Stuff a Stocking

How's your Christmas prepping going? Me? I've got a few bits of food in the store cupboard but as for presents...not even started.

To be honest, I'm a wild procrastinator and I always leave things to the last minute.

But you...you don't have to because I'm here to remind you that you can now buy HIGH SPIRITS across loads of different platforms for your Kindle or other ebook devices. Find out how Alec, Jean and Pol are faring in the afterlife, trapped inside Partridge Hall

Fancy reading a heartwarming tale of rediscovering old friendships and putting the past to rest? The grab yourself a copy of SINCE YOU'VE BEEN GONE and find out how Hal finally let's go of his old flame Abigail and looks to the future and not the past.

Or maybe you like your stories in bite-size chunks, then why not check out TALES FOR THE FIRESIDE, five stories of love and friendship. Perfect for snuggling up on the sofa with.

You can link through to all the sellers by visiting my website LisaDyerAuthor.com

Meet my main character - Hal Bartlett - Since You've Been Gone

What is the name of your character?

Meet Hal Bartlett, sometime resident of Dover, Kent, now living in rural Oxfordshire with a veterinarian practice, a very opinionated business partner and a lot of marital problems.

When and where is the story set?

Hal Bartlett is the main character in Since You've Been Gone which is set fifteen years in the past. The story begins in Oxfordshire as Hal wrestles with the increasing deterioration in his relationship with his wife, Julienne. It's the eve of Julienne's spoilt younger sister's high-end wedding and Hal knows he's out of his depth. After a bitter row, Hal takes the only option open to him...he returns to the hometown and friends he abandoned years before and begins his journey to revisit his past and lay some old demons to rest.

What should we know about him?

Hal is a good man, a bit of a wimp but essentially a good bloke. His life is a bit messy, no neat edges. He left his hometown of Dover in the September of 1983 without ever realising how life expanding university would be.

Slowly, so slowly even he didn’t notice it happening, Hal shed his old life, old friends who never left the town into which they were born and, sadly, he shed his parents.

He didn't do any of this because he was denying his past...he did it because Hal is a man on the run, from his emotional past and in particular one person, Abigail Markham. She was 'the one'. The one that he loved first and last. The one that broke his heart. The one that cut him loose. His withdrawal from his old life and absorption into his new allowed him distance and an excuse never to go back and find out exactly what happened between them.

What is the main conflict?

Hal married out of his league and he knew it. His wife’s family have money, have never been on the type of rough council estate Hal grew up on let alone been in a council house and they glossed over Hal’s working-class roots and remade him in their image and Hal, for a quiet life, goes along with it. He’s an adaptor but never comfortable in his new role and always guilty of what he’s done to his parents in order to keep the charmed life he now has. Hal needs to man up and get out but he’s loyal and steady and really he’s looking for an excuse.

Hal is also wrestling with his past and is too scared to confront it, to move on and wipe his emotional slate clean. Forces outside of his control, however, end up making the choice for him and he goes back...back to the hometown he left as a teenager and back to the family and friends he's distanced himself from in order to heal his own heart. He's about to get a big wake up call and his life will never be the same again.

What is the personal goal of the character?

In the beginning Hal is drifting. He knows in his heart of heart he's in the wrong place and with the wrong person but he's also trying to be a 'good bloke'Like most people, circumstances drive him not the other way around and so he finds himself constantly fighting the tide to get upstream. What he really needs is a good old dose of 'closure'. To lay his past to rest so that he can move on with a new heart. He sort of understands this but is at a loss on how to act upon it without causing the hurt he some much desires to avoid. Hal wants to be at peace with himself.

Since You've Been Gone is available exclusively on Amazon across all markets to download onto your Kindle or Kindle apps and Kindle Unlimited for £2.99.Paperback is available through Amazon for £6.99

Blithe Spirit

My next film is the second one starring Rex Harrison and, as I said in my last post I’m not fond of him as an actor but Blithe Spirit is a joyous affair made all the better for the wonderful performance by Margaret Rutherford as Madame Arcati.

Directed by David Lean and adapted from the play of the same name by Noel Coward, Blithe Spirit was not a notable success. Coward objected to the changed ending – in the play Charles leaves the two bickering wives to it, taunting them with his freedom as he does.

The dialogue, in typical Coward style, is fast, witty and slightly risqué in parts (online being deemed too much for US ears).

Believing her to be a charlatan, and rather amused by her eccentricity, Charles, his wife Ruth and their guests George and Violet, can barely stop themselves laughing at Madame Arcati.

Finally, after falling into a trance, Charles becomes convinced that he can hear the voice of his dead first wife, Elvira. To bad for him then that the others can’t, and he passes it off. When Madame Arcati comes to she is convinced something occurred but the others all deny it.

After their guests have gone, Charles tries to convince Ruth that something did happen, but she doesn’t believe him and retires for the night. Elvira reveals herself to Charles but only to him.

