Twitter and Daffodils

I've started  a Twitter account. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but anyone who wants to can find me there @WriterVictoria. If I've set things up properly, my Tweets will appear below the posts here, and links to my posts here will be Tweeted there.

This photo was taken in York a few years ago, but following the warm weekend we've just had, daffodils seem to have come into bloom everywhere almost overnight. Hosts of golden daffodils indeed.

The cover that wasn't

In discussions about self publishing, a widely held view seems to be that the cover of the book is of paramount importance. Self-publishers, it's said, should be prepared to spend money on professionally designed covers for their books.

It's true that the covers of some self published books do look amateurish. But then mainstream publishers don't always get it right either. How often does one see a cover on which the heroine has the wrong hair colour, or is wearing a dress that  is quite wrong for the date at which the book is set?

For various reasons I didn't go for a professional cover for Inheritance of Secrets, but designed my own. Having made the decision to publish on Kindle, I had limited time in which to do it, and finding a cover artist and conveying what I wanted would have taken too long.

Also, I was approaching this as a learning process and thought it would be useful to start at a point from which I could tweak or change everything to see what worked best.

I wanted to feature a young woman on the cover, to represent my central character. I went looking on the internet and found a picture that was just what I wanted. The woman in the picture is prettier than my heroine, but everything else is just right.

Then I discovered that it's a portrait of Emma Hamilton by George Romney. I thought potential readers might recognise it as Emma and be misled into thinking the book was about her. With regret, I abandoned it.

I chose instead an image I had of a suitable house. Not as good as a person, but the house is important to the story. I wanted to establish that it is not a mansion. 

I think the picture I used establishes the mood and setting of the story quite well. But I still wish I could have used Emma.  

Who rules the waves?

There were frequent references to King Canute during the recent flooding, but how many journalists properly understood the moral of the story?

The story of Canute, or Cnut, and the waves was first recorded by the chronicler Henry of Huntingdon a hundred years or so after Canute's reign.

When he was at the height of his ascendancy, he ordered his chair to be placed on the sea shore as the tide was coming in. Then he said to the rising tide 'You are subject to me, as the land on which I am sitting is mine, and no-one has resisted my overlordship with impunity. I command you, therefore, not to rise on my land, nor to presume to wet the clothing or limbs of your master.'

But the sea came up as usual, and disrespectfully drenched the king's feet and shins. So jumping back, the king cried 'Let all the world know that the power of kings is empty and worthless, and there is no king worthy of the name save Him by whose will heaven, earth and sea bey eternal laws.'

Thereafter King Cnut never wore the golden crown, but placed it on the image of the Crucified Lord, in eternal praise of God the great king. 


Canute was a king of England, but he was not an English king. He was Danish, already king of Denmark when he succeeded to the English throne. He became king of England after the disastrous reign of Ethelred Unraed and the untimely death of Ethelred's son Edmund Ironside, a proven warrior who might have been an effective ruler.

Edmund's brother and sons were young, and Canute was in England with an army and a fleet. He was able to impose his rule on England with the support of people in the east of the country who were of Danish origin, descendants of the Danes who had been settling there since the second half of the ninth century. The Danish influence is still very evident in the place names and dialect of the region.

Canute reigned until 1035, bringing some much needed stability to the government of England.