The Archangel smelled of Guinness and home-made steak pie. Eurythmics pumped ‘Sweet Dreams’ into the air and Delphine found herself sinking into the music, all the way to the bar.
‘What can I get for you?’ the man sitting behind the counter must have spoken.
‘You sent for me,’ she looked into his face; his eyes had tears hanging in them.


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Back once more in an effort fulfil my life's desire - to write. Simple so you'd think, but for some reason I seem unable to allow myself to do it. It appears to be some twisted form of self-mutilation, a real way to twist the knife. I think I wrote some time ago about how washing seems so much more important - still true I'm sad to say. And now, just as I'm ready to push a little harder and more insistently on my chrysalis wall and stretch my wings in preparation for flight, the universe has conspired against me and my 'e' has fallen off my laptop keyboard.

Actually, I managed to hoover it off in an over-enthusiastic bout of writing-avoidance. If I seem short of a few 'e's in my txt, that's the reason why.

I wonder if accomplished writers have methods to coax and convince themselves to show up at the page, and should I adopt some? On watching a Roald Dahl tribute the other day I noted that he had a rather swish writing board and a particularly grand but battered armchair to work from, as well as an entirely separate building rather charmingly described as a shed. Oh! but if had a 'shed' to commute to, I'd surely write.

I read on the internet that another writer dons a writing hat, and I've heard that many set up station with a cup of coffee and an ashtray. Perhaps this is more common than I am aware of. And see - after popping on my rather funky and suitably kooky orange anti-glare glasses (which, consequently, are no use to man or beast and cost me a tidy £250 but might as well be put to some use) I have re-joined Writewords and written 300 words of blog. Perhaps there's something in it after all.

So please, excuse my rusty hand and lack of E, but, hurrah! for the orange glasses! Any other suggestions to regain inspiration, motivation and enthusiasm greatly received.

:-)

Struggled to get through the morning today – it was rainy and dull, which was about all that could be said about it really. Took me ages to get my minutes finished from last week, and I only managed it by taking a rare (for me) caffeine injection. That seemed to do the trick though – thank goodness.

Mind you, Goldenford managed to launch Irene’s new book with style last night. And we also managed to sell copies of all our books, including three of Pink Champagne and Apple Juice, so good news all round. Congrats, Irene!...

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I belong to two amazing online writing groups: the WriteWords Flash Fiction Group and the Fiction Workhouse, and both those groups are incredibly supportive and inspiring places to be.

The WW Flash group has a weekly Challenge, which one group member "wins" and then they set the challenge for the following week. And in the Fiction Workhouse we are now in the middle of something quite wonderful called a Blastette. This is a period of time during which we all write as many flash stories (under 500 words or so, no set rules) as we can inspired by 24 sets of prompts that one member of the group has compiled. This is the third Blastette that has happened since the FW was set up 9 months or so ago, and it is just an astonishing experience. There are 20 of us involved, on several continents, but the energy is palpable. Whenever someone writes a story, they immediately post it up on the site, anonymously, and as well as writing as much as we can, we try and give brief comments on other people's stories.

What this has taught me is that the more you write, the more you write. Writing is truly a muscle that will atrophy if under-used, but when kept healthy and given a good workout, is infinitely flexible.......

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My thanks to Edward Pettit at the Bibliothecary
for alerting me to the existence of R. Sikoryak's comic book adaptation of Dostoevsky's masterpiece Crime and Punishment. At last! Someone who has risked the wrath of the purists even more than me! And if you follow this link to a feature in Brian Hughes' Again with the Comics blog, and check out some of the comments, you'll see that a fair amount of spleen has been predictably spent.


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Hi

On Friday, Unrequited finally appeared on Amazon.com and co.uk, and I believe it's over at Barnes & Noble too. I met this news with a great deal of personal satisfaction, a dash of trepidation and a thirst for celebration.

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I made myself go up town today and the sun came out. I’ve been crocheting blankets again; started at work the other night, in between calls. It’s time to build up a stock of stuff to sell, I mean I’m supposed to be finishing my website and that’s what’s holding me back, because I haven’t got anything, right here and now, to put up for sale. I’ve got all sorts lying God knows where but can’t get to it at the moment; some is in Spain and some, hopefully, wrapped up tight in the old flat. I saw wool at great prices in a big old department store last week so that was the first stop. Think I’ll get three blankets out of this, and the colours are stunning…have started already and am one ball down – 100gms in a couple of hours.


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... is launched today and is a big milestone for Goldenford (who, by the way, produce the best and most readable books in the south) as Sold to the Lady with the Lime-Green Laptop is our very first non-fiction production. And has one of the biggest-bosomed ladies you'll ever see on the front cover. At least with that expression. It's astonishing indeed what turns up on eBay! Well done indeed, Irene!

Anyway, the launch is where I'll be this evening. And here's hoping the upcoming Christmas browsers - especially those who use, or would like to use, eBay - pop a few copies in their shopping bags. It's a fun read and gives a whole new perspective on the profit to be made in the online shopping world, so be sure not to miss out! It's also an ideal way to support the absolutely vital independent publishing industry - God preserve us indeed from the tosh frequently given to us by the Big Boys ...!

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There's a kerfuffle in the book trade over the likely defection - or earlier defection, or certain defection, depending on what you read - of a variable number of high-powered agents from the agency PFD. I do feel sorry for writers whose agents are directly involved, but for the rest of us it's all good soap opera. For a moment I even allowed my decision not to talk book trade on this blog to wobble.

But only for a moment. Because I really do believe that allowing too much (any?) book-trade stuff into your writer's consciousness is absolutely inimical to creativity. And that's true whether you're writing at the sharp edge of literary experiment, or well within the boundaries of good stories comfortably told...


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Was seriously pissed off when I was flicking through this week's copy of the "Church Times" yesterday. And I strongly suspect that they were pretty pissed off too - or at least that's the impression I got from the tone of the reporting, the editorial and one or two of the columnists. Not that they can come out (sorry - in advance ...) with anything very open, but the feeling was certainly there. For those 99% of you not in the know, yes we're all very pissed off about the US bishops back-tracking over whether priests can be gay or not. Or gay and active or not. Or gay and over 5 foot 7 inches tall or not. Or whatever the current U-turn is focused on. God knows, but we've all actually forgotten the so-called "arguments" as we're all really bored with them by now ...

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