As a follow up to my previous post I must also mention Patrick Swayze who has to be hailed an inspiration to all. Again, another face that covered my walls during the 1980's, I now watch him, noticable guant yet still handsome, in the new TV series The Beast. It amazes me that even when faced with tragedies such as these we seem to find the strengh to continue.

I was upset yet felt a great deal of pride for Michael J Fox who I saw on an interview in America recently. I absolutely loved this actor during the 1980's and to see him now, even though he remains he very handsome looks, is very sad. I will be reading his new book with great interest.

I’ve been thinking about the role teachers play in the writing process. I don't mean that much-debated chestnut of whether creative writing can be taught. Instead, I mean the influence of school and how key individuals early on may have prompted us to take this exhilarating, frustrating, addictive path of writing.
In the last year of primary school, I had a certain Mr Hyde, a teacher I adored and feared in equal measure. It was pre-National Curriculum, and every week we were given the task of filling the back wall of our classroom with pictures, news and stories. This task was known simply as ‘Magazine’. My contribution was writing melodramatic stories in weekly instalments and I can remember ferociously working out a plot issue on a family walk in the country at the age of ten. It’s scary how little has changed in the [ahem] however many years since then.


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It’s funny the things people give you. I don’t mean a sore throat or earache or the cold shoulder – which are not in the least amusing – but unexpected gifts. Like a small yellow ornamental gourd, for instance, presented to me last summer by the father of Roo’s boyfriend via a convoluted chain of delivery that led from his back garden vegetable patch to my desk top. The boyfriend is now an ex but the gourd’s still around, all golden and mellow next to the telephone.


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I’m thrilled to discover that Kill-Grief has been selected as one of the ten titles to feature in the Exclusively Independent initiative for April.

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I love physics. You say "physics" to me and I get a thrill. It's not that I want to do physics - I tried that, it didn't work. But I think the endeavour of physicists is magical, they are asking the biggest "What if...?" questions in the universe, of the universe: "What if 90% of the universe was made of stuff we can't see?" (dark matter). "What if fundamentally we are all made of tiny vibrating strings?" (string theory). Physicists are creative, imaginative, seeing the world in ways no-one else has seen it before, and dreaming up experiments to test their theories. Thrilling!

So when I heard that someone called Sue Guiney was writing a novel with a main character who was a physicist (and who might just resemble John Cusack), I couldn't wait to read it. Novels I'd read with scientists in the title role had generally been written by scientists, who are not necessarily writers. Let's leave it at that. The ultimate book of "science-inspired fiction" for me is Einstein's Dreams, by Alan Lightman, who is a scientist, a collection of beautiful and moving fictions imagining what Einstein might have dreamed about while coming up with his theory of relativity.

Sue Guiney, an American poet, playwright and novelist living in London now for almost twenty years, has done what I've been waiting for , combining science and fiction, integrate physics into her writing smoothly and effortless, so that it is a part of the plot and not a "gimmick" in any way.

John, the 40-something single physicist, tells half the story, alternating with his late mother, Grace. The two stories, the two people, are entangled in a similar way to the idea of "quantum entanglement", which, very simplistically, says that a pair of particles are split apart are still related, can still have an effect on each other over a distance. And, in John and Grace's case, over time as well as space. Tangled Roots (published by Bluechrome and now out in paperback) is a very fitting title. This wonderful book, which reveals more layers with each reading, deals with so many themes and topics: parenthood, childhood, tragedy, disappointment, depression, infidelity, the question of happiness, and the nature of reality itself.

I'm delighted to be the Middle East stop on Sue's Space-Time Virtual Book Tour. Welcome, Sue!


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It could be that our Frith Street 'Lao Shi' sees us chewing our pencils and decides we're wondering how to spend our holiday free time. Or maybe he thinks we'll forget everything if we don't attend a twice-weekly Mandarin class for a whole month.

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I was first alerted to the WriteInvite site by the ever-first-off-the-starting-block Womag, at http://womagwriter.blogspot.com/ who, following on from a very informative post about the opportunities for writers to try their luck in the fillers’ market, described the weekly online competition as one more opportunity to make money from your writing. Intrigued, I followed her link to http://www.write-invite.com/

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So my husband had to travel to London today. However he could not wear his usual suit and tie but had to don jeans and a jumper. Why? Because he was advised this would be best due to the protesting that would be taking place. Apparently, and I do not mean the peaceful protesters who just want to air their views but more the 'thugs' who travel from all over Europe just for the opportunity to cause trouble. Apparently they were going to attack the 'suits' in London.

At 9.30am I get a text from my worse half informing me he had arrived safely. Just after lunchtime I hear he has had a wander to see what the rioters were getting up to.

Is it me or were men at the back of the queue when brains were distributed?

My very short story, The Angel in the Car Park is now live over at Rainy City Stories. This makes me happy because Rainy City Stories is a project I think is really cool (and has an editor who has been a dream to work with).

And I have a confession. I stole the title. There's a story in Tania Hershman's exceptionally wonderful collection called the Angel in the Car Park (which is also exceptionally wonderful) and it inspired me. So thanks to Tania for that (who, again, for the record, is exceptionally wonderful also).

(This act of theft has actually given birth to a very cool and top secret project of my own. If you're lucky, and if you're good, then maybe, one day, I shall tell you more about it.)

*

And now a question.

I was with friends a couple of evenings ago, both of whom are considerable movie buffs. They know their stuff.

They'd been to see a film and had been disappointed with it. This led to a discussion during which one of them critisised the ending for being depressing. He said, when we go to the cinema we don't want to be depressed. And then he said, 'Or do we?' - and reeled off a list of great films which were not joyous in theme.

The following day I read something I'd recently written to my writing group. It's a short piece and it starts of being quite funny. And then it plummets in mood and the ending is, well, not one to leave you grinning - and I think it left the group collectively feeling sad. It's also an ending which I absolutely believe is right for the piece.

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