First Drafts and Happy Endings

In view of the final Christmas cards not writing themselves, the snow peaked Christmas cake still looking distinctly like a fruit cake and Father Christmas struggling to get everything wrapped without its little helper, this will be my last post of 2017.

But, after an 'eventful' year, I thought this would be a good moment to announce that by hook or by crook, I have reached my deadline and penned the final word of a very sloppy, for my eyes only, first draft of my second novel. In January that was looking as likely as crispy, frosty days lasting until Christmas. In February I had a few words behind me but when I went running in March and decided I wasn't writing the story I wanted to write, I hot-footed it home, shoved the draft in the back of the drawer and reset my word counter to nought. News of secondary cancer stole my mojo for a few weeks in the spring and in the summer, I was spending a little too much time travelling around the country talking books (and loving it) – not to mention going on holiday – and not quite enough time in my study. Thankfully, in August, the wonderful guests at a talk at the Feva Festival in Knaresborough, made me realise things had to change, and that's when I discovered Prolifiko. It helped me re-discover my Writing Habit and now I write every day because I'm too scared to lose it again. Thank you Fear, you have been, and continue to be, incredibly helpful.

I also end the year with my health in a very stable position, beaten back by the brilliance of modern medicine. And that was the stuff of dreams back in March when I received that phone call from the doctor. As Christmas presents go, and please don't misunderstand me, I appreciate them all, this one is the best.

I am so very, very grateful as I know only too well, that this is not the same for everyone. I send my love and best wishes to those who have lost loved ones, and for whom Christmas will be particularly difficult.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog posts in 2017 and for all the heart-warming and amusing messages you write in response here and over on Facebook and Twitter. They always make me smile 😊  I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a 2018 full of love, happiness and loads of extra time for reading.

Funny Old World

It was a sunny Saturday in June and off I went to the hospital for my scan. It was my first scan post-secondary diagnosis and although this time I knew the drill, you won't need me to tell you that these things are never entirely without emotion. It's hard to have a scan and not think about what they are looking at on the other side of the window, alongside that out-of-body experience when you still can't quite believe it's you lying there under the scanner.

Once there though, we were soon talking books and quickly it was as if I'd merely popped (I say 'pop', it's a short train ride and a fast twenty minute scuttle to the hospital) in for a coffee.

Our ex-colleague has written a book, one radiographer says. And she's left us, gone to open up a book shop in Harrogate, says the other.

Not Imagined Things? Not the independent book shop I'd read about in the Bookseller and actually whooped out loud at the news on the train? Not Harrogate's first independent book shop since, I don't know, Emily Bronte signed copies of Wuthering Heights? (I made that up. But she might have done, Haworth would have only been a short horse and cart ride away). Yes, that book shop.

Next thing I know, I've exchanged my hospital gown for her contact details and I step out of my comfort zone to email the owner.  Little do I know that I will be signing copies of my books at the shop's buzzing launch during the week of Harrogate's prestigious Crime Fest in July (with star attraction, the fabulous, Tammy Cohen who was launching the breathtakingly good, They All Fall Down, which I reviewed here).

Funny old world.

Imagined Things, owned by Georgia Duffy, is a gorgeous bookshop at the top of the quaint, Westminster Arcade in Harrogate – yep, very close to Betty's 😊. It's packed with quirky, heavily reading and writing related gifts as well as a great mix of new titles, local authors and beloved favourites of adults and children. Lots of artistically hand-written opinions and summaries accompany books and you can always consult with Georgia - I have yet to find a book in her shop she hasn't read herself. If you can't find your chosen title in store, it can be ordered for next day delivery so you get the whole bookshop experience with the speed of online.

Although it all sounds very exciting to us die-hard traditionalists who dream of physical books shops which don't tap you on the shoulder every time you pick up a paperback to ask whether you wouldn’t prefer to read it for free on Kindle (don't get me started), I wondered what it was really like to be the owner of a bookshop in this paradoxically buoyant but difficult age of publishing. And so I spoke to Georgia about the good – and the bad – which you can read, here.

Oh, and there's a 10% discount for all my blog readers off any book in the shop before Christmas. More here.

Don't tell me…

There's something you'd be wise not to say to me. I can bite my tongue if necessary, but would struggle to find an empathetic response.

It starts in September and is at fever pitch around now. It's the one about Christmas being over-commercialised.  