As tension mounts between husband and wife, Charles finds himself talking to his dead wife much to the chagrin of his present one. In a last-ditch attempt to convince Ruth he’s not mad he persuades Elvira to pick up a vase and chair.

Of course, when this happens it doesn’t make Ruth feel any better!

Ruth seeks out Madame Arcati in an attempt to return Elvira back to where she came from but the medium claims she doesn’t know how.

Persuaded that Elvira is trying to be reunited with her former husband, Ruth tells Charles that the ghost is planning his demise. Of course, Charles is having none of it. Sadly, for Ruth, she was correct, but Elvira has miscalculated and instead of topping Charles, it is Ruth who dies in the car the ghost has tampered with.

Now a spirit herself, Ruth exacts revenge on Elvira by harassing her, so she wants to leave.

A now desperate Charles, being haunted by two wives, turns once more to Madame Arcati but all her conjuring fails when it is revealed that she didn’t summon the spirit at all; it was the maid!

Unable to assist, Madame Arcati suggests that Charles leaves on a long vacation however, it is not long before he too has a fateful accident and joins Elvira and Ruth as a spirit.

In my forthcoming novel HIGH SPIRITS, the ghosts of Partridge Hall are aghast to learn that their friend Billy, the night guard, is being replaced by modern sensors and CCTV. They set out to scare the men installing the equipment, in an attempt to stop it happening.

Excerpt:

Darren looked around the room as he waited for Steve to finish.

“Reckon it’s true about this place being haunted.”

“You what?”

“Straight up! Reckon it’s the old curator.”

“Blimey, must have been a saddo to want to be in here during his life let alone haunt it forever!”

“Well, the damn cheek of it!”

“Now, Alec, don’t lose your temper!”

“I’ll show him!”

“Pol! No!”

It was too late; Pol was off.

“Yeah, think they’d have better things to do in their….” Darren’s voice trailed off as something caught his eye.

As he watched, he saw a shape seem to materialise before him, but nothing defined. He stared wide-eyed as the shape moved. It was a bundle of clothing such as he’d noticed in the boxes dotted around the museum.

“Okay, mate, you stop that!”

Steve stopped what he was doing and peered down the ladder. “What’d you say?”

The shape continued to move, to grow as the clothes took on a form.

“I said, enough!” Darren could feel the hairs on the back of his head standing up, and he had the greatest desire to pee.

Steve looked over to see what Darren was seeing, and the screwdriver fell from his hand, nearly hitting the petrified Darren on the head.

“What is that?” he stuttered.

“Someone messing about!” Darren was trying to sound braver than he felt. “Oi! I said enough!”

“I don’t like this!” said Steve coming down the ladder.

The two men stood shoulder to shoulder as the clothing, seemingly devoid of a wearer danced around before them.

Alec stood beside them, unseen and unheard, laughing at Pol, who had slipped inside the clothing, and was dancing away, wildly throwing her arms and legs out.

“Alec, don’t encourage her!”

“Serves them right, I say!”

Darren and Steve began to back away as Pol stopped dancing and with deliberate steps that gave the ‘empty’ clothes an air of menace, started to walk towards them.

The two men fled into the hall outside, almost falling over themselves in their rush to get out of the room.

Alec and Jean roared with laughter as Pol stepped out of the clothing, leaving it where it fell on the floor.

Downloading fast!

I'm happy to report that since Tales for the Fireside - five stories of love and friendship' was published on Smashwords just over a month ago, it's reached almost 350 downloads.

I can honestly say I wasn't expecting such a great result!

If you've not yet had a chance to download a copy, here's a link and happy reading!

Lisa xx

Tales for the Fireside...what's it about?

Hey, Happy New Year! Hope you all had a fab holiday season.

So, my second work is now published, up there and live on Amazon but what's it about and should you bother with it?

Well, in answer to the first question, the backstory goes a bit like this....

The five stories I've collected under the title 'Tales for the Fireside - Five stories of love and friendship' all started out in a very different way, as short scripts

Way back when I got involved in an amazing local group called Colchester Filmmakers. This incredible bunch of talented folk loved making films and I came on board from a writer's angle. Now, I'm not the most sociable of creatures I'm afraid. I'm a total introvert and I don't feel comfortable with new people but these guys were amazing and I felt right at home.

With regular meet ups, film nights, talks, and actual putting together shorts, it was a great group to be involved in. I began to try my hand at short films with the aim to get them filmed. I got an IMDB credit (Lisa Barrass) thanks to taking part in a short with a great up and coming director and I even got to direct one of my own shorts. I think it was then that I decided that I didn't really have the creative temperament for that type of gig! All these guys have gone on to do some pretty special stuff.

With careers in filming taking off, the group pretty much wound up when the organisers went on to bigger things with their own production company which left me with some shorts, littering up my folders.

