Paris was fabulous. We walked an average of four hours a day. Breakfast was good strong coffee, lunch was salad or an omelette, after which we didn't much fancy dinner so just ate an ice-cream on the hoof (or, in Milly's case, chocolate mousse with bananas and milk).

We walked all around the Latin Quarter (Rue de Bac is my favourite street) and visited Le Marais for the first time. One day we did nothing but shop. Particular treasures we brought home included coriandar bath salts (they smell divine) and a box of novelty sugar lumps for my mother, in the shape of tiny colourful buttons and figures. My better half bought shoes, and Milly got a whole new spring wardrobe of pretty clothes. Paris brings out the girl in her, which is rather lovely. On our last day, we stayed out late and walked through St. Germain after dark where we saw Greek diners smashing plates and a juggler with a glass jar of goldfish on his head. Milly wanted to know, 'Is this a dream?'


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Hello, am new to this kind of thing, so please, be nice!
Anyway, I have recently decided to write a children's picture book. I know its going to be hard, and i am not one of those people who say, " lets make a quick buck, I'll write a picture book!" I want to do this because I love writing, and I REALLY LOVE picture books.
Now that's cleared, I would like to know how to format my book. I understand the stuff on margins, and my title page, and cover letter.
HERE ARE THE Q'S
Do I need to double space the writing, seeing as it's a picture book?
Do I need to number the pages or show page breaks?
Do I send the whole block of text, or do number or...?
Do I need to leave notes for the illustrator?
Thanks, I look forward to hearing from you!
Sade x

Yes, I won the Cool EP T-shirt, which is, naturally, very cool. And I have plans for it. Yes I do. As soon as I hear back from a certain someone I'll let you know what those plans are (if the email comes back as a 'yes' that is).

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Goodness me, a sunny day today. How shocking. None of us really know what to do about it and are staring out of the window with our mouths open. What a very pleasant image. Still, it won’t last – the forecast for the rest of the week is rain. Followed by rain. Best make the most of it then.

I’m struggling with working out my travel expenses for travelling to the York conference in the new system. Apparently I’m allowed extra money per passenger – and as I took one person up to York and brought two people back (hey! I made a friend!), the maths is beyond me. I can see I shall have to rely on weeping and Ruth. Again. Must be my hormones ...

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I got home from Paris last night (a lovely week we had) to find my author copies of MO: Crimes of Practice waiting for me. It really is a beautifully produced book, acid green spine, smoothly-bound, clean white pages. I'm a little in love with it, just as an object, and looking forward to reading it in full.


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The Irish Nomad (from my links below) has got me thinking about death; she blogged about the Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain who has just been told that cancer is killing her. My mind leapt to Julia Darling; she continued writing in her blog until she had no energy left - this is what a writer does, in my mind. I have added a link to her website, straight to the blog, which I've already reversed so it's easy to read from the beginning; before she even knew it was called a blog!

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A little bit of good news today when my agent emailed me to say that he thought the second draft of The Gifting was a lot better than the first, hurrah! He’s promised to be in touch with me later in the week, after the wild traumas of the London Book Fair, so I shall gird myself for more edits to come. No doubt.

This morning, I’ve spent vast swathes of time sorting through the meetings for the coming year, and they’re all slowly slotting into place, like some kind of giant and very alien jigsaw. Still one or two pieces that are floating in the ether though … And I’m back to typing the boss’s changes to various sets of minutes and publicity, so the schedules are filling up, ho ho. Ooh, and I’ve signed an educational online petition and had a confirming email from 10 Downing Street – how very exciting! At last I am mixing with the Great and the Good – if only virtually …

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You receive an unexpected bill that you can’t pay; burn a green candle, mark a copy of the bill with money oil, visualise yourself paying it, ask the gods to help you. Add a piece of Sympathetic Magic by writing PAID on it, then burn it and send your request to the universe.

Angel, Shan and I were pondering the question of money oil; what was it?

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I'm not feeling so great today, as the temperature climbs ( we are in sharav season - a scorchingly hot, dry desert wind which blows from the Arabian Desert - which means it's getting hot hot hot), my body is refusing to cope. Lethargy has taken hold, and a rather unpleasant dry cough. I was trying so hard to stay well and not to pick up every germ going. Two months isn't so bad, I guess. My head is too foggy to do much but play Scrabulous and surf the web.

However, the post just came, and with it some very welcome new reading material to cheer me up:.....

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In spite of the rain, Lord H and I have made the effort to go out today, and ended up at the chocolate festival at Polesden Lacey. Mmmm, lovely. Though we were noble and did the house first - our attempts to dodge the Room Dragons were fairly successful, thank goodness. Mind you, there were children around so no doubt they had other things on their mind ... We also had a lovely walk across the always stunning grounds and the sun even shone for a while, astonishingly. Then we hit the Chocolate Tent, and were quite restrained, well for us - though I did have to drag Lord H away from the chocolate fountain before he plunged into it. And I discovered a really wonderful chocolate & courgette cake (yes, you are reading that right), with cinnamon. Lovely. We had it warmed with ice cream as pudding today, and even have some left over for tomorrow. It's the healthy option after all - no doubt being an extra portion of vegetables for the day ...

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