Of course it is. Of course it's sad that some people spend too much money and spend the next year paying it back. Of course it's obscene that we live in a world where some children's presents would fill a small garage and the next child is praying for a home. Of course we don't need the adverts which cost millions and oh, for the stores to give that money to charity instead. We don't need the shops to be selling stocking fillers before the clocks go back and to be buying each other duplicates of things we don’t need.

But we don’t have to subscribe to it.

We can just be together. That's still Christmas. In fact, go to church, have a special meal together because we all have the day off, raise a glass to absent friends (and to the wonderful people who do have to work on Christmas Day - the mid-wife, nurse and GP in my family to name but a few) and hug and laugh and play games and maybe give the odd well-chosen present and you know, all of a sudden, Christmas isn't so very different to how it used to be.

But if we choose not to spend Christmas with family and friends because it's over-commercialised, not to give even the smallest gift because it's got out of hand, and if we choose not to link arms around the piano, crooning alongside as a talented person bashes out Silent Night, simply because Christmas isn't what it used to be, then we should be dragged forthwith onto the set of A Christmas Carol.

Whilst I absolutely understand that for those who have lost people, Christmas can be so terribly difficult and my heart goes out to them, as far as abstaining because it's not what it used to be, I've always thought like this and the past few years have hammered it home.

Christmas 2013 and the hubby and I were waiting for the results which were to come on 27 December following my earlier tests for breast cancer. Apart from the two sets of parents, no one else knew we were waiting. It just felt the right thing to do. A couple of things had been said during the tests and in hindsight, it was blooming obvious the experts were worried but I think I probably didn't want to hear it at that time, that time being five days before Christmas.

I remember Christmas day vividly, our family all around, everyone happy, just doing their thing. It wasn't any different to any other year really: the hubby and the daughters begging me to exchange the traditional carols for some 'proper' music, secretly wondering if we might manage Christmas lunch before 5pm, some openly wondering if we might forego the walk, but all keen to play games and there were no phones in sight.  And I remember thinking, I'm so grateful for the 45 years I've had because I've had adventures and work I've always enjoyed, some achievements and enduring friendships and loads and loads of laughter but most of all, I love and am loved and that's all we need, and all we can ask, really. I decided this is what I would focus on if the news was bad - which it was.

I have a smile to myself every Christmas now about that, think yep, still here, still fortunate, still loving life. And you know, getting the diagnosis over Christmas time means I love Christmas even more than I did before :)

Today? Well, it's October half term in our house and for the first time EVER, not only am I saying I'm going to bake my Christmas cake tomorrow, it's been given its own special time slot, which means it might just happen. Wish me luck…

* Update *

*Update: I'd hate you to think I don't keep my word - and no, I never do the baking paper correctly but it hasn't proved a problem yet... Oh, and the baby one? Well, that's for deliciously cold November nights 😏* 

The Bottom of the Swimming Pool

I had a letter in the post today from Louise Goldsmith, a 21 year old who spoke so eloquently and soulfully it pulled at my heart. I don't know Louise but I can relate to her story. She has had severe hearing loss since she was seven years old and the letter is a candid account of this 'hidden disability' as she calls it, how she'd like to say her lack of hearing hasn’t adversely affected her life in any way, but, sadly, she isn't able to do this.

It's an insight into a world I know.

I'm not sure my hearing loss is as profound as Louise's – yet – and it certainly wasn't as bad when I was in my twenties, but it is a constant stress. I'm helped by amazing technology, not least my discrete Bluetooth hearing aids (I wrote about their maiden outing, here), the crystal clear headphones for the TV and the addition of subtitles. And I thank my lucky stars that I live in an age when I can carry out my entire communication through messaging of various sorts without ever having to put any of us through the ordeal of having to speak on the phone. Cochlear implants and Bone Anchored Hearing Aids are a possibility for the future and thus I live in hope that I won't become the little old lady in the corner whom everyone ignores, because it's easier.

Nonetheless, it's isolating not being able to hear and it affects every part of life – work and play. It's exhausting when every conversation is a missing word quiz and depressing when people think you are stupid and that you don't get the joke you didn't hear.

But it isn't all bad.

I have particularly noticed recently, probably because my hearing has plummeted lately, that my family have strategies to help me join in and that these have become automatic. It means that in my home, as long as I have my hearing aids, I don't have too much difficulty communicating. Reading Louise's flier, I thought it might be useful to share some of these tips before the typical large group, multi-generational, terrifyingly full of background noise festive party season is fully upon us. I hope it might be helpful to those who hear well and those who don't.

