Dear me, I must be getting old - I actually slipped and fell in the bath today, which is something I've never done before. And, goodness me, but my shoulder felt it - though, luckily, the pain soon wore off. And it did have its exciting side - I've never seen such a wonderful tidal wave effect so nearby. Not that I'm built like a blue whale preparing for its winter hibernation, I hasten to add. We just have a rather small bath. That's my theory anyway, and I'm sticking to it ... Anyway, no harm done, and I'll try not to repeat the experience. (Makes mental note to go easy on the bath oils in future.)...


Read Full Post

One* or two people keep asking me this every time I see them and I’m not quite sure what to say. I mean, no one has told me my book has ‘flu, or has broken its leg, or is waiting to hear its exam results, so I don’t know what to report.

For a start – which book? The one I’m in the middle of writing? The one due to come out next year? The haunting Booker-winning epic I’m going to write some day? The futuristic dystopian YA fantasy I’d forgotten about until the baby pulled it out from under the bed and I sat there thinking i.) blimey, my handwriting was neat in those days and ii.) this is not that bad, so why did I abandon it and contemplate slitting my wrists over how awful it was?



Read Full Post

Spent the morning sorting out the meetings this afternoon and the one I’ve got to do on Monday, so I am now the Meetings Queen of the office. Always good to have an aim in life, you know. Meetings are like buses – you don’t get any for weeks and then suddenly there they all are at once, cluttering up your diary and demanding attention, dammit. Hey ho. Plus I had to send the minutes out twice to everyone – no, three times, including the combined papers package – as there was an error in the first set. An error – shocking! I must be losing my touch …


Read Full Post

It was my writing group's reading night/book launch last night, and I'm pleased to say it went splendidly. Everyone read stories and poems and everything that everyone read was great. I was really pleased with both the quality of the material and the way it was read. They did good.

It was also a good opportunity to announce that the little volume we put together for our local British Legion has raised just over £500. Although I spent an age putting it together, editing it and doing other such things, the real legwork was done by Jenny (the Legion Member) who throughly deserved her applause.

A few of things that I read were caught on video, and I may well put them up here, if I can work out how to get them from camera to computer. It is proving tricky.

Read Full Post

long time ago I went on my first-ever writing course, on Skyros. Not only did I have the most heavenly time on one of the most delectable Greek islands, but I came home and wrote the first novel I wouldn't be ashamed to show you, or my agent. (I wouldn't want it published, mind you, but that's another story). Skyros is the original alternative holiday in the sun, and as well as big name writers teaching what's now called Writer's Lab, it's full of yoga, self-healing, dancing, Tai Chi, windsurfing, meditation, massage and so on. They do get the best teachers/facilitators/coaches but, as always with things alternative, everyone's there to buy into the philosophy, and if you're in the mood to stand outside and find it all slightly, earnestly risible, it's not hard: I found myself writing little charicatures in my head, and smirking as the warm and wonderful clichés rolled out day after day. And, of course, being writers, I and the rest of my group were specialists in standing outside and looking in. For writers detachment isn't just cool, or cynical, or sensible, or all the other kinds of grown-up, it's a necessary condition.

What happened, though, was that for the first time ever I realised I didn't want to stay detached, and that cool and un-fooled wasn't entirely the point.

Read Full Post

Woken early today by what appears to be mice in next door’s attic (which runs parallel to our bedroom). A lot of tapping and skittering anyway, so it’s either mice or a very frantic ghost. Lord H nobly got up in the darkness and tapped back to scare them away, but I think he might have achieved some kind of communication with the beasties instead. Perhaps it’s aliens? We shall have to try to break it to the downstairs neighbour somehow …


Read Full Post

Mavis at Harper Collins has marked out on my itinerary for which appearances I should be drunk. Generally, as part of her continuing ‘Drunken Public Appearances’ plan, anything to be broadcast after nine pm has a D next to it. Some events with a liberal attitude have a DD meaning that I should be totally beyond my own control and will still probably avoid arrest. Mavis doesn’t seem to understand that once I start, the consumption of alcohol is already beyond my control, rendering the concept of regulating my level of intoxication laughable.

Last night's radio interview was a DD and yet, as I remember it, the DJ was delighted with my condition and, after baiting me into spouting ludicrous slurs against people of various races and religions, joined me with his own bottle of…Absinthe perhaps.

The session concluded at two am with the presenter actually snorting lines from the mixing desk and babbling like a madman about being the new king of Shock Jocks.

Read Full Post

I’m back at work today and I think my arm and hand are fairly under control – I’m even typing this with two hands though not at my usual speed. It’s proving easier than I thought it would be – and people are being very nice. The boss has even very kindly arranged back-up writing support for the meeting I’m due to minute on Wednesday, just in case my hand gives up. So that takes the pressure off. The only thing at the moment is I’ve moved my mouse to the left side, which I think is more sensible for now, but it does make my back feel more delicate – the difference in emphasis, I suppose. Lordy, but I’m a moaner indeed – and hey it’s not too bad and I’m back in the saddle, so hurrah for that!...


Read Full Post

Not managing to do much else whilst NANO is on apart from write. The synopsis for my 'novel' reads: A stream of consciousness novel rooted in the minutiae of the everyday. Think Virginia Woolf meets Jack Kerouac, then think again ...

To what extent the editing process will alter this, I'm not sure and I'm tempted to post an unedited extract up here. Maybe later. [More ...]

Read Full Post

Today I'm visiting Vanessa Gebbie's blog for a discussion about magical realism. Here's a taster:

"Only some of the stories in my book would be called magical realist, and that this isn't something I set out consciously to do. Much like you, I imagine, I just follow where the story leads me. If, as happened with the story Rainstiffness, I hear the first line in my head: “When it rains, she stiffens”, I just go with it and am not put off, made nervous by the fact that actually my main character is semi-paralyzed during rainstorms, something I have not heard of happening in “real life”. Many of my stories are far more realist, whatever that means, some are perhaps more in the science fiction realm – not realist enough to be even magical realism. What I am trying to say is that I believe in doing whatever serves a particular story, rather than setting out to write a piece of magical realism."

Read more on Vanessa Gebbie's blog.

Read Full Post