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Now available in print format from Amazon, Deep Leads, the second in the Detective Jud Jeffreys series. The cover looks fantastic! 
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Authors choose names carefully.
They have to fit the age of the person and their time. For example, Ernest or Edwin or Ethan go with different historical eras. They must be different enough from other characters that readers don’t get confused. Mary and Maddison and Mandy would be too much. And it’s important not to use a name of someone well known. I always search the internet for every name to check this. It’s particularly important if the character is a villain — real people could be VERY upset if their name is an evil person in a book. Right now I’m wrestling with this problem for a villainess. I though Tamara, but, not sure. Could I get away with Lavender Lundy? What parent would saddle their child with that! Decisions decisions. I’ll let you know the answer when I decide. Rosie makes the acquaintance of Darryl and Travis' dog Poddo, a round creature of uncertain breed. He’s like a snoring boulder, dense and immobile.  Sleeping dog. Image licenced from iStock. Work in progress. Rosie stays with family in a renovated cottage. She rests on the front verandah and admires the garden. A sea of roses and flowers separates the house from the picket fence.  Beyond the fence is what I expected in a country town. An industrial scene. That’s what the country is. Machines. Not lambs frolicking on lurid green pastures.
Matt and Rosie are investigating an old ford. “Do you believe in ghosts, Matt?” “I do, actually.” That’s the most human thing he’s said so far. “It feels like they’re still here. Look at this. ‘R 1915’. What was the bloke’s name, do you know?” “Robert. He died fighting in France.”  Basalt soils on the slopes of the Great Dividing Range in eastern Australia look just like chocolate! Extract from work in progress: Matt scans the rounded hills. There’s nothing to see but chocolate soil recently ploughed into swirling patterns.  Ploughed paddocks and new growth. Settlers in Australia brought European plants with them, often to the ruination of local ecology. Scottish immigrants often planted rowan trees at their doorways to protect against evil. Here's a snippet I wrote this morning — Rosie and Matt are visiting a ruined farm. “It looks dead.” “It’s a rowan tree. Quickbeam, from northern Europe. Deciduous, of course. It has new buds, see? Old magic, to mark the threshold, or keep evil away.” “Didn’t work, really, if she was widowed twice.” Another excellent but annoying insight. Rosie ignores it.  Cottage with rowan tree, Isle of Skye, Scotland. Image from iStock. I started work on a new project today. It's a second mystery / romance set in the Rakali Springs world, and will include some of the characters from Wipptee. The story centres around the arrival of a city girl, Rosie, who is recuperating from illness. When she starts asking questions about her family history trouble follows. I've played with some title and cover ideas but it's early days. A silo fire figures in the story, so here's my fancy image of a grain silo. (This is the silo at Temora, New South Wales, original image licenced from iStock).  I'm starting a new blog here today, St Patricks Day 2022. I hope it will be a lucky day for everyone.
My old blog was on Blogger. You can stilll see my historic ramblings there at https://jaibaidell.blogspot.com/. This blog will focus more on writing and my books.  Independent publishers like me do all the work! Choosing titles is hard. Deadset Mongrels seemed like a great title for the first Detective Jud Jeffreys book. Australian lingo, atmospheric. But maybe I should have gone with something more evocative, say, The Detective and the Rich Girl. Girl seems to be a popular title ingredient. What do you think?
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AuthorAustralian author. Still learning. Archives
May 2022
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