Gert saddles up again

The time has come for Gert to take up her pen again. What will it be this time? Every time we start again we try to do something we haven't done before. Our first book Crane Mansions - a novel about the redeeming power of cake was a sweetly Gothic tale of redemption set in a school run by a man obsessed with pigeon-lore. Then followed Writing is Easy, the story of an epic battle of egos between two self-obsessed writers running a workshop at a luxurious country retreat. For something completely different, The Art of the Possible dealt with the wonder youth drug Optiviva.  Prime Minister Flattley didn't intend to let the truth about its real effects to get in the way of his financial dealing or his re-election, but he reckoned without Dr Frank Owlbrother and his mythical steed Hrafni. Next we wrote The Lies and Life of Bella Hatherley, the story of a little girl who isn't sure if she's a liar or just has a very good imagination.  A YA book was next, seeing we'd never tried one. In Dark Pools of Selena 14-year-old Ali leads a privileged life in the rigidly-structured society of Hadur but she can’t rein in her effervescent, questioning spirit.   Falling in love with the glamorous, charismatic cameraman Ash, she is drawn into underground resistance forces working to document the injustice and cruelty of Hadur. Not so funny, this one, a bit po-faced really. 

Now we're out to do something a bit against type, not so broad and rumbustious. Something slyly funny but with a touch of the melancholy of a Muriel Spark. We've discussed the general drift of it, at least where it starts, but as usual we really have no idea how it will unfold.  Monday June 18th is the starting day.  In thirty days we'll have a 60,000 word draft, good, bad or just plain plodding, but we will have that draft.