Here goes!

Please don't SHOUT! I totally understand how frustrating it is to be with someone whose every second sentence is, 'Sorry, I missed that,' and I understand the instinct to raise our voice. However, for many of us, it isn't that a voice is quiet so much as the speech is muffled.

To try to give a picture of what it's like, imagine yourself tucking into your Christmas dinner whilst attempting to converse with your neighbour, all at the bottom of a swimming pool. New Year's Eve party? Add the Clangers to the bottom of the pool, dispersed around you, all talking loudly in sounds you can't understand but conspiring to drown out your neighbour nonetheless. If the person with whom you were trying to communicate simply shouted, it wouldn't make any difference to your comprehension. If however, they turned to face you and really enunciated their words, using more pronounced facial gestures, then you'd have a chance of understanding.

The trouble with shouting, apart from the fact it often doesn't help, is that it's really not very nice to be shouted at - particularly when everyone else is speaking at normal pitch. Because with the shout comes the facial expression: the screwed up, pained face. I know the intention is not to make the interlocutor feel awful but it makes me want to crawl away. After all, the conversationalist is clearly intensely annoyed (people only shout when they're cross, don't they?) and you are responsible for ruining their day, you and your sub-standard hearing - so why would you choose to hang around? If somebody shouts, I bluff that I've heard and feign a sudden need for the Ladies. 

Alter rather than Repeat: Often, people who struggle with their hearing miss the first word, or a particular word, and can't get the gist of the sentence because of that. Sometimes, the conversation can be saved simply through repeating it directly to the person in question but if this doesn't work, paraphrasing might be all that's needed to get around the troublesome word.

Face your Partner: For all of us, not just the hard of hearing, understanding speech is about so much more than the actual words spoken. We glean the sense of it through context and the 'music and the dance'. I remember a first hearing consultant saying to me shortly before I wore hearing aids that when he looked at my audiogram - a graph which represents the picture of an individual's ability to hear different sounds - he couldn't understand how I could possibly function but, he was quick to add, he saw this all the time. He said that it was a reminder to us that communication is about much more than words. In fact, it's oft quoted that 93% of what we hear is communicated through everything but the words. According to a certain Professor Mehrabian in 1971, 55% of communication is in the body language, 38% is in the tone of voice with only 7% being the words spoken.  

Now, the exact figures have since been rebuked but I think there is truth in the message. Certainly, that first consultant was convinced that was how people with hearing loss could manage surprisingly well. I would also suggest that people who are hard of hearing whilst perhaps not so good at hearing changes in tone of voice, might be even better at reading body language than this stat states.

And living proof of this is that I understand so much better if I face the person with whom I'm speaking. I don't officially lip read (although I'm about to learn and am ridiculously excited about the potential for my new skill) but matching the lips to the muffled sounds is often all I need.

Don't Walk Away! For the same reason, I wouldn’t even attempt to have any meaningful conversation with your back to whom you're speaking as you walk away.

Come and Ask! Likewise, my family have largely learnt that there is little point shouting from another room when they've been doing 'boys-or-teen-looking', in the hope I'll come scurrying to find said not-really-lost item. Even if I can hear the call, I won't know who or where it's coming from nor what it's about. If I'm really needed, my family have to come to me.

Well, we have to have some perks, don’t we…?

It does matter: And finally, and oh so importantly, please, please don't say, It Doesn't Matter. Because it really, really does. What might seem a seemingly inconsequential throwaway comment to you, is actually the stuff which makes the world go around. It's the context, it's the relationship, and nothing is more depressing than being told that what everybody else heard, isn't important enough to repeat to you. It's isolating and the more it happens, the more I become that little lady in the corner of the room, in the corner of life.

My hearing could be worse, I could be profoundly deaf, but it is a problem. For me, and everybody with hearing loss, please practise your very best diction this Christmas and look into our eyes when you speak.

That would be our very best Christmas present and an enormous helping hand through 2017.