After the publication of Since You've Been Gone the aim was to get another novel out as soon as possible to capitalise on the momentum. That didn't happen for various, personal and family reasons. Several projects were started and remain in limbo on my computer. Feeling as though I was failing fast, I decided that the best way to get up and running and back on the horse was to do what I did with SYBG and that was to adapt existing material. A thorough look through the myriad of folders, all containing either completed scripts, germs of ideas, or a fleshed out treatment, yielded five pieces that I could work with.

Story I - the tale of Emily and the elder gentleman, started out as a two-minute super short. In script writing, the standard is one page = one minute of screen time. This script was written to be a two-minute production. In fact, it was written as part of a competition entry in 50 Kisses. The remit was to write a two-page script that involved a kiss. It didn't have to be a romantic kiss; kiss could be interpreted in any way the writer wished. The only other caveat was that it had to take place on Valentine's Day.

Originally, it was called A Walk to Goodbye and was set in a card shop. The gentleman had just lost his wife and this was his last visit to see her before her funeral. He tells the story of how they met. It was long-listed in the competition but didn't go any further.

So, I completely re-worked it and put it into my collection.

Story II - the tale of Madeline and Porphyro is a modern adaption of John Keats The Eve of St. Agnes . I thought it rather suited a modern telling. It's one of my favourite poems having discovered it during my days of English Literature O-level.

It's written in the style of a play but with more of a narrative edge and with an omniscient narrator in the form of a young man charged with looking after the boss's daughter, Madeline.

Story III Tells the tale of the unfortunately named Alice Mutton who finds herself unexpectedly dead, squashed by a herd of stampeding cows. She is taken to heaven and begins a whole adventure trying to appeal against the decision to assign her to DOSE or Department of Stupid Endings (otherwise known as TWATS - Total Wankers at the Start).

As you've guessed, this is not to be taken seriously. Originally, in a slightly different format - 30 minutes - it was pitched to a contact in the world of TV over coffee in the Century Club, a rather exclusive members-only establishment in SoHo frequented by the acting and theatre world. My contact liked the premise and asked me to produce a script version. Sadly, as happens more often than not, it was never taken up. So, it sat on my computer, a lost little piece nobody wanted.

Involvement with the local filmmakers caused met to resurrect it, pare it down and call it Chain Reaction. I then went one step further into madness and directed it myself. Sadly, I don't think it will see the light of day but it was a great experience and made me realise that I would never make a director!

Heaven is a bureaucratic dream - the Orders of Angels are assigned roles within it but the Divine Creator is one bored deity, given over to childish temper tantrums and outburst of eccentricity.

DOSE is the office that deals with people who have died in the stupidest manner possible (ever heard of the Darwin Awards?) - thrown away the gift of life the Creator gave them and thus causes his to have a seriously bad day. It is not my intention to cause offence with my vision of heaven but I'm guessing somebody will hate it!

Story IV Tells the tale of Scarlett who is visited by the spirit of Robbie which unleashes her latent psychic abilities as she tries to unravel his murder.

Scarlett is a reluctant psychic, having problems of her own. Originally called Dead Reckoning, it started out as a fifty-minute pilot with two further scripts being written that teamed up Scarlett and Robbie as they battled various demons intent on getting a permanent footing on the earthly plane. If I'm of a mind I might dig out the two other scripts and start a new book!

V is set the day before and during a school reunion and brings together five characters who are all linked in some way to each other, It's a tale of secrets, lost love, infidelity and friendship and began as a two-parter script.

So, should you bother with it? Well, that's up to you; reading is too personal a habit for me to insist that you do! However, if you enjoy something to dip into (this is a dipping into book, not a sit-down and read in one go) on a wet Sunday afternoon then yes, please do give it a go and let me know how you find it.

So, that's the lowdown on the new collection. During my foray around long forgotten folders, I discovered two completed scripts, the first of which I am currently adapting.

Tales for the Fireside has been selling well in its first few hours and sales for Since You've Been Gone have picked up so I'm hoping more readers will discover my work and enjoy it.

New Release

I'm so happy to announce my collection of short stories is now available as an ebook for 99p/99c* from Amazon

Tales for the Fireside - Five Stories of Love and Friendship looks at the themes from very different perspectives.

1. Emily finds comfort in the words of a wise old gentleman when her marriage hits the rocks.

2. A modern adaption of John Keats 'The Eve of St Agnes'. Madeline and Porphyro, two star-crossed lovers from opposing families must find a way out of their lives so that they can be together.

3. Alice discovers that Heaven isn't what she thought it was when she takes on the higher order of angels in an attempt to overthrow their ruling, in this amusing tale of heavenly disorder and a Divine Diety unlike any you've read about.

4. Scarlett finds her job at the morgue gets a little too lively when Robbie turns up to haunt her into helping him solve the mystery of his death.

5. Friends come together for a school reunion. Secrets, old loves and long-held jealousies come to the fore as the evening wears on.

* prices will vary outside of UK/US/CA