Highs and Lows and Happy Diwali

One of DH's friends sent me an early Sinterklaas gift, complete with a poem. It was gluten free pfeffernusse which for those who have never been blessed with them are spicy little biscuit type, not quite cake cookies. My late mother always used to get them in for Christmas, as they were only generally available at that time of year, and when I was young you could only get them in a few places. She also used to get lebkuchen. They are a delicacy that I always associate with places like Germany, and obviously they are in the Netherlands, and I seriously recommend them if you can get them. I've never found gluten free ones in the UK, so this was such a massive hug.

Some of the drama on the street has moved away, but they've left a car on the street which has an over active car alarm. I am unimpressed.

Speaking of unimpressed, I had a message on my author facebook from someone offering publicity at reasonable rates. I dithered, but I would would want to know if I was in their shoes, so I messaged back and pointed out the typo in their message. I was nice, and they were lovely as well, when they messaged back saying that they didn't bother with unimportant details. That message had a typo in as well. To be fair, they work mainly with radio, apparently, so a typo isn't the same thing for them as it is for me, and I don't like to criticise someone else's spelling and grammar. I am too aware that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. I'm still not grabbed by it, but if I ever manage to finish my next novel, I'll think about it.

Writing stuff - Today I've posted a review. I've recently had a story accepted to Grumpy Old Gods Vol 3. It's an anthology of stories about retired, elderly and cantankerous deities, and it comes out on Halloween. I will be posting loads about that next week. I thought I really ought to see what other works have been like. If you are a writer, and submitting, then the advice is to do your research and read the stuff already published to get a feel for things. I got around to that yesterday, several weeks after the acceptance. I'm a bad example. Anyway Grumpy Old Gods Vol 1 is on Kindle Unlimited so I dipped in and I loved it. I really genuinely loved it. Obviously I would have found something nice to say even if I didn't, but I was relieved that I could be not only honest, but full of enthusiastic praise. I seriously recommend it. It's a book with thirteen, decent length stories and you can find my review here. Timothy Bateson has a reading from his book, Under a Hunters Moon on his 31 Days of Halloween here.

Happy Diwali and Hugs to all.