PS There is good news for poor hearing. Increased deafness goes hand in hand with an ageing population and scientists and businesses have taken up the challenge. Breakthroughs are coming thick and fast and I am very hopeful for my hearing future and that of everyone currently struggling. Action on Hearing Loss (formerly the RNID) is a charity helping to find cures. If you haven't sent Christmas cards this year and keep meaning to get round to a charity donation instead, please consider supporting Action on Hearing Loss. More information here  

Eating My Words

I'll be honest, I've always scoffed a little about NaNoWriMo, or NaNo.  It isn't the concept, I think that's wonderful, but, well: November. November is my problem with it. November is the month this marathon of daily writing of a mere 1,660 words towards the first 50,000 word draft of your next novel, takes place. November. You mean the November which is the eleventh month of the year, the one before the twelfth, when the clocks have gone back and the fire is crackling, Apprentice is hotting up and the hot pot has left a satisfying lump in your stomach, making it pretty impossible to trudge back up the stairs to the pc on your desk where you've been all day?

Not to work, obviously, for this is November, but to online shop.

I've joked - half joked - forgive me, that the month of November for NaNo was ordained by a bloke or rather, the person who doesn't play Father Christmas and all his little helpers rolled into one and doesn’t organise the turkey and the trimmings, the one who does know where to find the decorations and is prepared to seek out the missing box of favourites, insisting on repairing the children's hand-made primary school baubles from the previous decade so they'll live to fight another year because, well, it's tradition isn't it? Nor is this the one who buys the cards. The cards! Write every day in November, you say? My NaNo might be better spent writing a few cards every night. That way, for the first time in my history, I might finish the whole damn lot before the eve of Christmas Eve.  

But that isn't going to happen this year because this year, when I was diligently researching NaNo for a class, something clicked.

I have spent a glorious few months immersed in everything – almost everything – writing. I've been meeting readers, signing books, doing talks and answering questions. I've been clicking my hourly updated Amazon rating more than once an hour, preparing my classes, teaching my classes, editing and mentoring.

And each time I'm asked about my fiction writing routine, I talk of the routine I used to have.

Because this year, well, I haven't really had a writing routine. I've written blog posts and book reviews and articles. I've even written the odd scene of my new novel: The Tree House, but only that. I certainly haven't had anything remotely resembling a regular commitment. And it hurts. It pains me that I'm living and breathing this novel in my head and yet my word count is so low, even if I can easily justify why. It makes me cringe when I hear myself spout to my classes: Prioritise your writing! You won't remember the bathrooms you've cleaned in a year's time, but you will remember the stories. Now we're being absolutely honest, I'll admit that the bathrooms aren't at their most sparkly either, but you get my point. And it make me sad because like running and singing and having a good laugh, nothing quite releases my endorphins like writing a thousand words.

NaNo's global word count, 9 days in

So, as the scoffing subsided, as I looked more deeply into why NaNo is so successful for so many people and as I heard myself say to somebody else, What's the worst that can happen? You don’t write 50,000 words but you write 30,000 or 20,000, it's still a whole heap more than you might have written - I found myself directing the question at me.

What's the worst that could happen? 

You know, 5,000 words would be an achievement for me at the moment.

So I did it. I registered. I have a password. I can log my word count and watch the global NaNo total word count increase, as well as the millions of words clocking up in Yorkshire alone. It is, even from this reformed cynic, quite impressive and hugely compulsive.

I won't It's unlikely I'll reach 50,000 words, not now that sleep has prioritised its time-consuming self in my life, darn it, just when I needed a few of those early hours in my pocket. I didn’t even write any words on the 1^st November, nor the four days thereafter. Not until Saturday night did I tap a single key of fiction. We were home from the fireworks. Hubbie was filling pieces of rotten greenhouse with wood hardener and I was catching up on emails (Saturday night? I'm wild, I know). The daughters were somewhere more exciting and I thought: This is NaNo. This is what it's all about. This is why we need NaNo in November. If we can write 50,000 words in this month, how easy will it be to continue the habit in December, complete with its extra little holiday? And how about January with its lack of distractions when people are staying in to tighten their belts or abstain from alcohol? If we have half, or even a quarter, of a first draft of a novel written before the first door of the Advent calendar is opened, just where will that novel be by Easter?

I didn't walk up the stairs, I ran. Two at a time.

They weren't all new words. Some I'd scribbled in a notebook months ago and they needed typing and prettying up. But all in all, by midnight, I had 6,740 words on screen which hadn't been there before.

6,740! NaNo, I take it all back. November is a glorious month to put writing your own material back up your priority list. Because the only way to write a novel is to squeeze it in, however hard that can sometimes be. I know that, I just forgot for a while.

So, please forgive me the lack of sparkling taps or Christmas cards any time before New Year's Eve. Let's have a toast in December instead to the maddest of ideas, sometimes turning out to be the best.

