It’s fun to welcome you back for a chat, Ailsa Abraham, and good to know that you, too, are a lover of a string of dots…

Hello Jane! Thanks so much for inviting me around. I wanted to know if you’d find time because you are always so organised and busy.

I’m the opposite, disorganised and trying to catch up with myself most of the time. Mind you, stupid things like serious accidents, helicopter trips to hospital and trotting off to the UK don’t help.

With your books being mainly based on memory, I don’t know if your characters speak to you. Mine do. They clamour to tell me their stories which is maybe why I’m always on the catch-up because I have a head-full of dictation that needs to be written.

Good example being with my list of J2BD (jobs to be done) as far as writing is concerned. No, contrary to current rumour I am not dead and will get on with producing books when I can. Following Alchemy and Shaman’s Drum, the third in the series which continues where Book 2 finished is nearly there but I had to explain the absence of one of the major characters, Dagda. That bothered me because in the two books, the same people have been popping in and out but him being missing from his post as Head of the Black Shaman’s Guild was unthinkable.

I was very grateful when he decided to creep in on a Quakers’ Meeting one Sunday morning when I was there with my Aunt who is an Elder. Dagda is a Native American and training to be a medicine man so I suppose he felt right at home there. As I sat like everyone else, opening up to Spirit with my eyes closed, I had two whole pages dictated to me in my head. Unfortunately that means that Book 4 will also need to be written but will be a humdinger of an adventure featuring Navajo magic both good and bad. So I can dust off my paws, finish Book 3 and then leap into Book 4…for which I already know the opening scene.

However… (don’t you love those dots? I feel they are the notational equivalent of the dramatic music dah dah dah from the silent movies.) I have also been asked by my lovely publishers to produce a non-fiction book which I will be delighted to do and ought to work on first.

Then there is my alter-ego Nanny Ab. I wrote about her adventures as a thinly-disguised memoir because I’m not very keen on starting every sentence with I, me or my. She would now like to tell all about her funny life in France – none of the disasters and I rather like the idea of chatting about her  rather than me, because I can afford to be brutally honest about her sometimes appalling life-choices.

At least I’m not bored. At the last count I have about two years’ work lined up. All I have to do is stay alive so I’m swearing off my motorbikes for a while and looking before crossing the road. Thanks for having me and look forward to welcoming you on our blog soon.

BIO – Ailsa Abraham retired early from a string of jobs, ending up with teaching English to adults. She has lived in France since 1990 and is married with no children but six grandchildren. Her passion is motorbikes which have taken the place of horses in her life now that ill-health prevents her riding. She copes with Bipolar Condition, a twisted spine and increasing deafness with her usual wry humour – “well if I didn’t have all those, I’d have to work for a living, instead of being an author, which is much more fun.”. Her ambition in life is to keep breathing. She has no intention of stopping writing.

As Ailsa Abraham :Shaman’s Drum and Alchemy published by Crooked Cat. (nominated for the People’s Choice Book Prize)

Four Go Mad in Catalonia – self-published, available from Smashwords

Twitter – @ailsaabraham

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