my journey as a civil war novel writer

I am going to go quiet for a little while again. Leaving for Lithuania early tomorrow morning. [and no the house is not empty] My first time flying in over 2 years and not looking forward to that. Am looking forward very much to the trip and seeing my friends again. It is also my first time on holiday without a pile of books along but a sleek little ereader. I will let you know how I liked it after I get back.

There are those places in Belgium, Holland and France were you can be upon British, Canadian, American and Polish ground without leaving the country. These are the cemetaries dedicated to those who gave their live for us during WWII. Last month I visited the landing beaches in Normandy. I had never been there before and during this tour we took them all in. When I stood there overlooking pointe du hoc I had to think of the young men on the ships who saw those cliffs an d knew they would have to climb them. It was madness and yet they went. For many of them it was not their own country they came to f ree, but they went. And many of them died down there on the early morning of June the 6th so that I can now write this blog in freedom. We went to those fields were they lie forever now. There is collevil le sur mer. The graveyard lies overlooking the beaches, it is a lovely spot. Here the American fallen lay. They lay in neat rows of white crosses. On the stones there is a name and the...

The king Arthur stories are my passion, have been for 30 years. I think it started with my mother reading them to me when I was very young.Then later I read the prince Valiant comics and that is when I became hooked on Gawain. For me he is the ultimate hero. He went against the wishes of his parents to serve his uncle were he could have been king of Lothian in his own right. As Arthur's nephew he held a high position in court and was known to be chivelrous. It is his end that had me in tears every time. When Lancelot was finally fo und out with Guinevere, Arthur had to sentence his wife to death. He asked Gawain to escort her to her death, but he could not do it and asked his brothers Gareth and Gaheris to do it. Lancelot rode in to save his love and in the confusion he killed the Orkney brothers. Filled with guilt and hatred Gawain urged Arthur to sail for France and to confront Lancelot. Arthur did so and every day Gawain called Lancelot out to fight him. The equally guilt ridden...

A bit of a backpost really. But I want to do some blogs about my recent holiday in Normandy and Agincourt. I am going to start with the last weeken d, the one we spend in Agincourt. To be honest there is nothing left of the origin al battlefield. Just one informationtablet and a small monument. It was such a long time ago of course, 1415. And because it was such a huge French defeat , the French don't really flock there. T he museum in the village however is very nicely done. Lot's of information and nice displays. The next day was the day of the reenactments and we made sure we were early as we wanted our car up front as in the evening we had to drive back home. I was amazed at how many Dutch stands there were, but then again it is not that far. The reenactors kept us busy the whole day and that was very nicely done. We also met up with a facebook friend of mine who was on e of the reena ctors and it was very nice meeting him. It gave the day certainly something extra. The ...

I have gone and done it. Untill recently I said I never would, but panic can change your mind pretty quick.I was looking at the ever bigger pile of books that I wanted to take with me to Lithuania, then looked at my suitcase that may only hold 20 kilo and was ready to scream. Thus behold my new baby, I am now the proud owner of a Sony Touch 600 ereader. Earlier this year Jaco lend me his kindle so I could read the new David Weber book. I liked the screen very much but I did not like the buttons to turn the pages at all. Nor do I like that the kindle only uses the mobi format. Which means you cannot read Dutch books, who use the the epub format. Quick research told me that many other big english language book firms use epub as well, so getting English books would not be a problem. After many reviews I decided on the Sony as I can use both the buttons and the touch screen. It does not have WiFi, but before a holiday I can cram it so full that I don't need WiFi. it's features are ...

The carboot sale was yesterday. It was not easy to get up at 5.30 AM, i can tell you that. But the drive there was nice, you could see the mist on the polder fields and that is actually very pretty. We arrived in good time and set up our stuff. Mostly books, some DVD's and CD's and Sandy had her cherished teddies with her. This is the view we had when we turned around .And Nina loved playing on the beach with her ball. Did we sell well? Yes and no. Dutch books went fast, DVD and CD's went okay and I had one customer who took about 30 of my english language books. So all in all not bad. Only the ending of the day was not so good. It had been a mostly bright sunny day with some clouds coming over. But quarter to four it started to rain! And I mean rain. From dry and sunny one moment it went to a torrential downpour the next. We were not able to save all the books, when I am less tired than today I have to go and see what I can still save. All three of us were drenched to the...

Going to my first carboot sale tomorrow. Well my first carboot sale as a seller that is. I have been to some in England as a customer. It is fairly new here in the Netherlands but the one in Oss is supposed to be the biggest. Over the years I have sold a lot of my stuff on Ebay and Marktplaats, so these are the left over books, some DVD's and some Cd's. Books don't sell too well on marktplaats because they are heavy and the postage cost is just too much. It would have to be pretty rare or very popular books for them to sell well. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, if I will come home again with my seven boxes or if everything will be gone, maybe something in between? The drawback will be having to get up at sick on a sunday, gulp! To be there on time. There will be one rule and as we are going with three of us, we will need to help the others to be strong, only selling and ABSOLUTELY no buying. Well I doubt that they will be selling the kind of books I like, they won...