Phelps and Grant White. The Corsham writing circle was really struggling for numbers but Milktown writers is a flourishing vibrant group.
The writing prompt for tonight’s meeting was Marathon. Since I’m not a marathon runner, and they changed the name of the snack bar to Snickers, I decided to write a poem about the Battle of Marathon. It’s not one of my best poems, in fact it’s really rather dreadful. It gets slightly better with each rewrite and tweak. But at least I learnt something about the battle and how it shaped history. What other news do I have?
On Thursday evening I’ll be tuning in to a CWA (Crime Writer’s Association) best practice lecture on “Selling Conversations”. I’m not quite sure what to expect, perhaps its about elevator pitches. Anyway, I’m sure there are many ways I could sell myself and my books more effectively.
Elsewhere in the news, on Friday I have a zoom interview with Steph Yates, on The Butterfly Princess Show. I’ll let you know when it appears on YouTube, Instagram, etc. In the meantime I will watch some episodes myself so that I get a feel for the format.
My other news is that I wrote an article which should be appearing in the newsletter of the CRA (Crime Reader’s Association). It’s affiliated with the CWA but aimed at crime readers rather than crime writers. My article is called “Finding My Detective”. Fingers crossed it might sell a few copies and recruit some new readers.
Red Herrings arrived yesterday, the CWA newsletter. As usual I found some interesting pieces. Who is your favourite screen detective? Vaseem Khan (CWA chairman) asked. His choice was controversial with Claire, but I agree. He chose Columbo. Claire’s objection is that the shows always started with the murder, so there’s no mystery about whodunnit. As our esteemed chair explained, they were inverted detective stories, howcatchem rather than whodunnit. At the show’s peak, Peter Falk was earning today’s equivalent of $1 million an episode. Here’s some news I didn’t know, the director of the first Columbo episode was a young guy by the name of Steven Spielberg. And that’s all my news for today.