I decided to walk to Piccadilly because I'd read that ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ was being screened at the Cineworld at 4pm. The late afternoon sun turned office blocks to gold as I crossed Hungerford Bridge at dusk, and a five-strong band, including accordion and trumpet, played ‘Kalinka’



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You might remember that as a postscript (or should it be a postpost?) to a post about covers and blurbs, I linked to Musings from a Muddy Island, which is a booky-writey blog I enjoy, about one thing which makes authors happy: seeing people reading their book. A few other things which have made this particular author happy this week are:

1) A few months ago one of my longest-standing writing friends - let's call her Marguerite - whose beautifully built, beautifully written short stories I admire enormously, asked my advice about arranging and submitting a collection to agents, and as I've never done that I passed the query on to all my short-fiction-writing friends at Glamorgan, who came back with all sorts of helpful advice. We all know that it's next-to-impossible (though not completely impossible) to make your publishing debut with a short fiction collection. But Marguerite sent them off, and settled back to wait. Meanwhile, I happened to mention NaNoWriMo, which she'd never heard of, but dived straight into, and a couple of weeks later I got an ecstatic email about the joys of being able to unfurl huge bolts of story-cloth, and see where they flew.

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A few recommendations for great reading that I've enjoyed this week (links open new windows so feel free to click 'em all!):

Flash fiction
Missing by Marcia Aldrich, Vestal Review
You Should Know This by Meg Pokrass, Dogzplot
The Meaning of Life by Tom Robbins, Conjunctions

Short Stories
.....

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I was lucky enough to see the wonderful Joe Craig today give a presentation at my daughter's school. Joe is an extremely good public speaker and energises his presentations in a way that had the children in the audience captivated by his on-the-spot storytelling. The kids seemed to love him, and he had them rolling around with laughter at times. He did so well to keep them attentive for a little over an hour (no mean feat).


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I’m walking along Berwick Street again, ostensibly in search of good bargain records and pretending to myself that I’m not looking for James Hardy. Since tricking one of the Harper publicity crones into giving me his number, I have left a humiliatingly large number of messages on his mobile’s answer phone, but he hasn’t returned my calls.

I have kept alive the slim possibility that my messages have cut out each time at the exact moment that I am reciting my own phone number, leaving him unable to contact me, frustrated and desperate to go out again and perhaps let me ride on his coattails of success for a time.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. It is Linda, the ex-girlfriend who I met for lunch a few weeks ago, calling me for the twentieth time. I reject it, as I have done each time. Despite this, she refuses to take the hint and keeps calling. It is embarrassing for us both...

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We had Youngest Step-daughter's two littluns over at the weekend. Eldest Grand-daughter was just getting over chicken pox and Youngest Grandson was just starting it. I was up all night with him on Saturday as he writhed and screamed - although he did manage to snatch two and a half hours sleep from around 2.30 a.m out of pure exhaustion. It is a long time since I held such a sick infant in my arms and I felt so sorry for him. He is only ten months old, he didn't understand what was happening and couldn't tell me how he was feeling so he did the only thing he could - cry.

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Great title for a lit zine, eh? I am honoured that my flash, And Bruised, is published in Drunk and Lonely Men's third issue. These are their submission guidelines:

Submission Guidelines
Depress us.
Send up to 3 of your saddest poems or stories (250 words or less)
We accept simultaneous submissions and reprints, suicide notes and bomb threats.

I am delighted I managed to sufficiently depress them. Always the aim of my writing.
Go read the issue, it's killer stuff.

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Life is strange and beautiful. I am in love!!! But actually I have only had one conversation with this person. So maybe it's not love yet but just an immense feeling of unconditional like. And maybe it will be something this person will never know. I would like them to know but wouldn't even know where to start. Not something you can come out with " I'm blood group O" - "Really - you are just fantastic, I really like you - can you pass the milk please". Just doesn't have the flow. And do you know how I know? I lost my appetite when I was eating my custard and pie. And I love my custard. Nothing comes between me and custard. So it must be love. So to what vessel do I pour this unconditional like? At the moment it is overflowing and while I still have this cough and my throat hurts like crazy, I still am dancing around my room with joy. I wish I could tell. I wish I could tell.

My proof copies arrived today!



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The bookshshop manager, a tall woman in satin velvet printed with a kind of muted Mondrian pattern, made graceful arm gestures at the throng and at the speaker. Bamboo began to talk and soon had everone laughing at her anecdotes about Shanghai. I remember how well she compared with Xinran, no mean speaker herself, at the Asia House launch of 'Blue China'


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