Imagination and Beyond

A spring-like flurry of words from the VIP Readers Club

Hello there,

"Reality can be beaten with enough imagination"

-Mark Twain

Thanks to Sean for sending that quote to me.

Imagination is such a wonderful thing, and the more we exercise it, the better. Imagination solves problems, creates new opportunities, enables us to envision a better future.

Imagination is something we are all born with, and to suppress it is to take away part of a person’s humanity.

But bureaucrats don’t like it. You can't test for it, set goals and targets, measure its improvement, any more than you can quantify love or a sense of humour. I almost included happiness there, but then I remembered about the various surveys and reports that try to do just that.

Am I happy about official happiness surveys? I ask myself, and on a scale of 1 to 10, I am ambivalent, so that comes out at roughly 4.873

One thing that definitely increases my happiness is the promise of spring. The days are getting longer, there is occasional sunshine, and the Devon hedgerows are coming back to life. The local farmers promptly cut the said hedges back, but that’s only because it’s the last chance for farmers to have a go at them before wild birds begin nest building.

There are few sights more hopeful than a blackbird with its bill stuffed with moss and scraps of dried grass.

We had a lovely bright day last Saturday, but a storm was forecast for the Sunday, so Mrs C and me rather cleverly moved our run to Saturday and went off to Exeter to tramp up and down the paths beside the canal. Unlike most of Devon this is wonderfully flat.

Also, if you start and finish by the quay, there are cafes for a post-run coffee and lunch. You can see more in the featured photos below. You can also see a shop full of antique light fittings. I’ve never been inside before, and the photo doesn’t really do it justice. The place is crammed with things which the careless browser might accidentally break, all of which are fantastically expensive.

I escaped without knocking over a single thing.

There’s also a photo of pavement art that only looks 3-D when you take a photo of it. And a rather grand building which is now a climbing centre.

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Featured Photos

Three ways to enjoy the photos: a collage in the email, separate images in the substack app, an interactive gallery in the online post.

More photos soon. Until then, happy reading.

Behind the Scenes

I’m recording these videos every week now as a thank you to paying members. There is a free preview via the ‘Read the full story‘ link below, and that gives a flavour.

Book News

A Shamefaced Murder and a New Spiller Thriller

The upcoming Devonshire Mystery, A Shamefaced Murder, is currently being edited, so it’s on its way. Thank you to all the wonderful beta readers. It’s a stonking big book, so there’s lots of Dan and Alan to enjoy

My current project is another outing for DC Spiller set in the nineties when he was a fledgeling detective. A dark tale, this one, in keeping with the crime thriller genre. Chilling, I hope, rather than OTT gory. In this book, Spiller has been in CID for almost a year, so he’s moved on from his early days as portrayed in Lawful Duty. In case you’ve missed the Lawful Duty train, here’s a fifteen percent discount coupon for my store. Good until march 14, it only works for the ebook of Lawful Duty: VIPREADLD

Trespass: A Tale of Time Travel and Ancient Secrets

99p / 99c

The Darkeningstone books, a trilogy of novels plus a prequel novella, take the reader on an epic time-travelling and genre-bending journey through 5,000 years of history.

The Darkeningstone is a portal through time, so the scene is set for a clash of cultures between the mystical beliefs of Neolithic tribes and modern life.

When a teenage boy is transported to a brutal world, he must fight for his survival.

But he’s determined to succeed because whatever it takes, he’s going home.

Currently available for a piffling sum.

Signing Off

Well, I hope you found something to spur your imagination or increase your overall happiness quotient, or even better, both at the same time. I’m off to spark a few new ideas via the tried and true method of imbibing hot tea.

Hey, it worked for Picard, so who am I to do any different?

All the best and take care,

Mikey