Stray's Book Shop, Newark

Meanwhile, back to Glass Houses and Tea & Chemo and I will be signing both in Stray's fabulous Book Shop and Coffee Bar in Newark this Saturday, 12 November, from 10.30am. Please come and say hello if you're remotely close. I hear there's live jazz to follow and can vouch for marvellous cakes and scrummy scones. More information here.

Bakewell Book Shop, Matlock

I'm also taking part in an Author's Evening from 7pm on Monday 14th November at the Bakewell Book Shop which, you may recall, I fell in love with a couple of months ago. I'll be joining fellow writers, Charles Heathcote, Rod Shiers and Gareth Ashton for short talks and general book chat and signing. I hear there are hot drinks, wine and cakes, of course. Tickets are £3.50, more information here.  

A Reminder

Seeking help from The Top

Because the Christmas Goddess crown is still sitting somewhere around my midriff and because I can't remember a year when I have been quite so ill prepared for the festivities which I can unfashionably say, I nonetheless adore, I thought I'd share this post with you. I wrote it a staggering five years ago and when I stumbled across it this morning, felt compelled to seek out the Christmas Crooners. Dean Martin's Silver Bells has been playing on repeat ever since. Phew! I even wrote some Christmas cards - only the ones for America and Australia, granted. 

Confessions of a Christmas writer

Not everybody likes Christmas starting in November.  I respect such frustration, understand the logic but don’t count myself among these protestors.  The anticipation, the decoration, the spendification just can’t start early enough for me.  I’m the dreadful mother who allows her children to play the Christmas CD in the car in September, actively encourages letter writing to Father Christmas and Mother Wrapalot in October and remembers she should have made the Christmas cake in November.  (I write Christmas cards two days before Christmas but that’s another story.)

It’s best when the children break up from school a week early so we can wrap presents together in front of Wife Swap USA, make another batch of mince pies as soon as the next pack of pre-rolled pastry has defrosted and play Winter Wonderland on the piano pretending not to notice the unintentional rhythmic alterations. 

I tend to have a tear at the school’s Nativity, even when I can only hear every second word and my own children have long since graduated.  There’s something just so appealing about a three foot Mary.  And I even like the slightly over zealous Vicar pleading with us to stop and think.

I like snowy walks with my family, meeting friends in the pub en route.  I like my presents, scant in number certainly, perhaps not of the highest quality but chosen so very much with me in mind.  I’m wearing those pink USB heated slippers now, for example, reluctant as I am to put on the heating when it’s only me in the house.

I even ‘get’ turkey; fifth day turkey, curried turkey. I read that 86% of people eat turkey only because they feel they ought. I read a tweet about eating duck instead.  I eat duck but I’m not so keen on it curried.  I like, no I love, people coming to stay, leaving late morning after two jugs of coffee and more chat after the chat and wine and food and chocolates of the night before, the children all playing dutifully on the Wii, still in their pyjamas.

Then it’s back to normality.  They all go back – back to work, back to school and I go back to my desk, to writing again from 11pm, to going to bed late and waking four hours later with a sense of foggy satisfaction about the volume of words written when the house was quiet.

I miss them all on their first day back: hubbie with his cold, eldest with her hormones, youngest with her scruffy old pinafore when I can’t coax her into one of the skirts which hangs pristine in her wardrobe. 

But I have to admit to a small smile as I wave goodbye to the last to leave at 8.45. 

And so I run.  I stuff the remaining breakfast items in the dishwasher, yank some sopping clothes from the washer and toss them over the drier, flick on the kettle, write a cheque for the milk, trip over the forgotten PE kit and make my way upstairs to my desk.  I switch on the computer - an unusual phenomenon caught as it is in a perpetual energy loop over the holidays.  I remove plastic heart shaped key rings, miniature playing cards, screwdrivers and whoopee cushions from my desk and replace them with 344 pages of A4 manuscript. 

After an hour or two I make tea.  I take a few pages of the manuscript with me to read through as the kettle boils and luxuriate in the lack of a call to find the recycled batteries, the guinea pigs’ spare water bottle, the Christmas cake.  After forgetting to eat lunch I set the alarm on my desk to 3.20 to remind me to return to this world before my children get home.

When they’re all back, I smother them with ridiculously large bear hugs.  I’ve missed them, you see, I really have – as much as I’d missed my writing over the past couple of weeks.

