I was given a Kreativ Blogger award by not one but two incredibly good writers yesterday, namelyTania Hershman and Sarah Hilary.

So now I have to tell you 7 things I love and then pass the award on to 7 blogs I love.

Things I love:

1. Aimee Bender (all right, all right, and her stories).
2. Pelikan fountain pens.
3. Cherry keyboards.
4. Good friends, both writing and non.
5. Autumn.
6. Birds.
7. Being able to do what I do.

And the awards go to:

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I wave a gallant hand and head off to hospital tomorrow for my knee operation. I daren't confess I am scared brainless - not even to myself! It isn't helped when someone says "Oh yes - I know someone who had that done - to both knees. It took him almost a year to recover!" (thank you Colleague Who Shall Remain Nameless). It isn't the op itself I am worried about - just the fact I will likely as not feel battered and bruised for a few days and be hobbling around on crutches. Ah well - as Mary Poppins said - if I must, I must! It needs doing; end of story.


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It’s difficult to comprehend that there are approximately 20000 to 25000 genes in human DNA, made up of three billion chemical base pairs. I do feel I have to tag the word ‘allegedly’ here as this information comes courtesy of a well known search engine and I am no scientist. What I am however, is a writer. And I blame at least one of those three billion thingys. It’s not my fault. Some day, in some far off land and time, some learned being will discover the creative section in the DNA strand, perhaps a single chemical synapse doo dah that is responsible for my urge to write.

My standard response to this inate urge used to be to stick my fingers in my ears and chant, ‘La La La La.’ I told myself not to listen to it because I had a living to earn and a family to raise. Eventually, I strangled the urge and it became nothing more than an intermittent nag in the furthest folds of my brain. Still there…but definitely muted.


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Issue six of the terrific Ballista is now out and available from here. Well worth a look if you like a bit of horror/speculative fiction/science fiction/suspense. And my story, Counting Rain, is in it which is good.

***

And here's a little pic of the front cover of the photo book for charity I've helped out with. (Apologies for the scruffy desk; it has been a busy few weeks and it has since been tidied.)

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What is this?
To kindle... to light a fire, to grow flames from very little. Kindling... the small, easily-lit bits of wood or paper used to light a fire. To animate, to inflame.

So, calling a new electronic book reader a 'Kindle' implies... what? That a new love of reading will be kindled by this device? The name certainly hints at something new.

And that 'something new' is where I am divided on this matter.

Reading is nothing new. I myself have been doing it for a good number of years and I am given to understand that others before me have discovered meaning in all those funny squiggles.
I am a book lover. I love books. The very sight of books excites me and I become positively giddy inside a library. It isn't just the words; it is the feel of the paper, the binding, the smell, the weight.

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As someone remarked at the the launch, Caroline must have breathed in some of the literary air, but to my mind it was the murkier elements. Her novel, 'Kill-Grief', high-lights eighteenth century gin-addiction



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Let’s get the biggie out of the way first (as it were): I love writing sex. Yes, I admit it. It’s one of the high points of my writing life. Even when I’m not writing about sex, I’m thinking about writing it. It’s part of all my novels, and some of my poems and short stories. Even when no sex takes place.


To my mind this is simply part of being human. We’re all physical and sexual (or at least with the capacity for being sexual) people, and including that aspect of our lives within literature is a celebration of being alive and of being who we are.


Not that you’ll find sex on every single one of the pages of my novels. You won’t. Not by a long way, though I do like to think that my darker writing nonetheless remains erotic in nature. My characters are, after all, physical beings within their world. In fact, one reviewer mentioned the lack of described regular sexual activity in A Dangerous Man (Flame Books, 2007) as a negative point, bearing in mind that my main character has been a part-time prostitute.





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posted some pics of a nice walk my son got me to take

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Laura Van Den Berg, writer and assistant editor of the online journal Memorious, has writen an excellent essay about publishing in literary magazines, The Effort Pays Off, in The Review Review, an online review of literary journals (which is new to me but seems a wonderful resource that I must read more). Her essay spoke to me so much that I feel compelled to quote from it here.

After talking about her despondency at the many rejections she received early on in her writing career, Laura says:

...when I began working for a notable literary magazine as a graduate student, it was still sobering to realize how utterly insignificant the individual submitter is. This is not to say the staff didn’t work hard to treat each submission with the basic level of respect that any reputable journal would, but when editors and readers are dealing with thousands upon thousands of submissions, each writer is, quite literally, just another number. After a few months of employment, I felt incredibly foolish for ever taking a rejection personally. I learned that rejection, as practically any editor will tell you, is rarely personal—because, in all likelihood, the editor simply has no idea who you are. I learned that I was a single fish in a sea of millions, a blip on the screen. I learned that no one cares whether I keep writing or not....

However, this didn't bring her down:


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