Yesterday, we went to West Mersea, a strange and interesting corner of Essex.
We will certainly go again before the madness of the summer starts, as we haven't seen everything... Longer days would help!

Apparently, the area is the setting for a Victorian Gothic novel: "Mehalah", by Sabine Baring-Gould. I had never heard of Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould (28 January 1834 - 2 January 1924), but now that I have read about him I want to know more. He was fascinated by ancient folk tales and legends and he was a specialist in lycanthropy. He has also written extensively about Devon and Cornwall, two of my favourite areas.
There is a Sabine Baring-Gould appreciation society, a website worth browsing when you have time: http://www.sbgas.org/index.htm

All the pictures below by Matt ArtPix (apart from the portrait of Sabine Baring-Gould, taken from Wikipedia!).

There is a lovely art cafe on Mersea Island, their Website is here: http://www.islandartcafe.co.uk/index.cfm?fa=home

The working title for my new novel is "The Book of Thoth", from the legendary magic book of the Egyptian God Thoth.
The title is of course subject to changes.

Still working on the background story and the various characters I want to draft into the story.

I am reading Joolz Denby's 2001 novel, Corazon... It's nail-bitingly good.

I have added a French version of the synopsis of my first novel on the "I Am A Muse" page.

Just in case a French publisher would like to publish it! (fat chance...)

I would have to translate the whole lot if I wanted my parents to ra

It is not where I come from that is important, but where I am going.

I have never felt the need to belong to a group, any group. I am very much an individual with my very own story.

Pack mentality is alien to me.

I have decided to add some references to the First World War to my novel. After all, in 1925, the wound was still very raw. The Great war will come and literally haunt the characters.

I have just spent ages scribbling down the background story for my second novel. After much agonising over the kind of elements I could be bringing in to the story to make it intriguing, I have decided to look in the direction of Egypt, ancient cults and the God Thoth.
Thoth was the God of Wisdom, Time, Astronomy and the Patron of scribes. He is crucial to the novel because there is a story line about time-travelling/moving from one era to the other. The background story spans a long period of time, but most of the action will be taking place in 1925 (ideal as the tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in 1922 and Egyptian stuff got very popular then), although it will have an initial contemporary setting. 
All this means there will be a massive amount of research; I am not attempting to write an historical novel though, and I am not a scholar. I will try and concentrate my efforts on the writing style and characterisation.

I cannot deny that I am slightly worried about the proportions this is taking now... But because my first novel was after all quite simple and minimalist in terms of plot and style, I find it exhilarating to be trying out something completely different.

The Edwardian actress has mutated slightly and has become a (very) troubled (ex)Gibson Girl who used to be a very serious and gifted Shakesperian actress.

First week of January and my head feels like it's going to explode I have so many ideas... Last week has been spent doing things that are not so much fun: registering for freelance/contract work.

I have started contacting Literary Agents in London, and I am learning to be patient. I know that I am not supposed to contact too many of them at the same time, and therefore this is going to be a slow, patience-testing waiting game. I have a long list of "appropriate" agents ready... It will probably take me an entire year to contact them all...

In the meantime, I have started work on my second novel and I have ideas pouring out of my head at an alarming rate. So I do lists of words and concepts, then do a bit of research on each of them. When my big, cream-coloured A3 page is full, then I will try and make sense of those words I have scribbled down on there.

Because my ambition is to write something based on the Gothic Novel, I need to use the genre conventions to find inspiration. I also would like to update it and write something with a few twists, something that feels old and modern at the same time. But looking at the ideas I've had in the past few days, it already feels like a narrative jigsaw ...

A few of the concepts I've come up with for this novel (there are mainy more but these will be central) are:
Sun and moondials, timewarp, black holes, Edwardian actresses, alchemy, insect jewelry, male anorexia, mysterious manor house, nightmares, dream states, lust, tattoos and symbolism ...
Yes, work on the second book has started and I feel incredibly excited about it!

Just added two new pages to this website: my favourite quotations, the ones other people have uttered but which I think fit very well with my life philosophy.

I have also posted a list of the books I will be reading in the next few months. I am planning on writing a little blurb next to each of them after having finished reading them. Let's see if I keep up with it.