Late for Christmas

I have lost my Christmas Goddess crown. Not that I ever really had it. Truly. I've never sent a Christmas card before the 23^rd December and console myself that at least my card wouldn't be lost in the deluge of those arriving before Christmas from properly organised people. 3am on Christmas Day was when Mother Christmas finished wrapping presents when our children were small (Father Christmas there in spirit as he snoozed on the sofa) and the mince pies? Bought pastry and a jar of mincemeat have always served me well.

However, I have normally pretty much bought all the presents by the time that page on the calendar flips over onto crisp white snowy lanes and blue skies.

Not so this year. I have spent one day Christmas shopping with my Mum. It was great fun, but the amount of coffee stops was greater than the presents bought.

If you're joining me in your own Christmas tardiness (thank you for the solidarity), you might like to look at pages 40 and 41 of the gorgeous Christmas issue of Chase Magazine. Obviously, I wrote my pages a few weeks ago but fell in love with the books all over again when I saw my reviews in print. All suggestions for your Christmas shopping list, or even better, for your own present list, were hand-picked. I adored them all, even The Runaway Smile for small children (I always think that's a funny expression because you do get some very tall children who haven't yet seen the lofty heights of double figures, in fact, most children are taller than me by the time they reach their fifth birthday), which I wish had been written when my children were young.

Happy reading and enjoy the preparations! I'm off to buy some pastry and mincemeat.

 

My Cancerversary

Today is my one year cancerversary: twelve months to the day I learned I had cancer.

What do you think I'm going to tell you today? the consultant surgeon asked at 2.30pm a year ago, a nurse by his side. My heart slipped a little closer to my stomach.

During the mammogram and ultra sound tests a week earlier, a couple of comments about the lump (which I'd satisfactorily convinced myself prior to the appointment was the innocuous result of hormones) made me nervous. I asked the radiographer what he was looking for. The mammogram suggests pre-cancer, he said. Pre-cancer, I considered, I like the sound of 'pre'. Yes, he said 'pre' is good.

I left the tests to enjoy Christmas, knowing I'd be returning on the 27^th December for the results. Then they'd tell me whether I had no cancer or pre-cancer. Or so I thought.

I'd learnt about pre-cancer over the festive period. I didn't go near the internet - am way to cautious to trust my sanity to Mr Google - but instead consulted with my wonderful friend who, rather fortuitously for me, happens to be an oncologist in breast cancer. Pre-cancer wasn’t to be taken lightly, I was told. Dependent on the extent of these cells at the first abnormal stage, a mastectomy might be necessary, together with hormone therapy, perhaps, even a dose or two of radiotherapy. But no chemo and, crucially, no risk of death at this pre-cancerous stage. If there's a sentence containing 'cancer' as well as, 'no risk of death', it's hard to feel anything but relief.

I looked at the surgeon and the nurse and I think I smiled. It was OK, I'd prepared for this and the way he'd phrased the question made me certain. You're going to tell me I have pre-cancer, I finally answered. The surgeon and the nurse continued their gaze, not even a twitch from either of them until the surgeon said, I'm afraid it's much worse than that.

February: 8 inches cut off my hair

And thus I trot towards 2015 with three operations, chemotherapy and radiotherapy behind me and with much more optimism about the future than I had last New Year's Eve. Nonetheless, I'm celebrating my cancerversary small; just poking a superstitious toe into the festivities. No parties this year, just gratitude for the brilliance of modern medicine and for the love which has helped me step over the pebbles. Some people have to deal with cancer and other crises on their own and I can't begin to imagine how hard that must be. Being with my family around the gold star-bedecked table, clutching a tiddly wink cracker, brought me to tears this Christmas and not just because I burnt the pigs in blankets. I'm lucky to be here and my cancerversary is a time to give thanks for that.

September: first re-growth

Next year I hope to celebrate two years clear, then three and four and onto five. Five years is a milestone I pray to reach and a significant goal in the life of Grade 3 breast cancer. That's when we can really believe it's finished: every last stray cell gone, no new little blighters gaining strength and preparing to strike. December 27^th 2018 is going to be one heck of a party.

Meanwhile, I shall keep thanking my lucky stars for no signs of recurrence or secondaries. I shall keep checking - you must too, because early detection is your biggest weapon against cancer. Do it on the same day every month and then you won't forget. Boys! Enough sniggering at the back, you know you have to check yourself too, right?

2014: not all bad by any means...

And most of all I shall keep having fun because none of us know where our life is headed. In the inimitable words of the Cold Feet opening credits: Life's a journey, travel it well.

