STORYWORLD

  " The abbey is  a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. "  ( Stoker 1890) Bram Stoker It's easy to see why Bram Stoker was so taken by the village of Whitby with its ruined abbey brooding from the cliff top above the quaint Victorian harbour.  The day I visited Whitby was a brilliant sunny day with crowds of holidaymakers taking advantage of the welcome spring weather, but despite the blazing  sunlight the abbey still looked dramatic with its towering Gothic arches and jagged spires. The steps to the abbey ruins It's a gruelling but spectacular climb up the 199 steps up towards the abbey. At the top, guides in monk's costumes  invited me to walk the circular labyrinth and ponder on the mysticism of the place.  Not surprisingly the abbey attracts some strange enthusiasts and I encountered a dabbler in New Age magic who was looking for...

The road to Dufton Ghyll Carpets of bluebells in Dufton Ghyll. Descending into the forest Imagine a walk through a fairytale wood - carpets of bluebells, crystal clear trickling streams,  ancient trees clinging to a mossy rock face, sunlight filtered through lush greenery and centuries-old bridges covered in velvety moss.  This is a typical scene from the Eden Valley in Eastern Cumbria, a gorgeous area of Northern England near to the Pennines, the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales. I had the pleasure of staying in the tiny village of Dufton, for a long weekend while researching locations for my new novel, A Proper Lady.   Rediscovering my middle name. I also made a kind of personal pilgrimage to another small village that shares the same name as me.  Puzzled?  Well - I've long hated my middle name, Milburn (which sometimes auto-corrects on my Mac as Milbum and is right now underlined in red as I write), but near the village of Duft...

Durham Cathedral So I'm sitting in a train travelling North West towards Preston and watching the green fields grow dark in the dusk.  This week I've already been up to Durham City where I gazed in awe again at the spectacular cathedral and castle set in a heavily wooded bend overlooking the River Wear, I explored the nearby coastline and the quaint holiday towns of Hartlepool and Seaham, nicely restored from their heavy industrial past. I also had an amazing trip to Whitby, a beautiful Victorian seaside resort on the Yorkshire coast and the site where Bram Stoker's Dracula first touched dry land in England when his ship washed up on shore and the Count was taken to the ruined abbey that still now stands imposingly above the bay.  I'm researching settings for my new novel " A Proper Lady" which will be set partly in the gorgeous town of Kirby Lonsdale, Cumbria and Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast.  Set in the 1890's this novel features the feis...

Forever I know this is a massive change of pace but I've recently completed the first draft of my new novel Forever.   It's a Young Adult science-fiction novel that deals with a concept I've been playing around with for years - the idea of age reversal and immortality. I've written a feature length screenplay, a TV pilot and now I've poured all the ideas into this YA novel.  I must say it's been an interesting change of pace!  You can check out my video teaser at the link above. The synopsis of the story goes something like this: I don’t know how old I am.  We don’t need to know. But I know I’m at least nineteen.  I’ll be nineteen forever.  My name, Paige, means youthful assistant.  All of us Forevers have names that mean young or youthful and we wear a tattoo of two golden apples on our left wrist that shows we belong to IDunaCorp. I want to know more.  I want to know why I’m here and what’s out there beyond...

Hi Everyone Sorry for the long gap between posts but I've experienced a bit of back and forth  with my literary agent in relation to the ending of my novel Unnatural.    It takes an incredible amount of time to write a novel but the toughest part of it has to be coming up with a good ending.  One that resolves conflicts, satisfies the reader, flows naturally without seeming contrived and still retains some tension and surprise. You can all probably remember reading a novel that kept you glued to the page only to let you down at the end as well as the book with an ending so unbelievable it spoiled the whole experience for you. I hope I've finally come up with the best ending possible but only time will tell when it goes out for submission to publishers. In the meantime I'd like to recommend some great books that are not only compelling reads but end well: The story of the ancient siege at Masada from the viewpoint of four unusual women. A nail-biting, pag...

A close look at Victorian laundry practices will have you thanking your lucky stars you live in a mechanized age.  No wonder they didn't change clothes as often as 21st century people do!  I found out why when I was doing research for another novel: Monday was the laundry day of choice and early rising was compulsory  - usually between 2 - 4:00 a.m First you had to "spot clean" the stains using homemade concoctions.  Here's a list of common stains with their remedies:                - ink - vinegar over stain then then oxalic acid               - fruit  - butter/ammonia/washing soda               - glue - alcohol               - mud on wool - potato juice               - stained black cashmere - rinsed in mustard water made from 6 ounces of mustard flour in six ...

Check out these stringent criteria that  were promoted in the Victorian era as guidelines for finding the perfect wife.  I found them in an article on Courtship and Marriage Etiquette from the London Journal (1871).  The author's name wasn't mentioned.  I wonder whether it was a male or female.  See what you think: 1.  A good wife shouldn't talk too much: The chattering woman is worse than the chattering man. Her experience is necessarily so limited that she must talk about the same thing over and over again. If she is not fond of reading—which she seldom is—she is a nuisance. If given to strong-mindedness, sermonizing proclivities, mothers' meetings, and literary "swarries," she is simply an abomination. Such a shallow creature cannot make a good wife. 2.   Or too little: a woman who prides herself on her brevity of speech is generally a sullen creature 3.   Or be a lazy layabout: If a man marries an idle y...