Goings on

I really haven't blogged for a while. Has blogging become an oxymoron?
I used to read blogs and now seldom do. Why? I don't have the time and so many blogs are rubbish.

Besides, I do 140 character updates on Twitter that uploads automatically to my Facebook and blog.

And any time I do have should be spent on writing related to my fiction.

Anyway, the good news is I just finished a short story which I sent off to Booktrust in the UK who run a short story competition in conjunction with the BBC. I'm sure there will be tons of entries and chances are very slim, but if you're not in you can't win. In any event, it got me writing fiction again which is important.

I've been working very hard on the screenplay of a Son Called Gabriel

And meanwhile my UK publisher is wanting to move on my second novel--which is great but will require more work.

Shouldn't complain. I'm not. Good to be busy.

And on top of that, I've just read that Primeminster David Cameron has apologized for the massacre on Bloody Sunday in 1972 in Derry. That is the proper thing to do. My Mum and Dad were at that march and my Mum returned with her knees all bloodied. She'd crawled along the streets as the bullets flew over her head. We kids were terrified when we saw her. You never think of your Mum and Dad being a passionate civil rights marcher

So many 'shades' of rain

I'm presently in Northern Ireland visiting family, which is wonderful, but I'd forgotten just how many different kinds of rain there is on this island. There's driving rain, gentle rain, blinding rain, tepid rain....on and on it goes and people know by the color of the clouds exactly what kind of shower they're going to get. I suppose the many types and quantity is the price to pay for the enormous variety of colors of grass there is that ranges from emerald to kelly-green. And it's also responsible for the fantastic vibrancy of the flowers adorning the street corners of every town and village throughout the province. Every town also has huge arrangements by their entrances--some arranged in the ancient crests of the town--and the colors of the petals is so intense the flowers actually appear as if made of plastic. An artist's paradise.

Last week we nipped up to the ancient city of Derry (Londonderry to some)to meet our friends from New Orleans who're on a trip of Ireland that began in Belfast. They're traveling with their friends Jan and Bob Carr--who were formally the 'Richard and Judy' of New Orleans, later moved into radio and had me on as a guest on their show just before Hurricane Katrina struck and their radio station has not returned to the air waves--and all were stunned by the beauty, cuisine and wealth of Northern Ireland.