Please raise your glass with me for my cancerversary and here's to a happy and healthy 2015 for all of us!

Change the Record

Thank goodness, a frost at last! The fire's stoked, Harrogate smells of mulled wine and cinnamon and I've had my first mince pie – or two. I love the change of season, love Christmas and never more so than this year.

I was just thinking that it was time to change the record, that I wanted to talk of something different to the thing-I'm-not-going-to-mention today. Then late one Friday night when I really shouldn't have been messing about on the pc but felt the urge to do yet more research into an all singing and, err, spinning, spinning bike to replace the tired one in my not very Homes and Gardens kitchen, an email plopped into my lap. It was from Black Pear Press and it hoped I would be pleased to know that my short story, Fly Joe, had been shortlisted in its annual short story competition. Pleased? I'd have screamed if the rest of the house hadn't been sleeping – as much out of relief as delight as I'd done my usual of convincing myself that the story was ridiculous and I'd been a fool to enter the competition. 

And then I learn that the story is to be published in their anthology, hopefully before Christmas. Who needs Christmas presents?  

Next I hear from the talented and oh so studious, Judith Arnopp, writer of intricately researched historical fiction, that she's awarded me the One Lovely Blog Award in recognition of bloggers who share their story or thoughts in a 'lovely' manner. Thank you, Judith, I'm honoured to have been chosen. Judith writes her own lovely blog packed with book reviews and news of her own seven titles which can be found here.

Something I must do when accepting the award is declare seven cool facts about me. However, in the absence of anything cool - embarrassing moments, on the other hand, give me a minute and I'll fill you a page -  I found myself rambling about my life, all 46 years of it. My seven points currently read more like a memoir. I shall spare you the read, as it's Christmas, and return with a pruned and smoothed version just as soon as I've written some Christmas cards, iced the cake – oh, baked the cake – finished present buying, made the Stollen (no, I'm buying the Stollen), and made more mince pies than I eat.

This is Jon Bon Jovi, not my husband...

One more piece of news before I go. I have had my first haircut. I sat for an hour, read my book, chatted and drank their tea. It was a most pleasurable step back into a more normal reality. It's funny the things you miss. The style is not one I'd have chosen but to use a writing analogy, I see it as a Work In Progress, an advanced enough draft to expose it to an audience, and a cue for me to wash and pack away my wigs. They've served me well but I'm oh, so tired of them now.  Even better, my husband has also had his hair cut and so for the first time in ten months, my hair is longer than his. He's not exactly Jon Bon Jovi himself, but it's a step in the right direction.

Have a great week! I'm off to prune my words. 

A Nod to Technology

A few months ago I was asked if I'd be interested in trialling Journl (free trial), the on-line organiser. The prospect tickled me. As a technology Luddite, I assumed I'd be organising my life with a pen and paper for at least the next three score years and ten so if Journl could turn me, I thought, then their product deserved to go viral. I'm a list maker. I write things down so I can tick them off – the pen on paper makes me remember and the ticks are bundled with a whole little reward system of their own. Could an on-line tool possibly be as clear and reliable as my cumbersome desk planner-plus handbag diary-plus an array of to-do lists (some illustrated), I wondered, and would it be as practical and rewarding? I flew around the Help Pages with great gusto but, I'm sorry to admit, my enthusiasm quickly evaporated when I lost my family set of to-do lists in a fiction folder and some birthdays found their way into teaching. Feeling guilty for not giving my all to the trial, however, I decided to have another go. It coincided with the launch of Journl's extra Christmas Planner which was very timely considering we were well into November and I, unusually for me, had little more organised than a date to go shopping with my mum.  No sooner was my planner installed, and my Journl diary was spotted with cute little Christmas trees reminding me to buy my Christmas cards, book Father Christmas, order the turkey etc. Hmm, I thought, how nice that I don't have to work these things out for myself, nor remember where I've put the particular to-do list with my workings. It took me a few attempts to get all my separate folders set up and to stop putting my children's sports fixtures in with the shopping list but slowly I started to love Journl because it does what I want it to do. Whatever I want to plan, I can. I have a cluster of small jobs and they're all up there, with their own separate to-do list, diary and notebook. And my children have their section, as does our social life. As do the bills. Starting to smell a lot like Christmas But the beauty of Journl over my lists on scraps of paper is that when I look at the front page, all the day's to-dos are merged. It doesn't really matter whether I have to remember to scoop up my children from various places in North Yorkshire, bake a Christmas cake or hit a deadline, these things must be done so having a list with my to-do's all together is both practical and calming. My Journl is also installed on my phone so I can tick off lists wherever I am. But it does have its limitations in that it is reliant on Wi-Fi so you could be left high and dry in an area without a signal. I did pause when I came to buy my 2014 diary last week but for this reason, went ahead. It's a purple Moleskine® so, to be honest, I was quite glad of the excuse. Journl isn't free either, and there are plenty of free organisers on-line but, of course, their scope is limited. Journl will cost me the same as my annual desk planner inserts so that's OK with me. So, it looks like I'm headed into 2014 with a small diary and Journl instead of a small home diary, large work diary and an army of notes stashed in any room of the house, or deep inside any bag, other than the one I need. I'll keep you posted but for now, it looks like this particular technology Luddite is finally enjoying a dip into a non-paper age. Worry not though, I shall still keep stationary shops everywhere in business feeding my fiction writing notebook habit.

