What, praise for my work? I doubt it ...

There I was busy in normal editing mode - which means listening to a demanding literary critic sitting right here on these shoulders - when an email arrived that actually contained praise for my very own words.

Halleluiah! But, no, the voice on the shoulders says, I must be mistaken. A double take, expecting the Doubting Thomas to be right. But - y e s! - it is praise. Hurrah, there's still a place in life for hope.

Here at the keyboard, I'm working on two stories.

Ambush

 For once I am trying out different approaches for relating that very disturbing experience of ambush.

The astonishing drama at the home of dear friends found me virtually kidnapped and then imprisoned immediately by a system of, well, supposedly of justice, a notion I had believed in all my life - naively, as the circumstances proved.

Its seemingly accepted rottenness stole eight years of my life and all possessions and life savings.

 The theft even included my Mac laptop and gorgeous ship's sextant. 

Foolish belief

Most painfully came the loss of irreplaceable relationships. Of foolish belief in a political system, teach a toddler that black is white and he'll never recognise white again ... or possibly it's the tone of black that he won't see again.

Similarly, that mantra, English justice is the envy of the world. Of course, the little boy with my name shouldn't have been so gullible.

The other tale that I'm planning is a (hopefully) humorous account of a group of elders. Before friends cower, it is to be a fiction, a novel.

Oh, dear, talk of negativity. Praise comes in the window and here I am groaning out through the door.

 The encouragement comes from Chris, my admired brother in Southland, New Zealand. 'I recently loaned your book Loner to good friend Roger Puller, a retired farmer, who likes sea accounts,' he emailed.

'I saw him again today and he was beside himself with how much he had enjoyed it.

'He claimed it was the best account he had read and then told me all about various parts of the book. I think you have a fan there. He is keen to read Sailing to Purgatory, your latest book.' …. Continues on the blogs for my ocean sailing adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory, at SailingToPurgatory.com