‘No, Mum, you haven’t got swine flu’, says my daughter on the phone. ‘You have to be under 60 to catch it’.

Meantime my head feels as if it’s clamped in a vice, my throat’s been rasped with a cheese-grater and I’m coughing every few minutes. The slightest effort makes me feel exhausted.



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Yesterday evening I went to see The Fourpenny Circus, which, says the website, is 'a lightly staged poetry show which combines good live literature with silliness, sadness and stagecraft' - and it was really, really good. Funny in (plenty of) places, sad in others and on one or two occasions even a little rude. I enjoyed it a lot, not only for the poems, which were mostly great and at times brilliant, but for the show as well, for the movement. And when those in the show are poets

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I'm a lucky girl. I've just been to see 'The Boss' aka Bruce Springsteen in concert in Dublin. Those who read my blog already know I'm a somewhat obsessed fan. Not just of the man, you understand - he is after all nearly sixty - but his music and particularly his lyrics.

So, there I was on Saturday night in the pouring rain, as close to the mosh pit as my freezing, aging bones would allow. I listened to the man with his E Street band and remembered fondly my stint as a lyricist when I used to dream that someone famous would sing my words. It proved to be step one on a steep learning curve that is my writing journey, a journey laden with many more amazing dreams.



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This is interesting (well, it is slightly to me, anyway). World 66 is a travel site where you can create a map of all the countries you’ve visited. Weekly Geeks, which I heard about via Farm Lane Books, suggested using it to create a map of countries we’ve read about. I have based mine on what I’ve read since the beginning of 2008.

Although the furthest extent of my travel in the past year and a half has been to go Waterstone’s in Chester, I’ve read about lots of far-flung places...


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This morning I discovered that I use the word "perhaps" far too much in my writing. So I deleted all of them.

This morning I discovered that I could write the ending to a story whose middle I didn't know, and then the ending became another story, something that wasn't and now is.

This morning I discovered that the middle of a story whose beginning and end I have only needed to be one line, and it tied them up and there it was, done.

This morning was a good morning. Last night I said "First thing, I'm going to take my coffee and my laptop and go into my study", and this morning I did that, for the first time, straight down into the cellar. Now I can go back up again, a good morning.

Writers' service announcement:

I found this great blog, Mira's List, where Mira lists Grants, Fellowships and Residencies for Artists, Writers and Musicians, updated very regularly. What a gem! (Am rather intrigued by the 6-month residency in France that she just posted: "Short story projects are preferred but not essential." How often do you read that, gentle reader?!)

Also - Upcoming Deadlines - always good to get entries in early:
..........



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Find out who has won our fabulous prize draws for copies of SADOMASOCHISM FOR ACCOUNTANTS by Rosy Barnes and LUXURY by Jessica Ruston!

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‘Where did you buy your sandals?’ The question, spoken in Italian, caught me off-guard. Surely the elegant teacher standing next to the overhead projector didn’t covet my battered Clarks? My Italian may be rusty, but I can recognise ‘where’, ‘buy’ and ‘sandals’.


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A new website launched today, and I know some of those involved so I thought I would give The Faster Times a plug here.

The Faster Times is a collective of great journalists who have come together to try something new. As we launch this July, we will have more than a hundred correspondents in over 20 countries. We have someone on the ground in Kenya and someone else reporting from Lebanon. Our arts section will cover not just film and books, but also theater and dance and photography. We will launch with seven writers on books alone. These writers are not “citizen journalists” but among the most accomplished and recognized names in their respective fields.

The website seems to be a sort of Huffington Post-ish let's-write-about-everything type of site, covering World, Politics, Business, Science, Food, Arts, Books, Parents, Sports, Travel and Advice on their top menu bar above the logo... and Health, Tech, Nonsense, Love and Death, Design, Insider and Surprise Me on the menu bar just under the logo.

Intrigued as I am by "Nonsense"(!), I am obviously most interested in the "seven writers on books alone" part! So I wander to the Books page, and here I find that one of the main sections is Indie Books. And here is an article by the Indie Books editor, Rozalia Jovanovic, on why she loves small presses:....

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Titles are the bane of my life. Right now I’m about to start plotting a new serial. It will contain – should it ever see the light of day – a police inspector, a low-life who’s spent more time languishing at Her Majesty’s Pleasure than in his own front room and a…. No, that’s enough, or I’ll jinx it.


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I am not, if I’m honest, what you would call an organised person.
Open my handbag and you will find neither diary, nor pen. A stash of wine gums, yes, maybe the odd out of date voucher.
I do not remember to charge my phone or fill the car with petrol.
I have friends who keep colour coded wall charts that tell them where every member of their family should be at any given moment. They organise children’s birthday parties with the military precision of an invasion.
Invitations, check. Matching napkins and paper plates, check. Wholesome and varied sandwich fillings, check.
I have twins and the night before their last birthday I was up till four turning two Swiss rolls and a packet of Smarties into a replica of Hogworts. Authentic it was not.
I berate myself constantly, promise to change. But I don’t.
Tonight is my publisher’s annual summer party. I have known about this for A WHOLE YEAR. As we speak, authors and agents are getting their hair cut and slavering themselves in Fake Bake. It is with no pride that I admit my ‘good frock’ is in the bottom of the washing basket and my roots are so dark I look as if someone might have taken an axe to my head.
My mate and fellow thriller writer, Lee Weeks, will glide in like an extra from Sex and the City. I on the other hand look not unlike Myra Hindley in her famous mug shot.
There is, however, one aspect of my life which I plan meticulously: my writing.


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