Confessions of a Christmas writer

Not everybody likes Christmas starting in November.  I respect such frustration, understand the logic but don’t count myself among these protestors.  The anticipation, the decoration, the spendification just can’t start early enough for me.  I’m the dreadful mother who allows her children to play the Christmas CD in the car in September, actively encourages letter writing to Father Christmas and Mother Wrapalot in October and remembers she should have made the Christmas cake in November.  (I write Christmas cards two days before Christmas but that’s another story.)

It’s best when the children break up from school a week early so we can wrap presents together in front of Wife Swap USA, make another batch of mince pies as soon as the next pack of pre-rolled pastry has defrosted and play Winter Wonderland on the piano pretending not to notice the unintentional rhythmical alterations. 

I tend to have a tear at the school’s Nativity, even when I can only hear every second word and my own children have long since graduated.  There’s something just so appealing about a three foot Mary.  And I even like the slightly over zealous Vicar pleading with us to stop and think.

I like snowy walks with my family, meeting friends in the pub en route.  I like my presents, scant in number certainly, perhaps not of the highest quality but chosen so very much with me in mind.  I’m wearing those pink USB heated slippers now, for example, reluctant as I am to put on the heating when it’s only me in the house.

I even ‘get’ turkey; fifth day turkey, curried turkey. I read that 86% of people eat turkey only because they feel they ought. I read a tweet about eating duck instead.  I eat duck but I’m not so keen on it curried.  I like, no I love, people coming to stay, leaving late morning after two jugs of coffee and more chat after the chat and wine and food and chocolates of the night before, the children all playing dutifully on the Wii, still in their pyjamas.

Then it’s back to normality.  They all go back – back to work, back to school and I go back to my desk, to writing again from 11pm, to going to bed late and waking four hours later with a sense of foggy satisfaction about the volume of words written when the house was quiet.

I miss them all on their first day back: hubbie with his cold, eldest with her hormones, youngest with her scruffy old pinafore when I can’t coax her into one of the skirts which hangs pristine in her wardrobe. 

But I have to admit to a small smile as I wave goodbye to the last to leave at 8.45. 

And so I run.  I stuff the remaining breakfast items in the dishwasher, yank some sopping clothes from the washer and toss them over the drier, flick on the kettle, write a cheque for the milk, trip over the forgotten PE kit and make my way upstairs to my desk.  I switch on the computer - an unusual phenomenon caught as it is in a perpetual energy loop over the holidays.  I remove plastic heart shaped key rings, miniature playing cards, screwdrivers and whoopee cushions from my desk and replace them with 344 pages of A4 manuscript. 

Then I start.  Without interruption.  And slowly but surely, I input all the amendments I’d made on the hard copy of my novel.   I’m changing it around you see.  An agent made some fantastic suggestions after reading the full manuscript and I get the chance to see what I can do with it and send it back to her.  It’s a terrific opportunity and one I mustn’t squander. 

After an hour or two I make tea.  I take a few pages of the manuscript with me to read through as the kettle boils and luxuriate in the lack of a call to find the recycled batteries, the guinea pigs’ spare water bottle, the Christmas cake.  After forgetting to eat lunch I set the alarm on my desk to 3.20 to remind me to return to this world before my children get home.

When they’re all back, I smother them with ridiculously large bear hugs.  I’ve missed them, you see, I really have – almost as much as I’d missed my writing over the past couple of weeks. 

Happy 2011 everyone!  May it be packed with happy times and chunks of everything you like!