Today I received my first ever bound proof. Changeling is finally a book. A real, honest-to-God book - with pages and everything! The satisfying thump of an envelope landing in the hallway sent me scurrying out to discover the large, white package complete with the red Pan Macmillan franking-machine mark.
Whenever I see that frank mark now, my little heart does a brief pirouette. It's normally followed by a feeling of deep dread when I discover that it signals yet another round of edits, but not today.
I tore the envelope open and pulled out a book. My book. I don't know how my face looked at the time, but I am guessing that 'gawmless' must have been pretty close.


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Litlove's comment about self-belief in "The Muse, if you" like has sent me back to wondering about where self-belief in writers actually comes from. All the writing gurus, and all the other gurus too, keep up a chant about believing in yourself: whole careers have been founded on such 'inspirational' talk (talking of which, what ever happened to 'inspiring' as a perfectly good word for exactly the same thing?). But believing in anything - from God, to your being about to swim your personal best time - is by definition something you can't choose to happen: either you believe in yourself, or you don't. Some people believe very odd things in the teeth of all the evidence: that the world is flat; that blondes have more fun (I was born a lot blonder than I am these days, but I'm having much more fun now); that they're a terrible writer though garlanded with prizes and selling by the pallet-load.

But there's a clue in what's going on in the would-be writers who have yet to learn to be bad, and those who never never do, but persist in thinking their work's publishable or even prizeworthy.

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A lovely thing happened on my way to the blog; someone had been in for a browse and left this comment: ‘Stubblejumpers Cafe said... Hi Irene, Your blog is featured this week at Stubblejumpers. Kate.’ Now, isn’t that nice? So I went along and discovered this wonderful site with an amazing range of stuff:

Tarot readings, with real questions, from real people; reviews of blogs, books; from a Shaman to roast suckling-pig, the mixture is heady and wonderful. I was so enamoured of her site that I popped over and got one of my own; I mean, they offered it free!


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I have woken up in fine fettle today. Perhaps it is partly because Mother is ok. But I also think it is because Hubby and I are having Eldest Grand-daughter and Youngest Grandson over for the weekend. Youngest Grandson is now crawling, pulling himself up and navigating his way round by grabbing anything he can along the way - table-cloth, speaker-stand, CD rack, you name it. Eldest Grand-daughter, now three and quite the little madam, has learned (according to her mum) how to be defiant and stubborn and a handful. So Hubby and I have certainly got a busy weekend ahead. Not that we would have them any other way, you understand. But I have a feeling we'll be exhausted by Sunday when they go home.

And finally, very quickly, it is good to see a bit of sunshine don't you think? I know it isn't very warm - but it certainly looks pretty as the sun catches the golden leaves on the trees and emerald wing of the parakeet.

Wow! I must be feeling good - I am thinking like a poet again!

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A new book directory website has been created to allow Self Published authors to sell their books for FREE!! submissions are being taken for all categories.
You can have a direct link to your own website, or have an author page created for you by yambook. Try it now it is FREE!!
www.yambook.com and click on the submissions page and fill in your details.

Slept like the proverbial last night - at last - and was indeed barely awake whilst waving Lord H goodbye on the school run (as it were). Mind you, I deserved the lie-in as I have at last reached the magic number of 40,000 words of Hallsfoot's Battle so, hell, a day off is mine, all mine, mwa-aha-ha (that's evil laughter, by the way ...).

But what fun I've had with the doctor this morning. I ordered more of the Metformin and the HRT patches last week online and put all the information down on the description box as per the hospital notes. Today, I've collected my prescription and nipped next door to the very lovely pharmacist to get it made up. Which she duly did. At home, I did what I always do (BIG NB: ALWAYS DO THIS YOURSELVES, AND IF YOU IGNORE EVERYTHING ELSE ON THIS BLOG, FOR GOODNESS SAKE DON'T IGNORE THIS), which is to check the new packets with the packets I had before, ie the ones from the hospital. My dears, they were all wrong ...


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“This is me smiling,” I say.

“Come on,” Pauline urges from behind her video camera. “You look miserable.”

“My face doesn’t register emotion. Rest assured, inwardly I’m bubbling.”

Pauline, my publicist, has brought me to a factory in Suffolk where someone in brown overalls is about to push a button which will begin the process of churning out the initial run of five thousand copies of my novel, Clear History.

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I promised myself I wouldn’t write another blog post until I had finished my draft. I suppose I got bored of writing ‘nearly there’ and wanted something more definite to offer. So here is the blog post stating that the draft is finished, and that it’s massive, standing at approx. 225,000 words.

The most worrying thing is that I think I’ve been pretty careful. I mean, I enjoyed writing this novel more than I’ve enjoyed writing anything. So much so that I actually slowed down towards the end – and not just because of time constraints – but because I was loathe to see it end...

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It's true. I don't. But I do like to mention books I've enjoyed, and I've not enjoyed anything more than Willful Creatures, by Aimee Bender in a long time.



So where to start? Well, the book's a collection of short stories, fifteen in all. And they're fantastic and I mean, REALLY fantastic. I ordered the book from my library after reading a review of it in The Short Review. The first story grabbed my attention, it was like being grabbed by the throat, to tell the truth. And after reading it I thought, wow, this is good, I hope she can keep it up.




And she does. And I mean REALLY. Each story seemed better than the last, which when I considered each one a gem, is quite a thing.




Three stories in I ordered my own copy. Now, this wasn't solely so I could have my own copy, though that was a big part of things. You see, I wanted to read the book slowly. Slowly. I wanted to savour the experience. Take one story at a time. One every few days, giving myself a real treat. And I didn't want a library fine.

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Not quite so much rushing around today, as there’s no Student Care Services stall to worry about, thank goodness. Mind you, I think it went very well, and everyone seems to be very enthused about it and the big presentation it was linked with. I’m hoping we’ll be able to do the same again next year, but I imagine it depends on budgets. As ever.

So this morning, I’ve been sorting the talks out for next week – as even though the big first week is over then, we still have individual talks to do. Thankfully, I’m not doing them though – I’m just arranging the dates and equipment. I don’t have to appear in public, thank the Lord. That would be enough to terrify all the unsuspecting students away ...


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