That was the Week That was!

It was also just over a a week in time where events ran into a number of areas in my usual blog and left me breathless. It started on Saturday the 18th with my having  decided several days earlier to email the nice chap who was my editor for a short story collection due out very shortly. There had been a relevent article in our newspaper on the copyright issue for that and I wanted to mention it to him. In return I got an email when I opened that Saturday, from his wife to say that my editor had died some 6 weeks earlier. I was stunned, surprised, and horrified. I knew he’d been in hospital in November, what I hadn’t known was that he had a serious heart condition and it had caught up with him. We’d only worked together some three months, but he’d been an excellent editor and a nice guy, I’d liked him and looked forward to working with him on more possible publications. I phoned the publisher to say so, (while sending condolences to his wife) and was told that my collection was just out.

And it was. Sunday I looked it up under the title and my name and there, on amazon USA and Uk, was Repeat Business by Lyn McConchie. A collection of fourteen new Sherlock Holmes short stories.  (Repeat Business is available in a trade paperback edition at $14.99 and also available as a Kindle edition.) That’s my first published mystery book/collection and I was really happy to see it. I can add to that, that my article, “The Real Value of a $5 Box” appeared in our newspaper, also on the Saturday.

After which – swings and roundabouts – I was spending the afternoon of the Monday following reading a murder mystery while Thunder reposed comfortably on my feet. In the distance a sound began, swelled, and the house began to shiver. I may not have much over-the-ground speed, but my reflexes are usually excellent. I made the doorway in fifths of a second and clung to the frame while the house leaped wildly. Thunder went past me airbourne and vanished through his cat door into his cat park. My small collection of small owls hit the carpet, joined by a number of loose books from an upper shelf. The shaking stopped, I released the door frame and went to make sure that there were no real problems. There weren’t, but a friend rocketed in right after to make certain that I was still in one piece – I was – and none of the owls were broken either. I also phoned a couple of friends who’d have been in the area getting that quake and they too were fine. TV got its act together very shortly and announced the quake had been 6.2. A very respectable size.

Tuesday we got a solid aftershock, somewhere around the mid-5 I’d have thought, and Thunder is still raising his head now and again looking suspicious. It took me an hour to persuade him back inside after the original quake, he wanted me to stay outside with him instead and I suppose he did have a point. More tiny shocks over the remainder of the week, but things seem to be simmering down. And it occurs to me that if nothing else, earthquakes do sharpen my reflexes wonderfully. I should also get more blutak to affix my owls to their shelf. Saturday finished off the whole week with a cherry on the top. An invitation to submit to an anthology from a publisher who’s taken a number of my stories in the past, this anothology will be pro, well paid, and on a theme I always enjoy writing. AND with ample time to write a submission. That indeed was the week that was. And like the curate’s egg, it’s been very good – in parts!

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