I have a wonderful guest post today from Ailsa Abraham, whose novels are currently on special offer, so don't miss out.
Hello, Lorraine, and
thanks for inviting me over. I thought I'd just have a muse about ageing today.
The warning there is real enough. I don't suppose any of us
can resist giving our characters some traits that belong to people we know, or
ourselves. I freely admit that the female lead in the Alchemy series, Riga, is
modelled on a very much younger version of me. We can all think of male
novelists who are obviously living out their fantasies through their work with
heroes who can fly planes or helicopters, sail anything that floats, climb,
ride horses and achieve everything perfectly. They may also be experts in
various fields which would have taken two lifetime's study to gather.
This got me
thinking. Suppose I were to write realistically? I would love to break into the
crime genre because most of my life I have been involved with the police. No,
I'm not a hardened criminal or drug baroness. My parents were both in the
Metropolitan Police and met in training school where my father was mother's
class captain. He eventually went on to Scotland Yard while she resigned her “wooden-top” job as a married woman. As he died when I was four, we were
constantly visited by the local coppers making sure we were lacking nothing and
often taking me for a ride in their police cars.
Even over here in
France I managed to become an official interpreter for the gendarmes and
customs. I must have “police family” in invisible ink on my forehead!
So if I were to
re-cast myself as a detective would it work? Well...no! As I am a very honest
person, going through the requirements of a successful character in that genre,
I don't fit the bill.
Detectives are
usually leaders of a team and popular with their colleagues. My Bipolar
Condition would mean that I would be a big hit on some days and a pain in the
proverbial when throwing hissy fits all the time on others.
Mental agility? No.
Many bangs on the head have left me with enough brain damage to ensure that if
I DO have a flash of inspiration, I must remember to write it down before I
forget it. Chief Superintendent Abraham would need a full time PA to follow her
around taking notes.
Powers of
deduction? That would depend on how much distraction there was around. The same
brain damage renders me incapable of thinking with more than one source of
noise near me, for example, while trying to write this piece I have the TV on
beside me and my Old Feller trying to talk. Cannot concentrate on any of them.
Instant
availability? No, I can't just dash off to another country or district at the
drop of a hat. It's the dog and cat, you see? They have never been away from us
in their lives and it would kill me to put them in kennels. Jumping on planes
to the States is out of the question.
I'd suggest that I
might be an armchair old lady detective but Miss Marple has already been
done... Miss Marple on a motorbike with a penchant for dressing up as a pirate?
What do you think?
Bio and links
Ailsa Abraham
writes under two names and is the author of six novels. Alchemy is the prequel
to Shaman's Drum, published by Crooked Cat in January 2014. Both are
best-sellers in their genres on Amazon. She also writes gay male romance under
her brother's name, Cameron Lawton.
She has lived in
France for over twenty years and enjoys knitting and crochet and until recently
was the oldest Hell's Angel in town . Her interests include campaigning for
animal rights, experimenting with different genres of writing and trips back to
the UK to visit friends and family. She runs an orphanage for homeless teddy
bears and contributes a lot of work to Knit for Africa. She is also addicted to
dressing up, saying that she is old enough to know better but too wise to care.
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