Bloghop: Dodging Detention

Today, I’m taking part in Haley Whitehall’s blog hop. Officially it took place on Saturday but I thought I’d give everyone else a chance to hop and then keep it going into the week. In truth, I’m afraid my weekend took over and now I feel like I forgot to hand in my homework so am doing my best to dodge a detention. How am I doing so far? You can help by popping over to the participants’ blogs and having a read, they’re all worth it.  If you like what you read, please do comment.

You can read more about the blog hop here. http://haleywhitehall.com/2011/10/blog-hopping/
Here are the participants:

Haley Whitehall http://haleywhitehall.com/

Mike Lyons http://therebycandlelight.wordpress.com

SoCal Writers Bloc http://socalwritersbloc.wordpress.com

Amber West http://wosushi.wordpress.com/

And I need to nominate three further blogs which I’d particularly recommend. Three! I’ve done this in the past, generally with numbers of ten so some of you will know how much I squirm, even when choosing larger numbers. I’m going to list the first three which spring to mind but with a promise to try to work out how to list all those I’d recommend in a nifty little link on the edge of my blog. I’ve been meaning to do it for ages and it might help assuage some of the guilt of those missing from my list here. I would never make a judge, if this is anything to go by, would be more emotional than Kitty Brucknell - OK, a close call perhaps.

My three, in no particular order, are…

http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com/ Nicola Morgan’s witty and hugely helpful site on all things to do with writing and getting published.

http://exmoorjane.blogspot.com/ Sometimes serious, often witty, brilliantly observed and never, ever disappoints.

http://sandiezand.blogspot.com/ One word: dry. Ok, ok, I don’t do succinct even though I try – and it’s beautifully written, always.

Thanks Hayley. And I’m very sorry for handing this in late…

Horses for Courses

As part of the annual Literature Festival, a couple of friends and I went to Ilkley to hear authors, Isabel Ashdown and Marika Cobbold speak.

When I posted our plans with great excitement on Facebook, a respected friend left a flip comment stating in no uncertain terms that he’d like to leave the house on a drizzly Sunday evening to hear two people talk about writing, as much as I’d like to mistakenly find myself in the opposition stand at a football match. I admit to being a little offended on the authors’ behalf and deleted the comment. However I rallied myself with a sharp attempt at rationality and the voice I’d use with the children to remind them about horses for courses.

However, it did get me thinking, why DO we like to hear writers talk about their work?

The three of us make a motley crew. One friend is very well read and always has something intelligent to say without a hint at any pretention. With the pick of all the classics at her fingertips, I remember her choosing Dancing In My Nuddy-pants for a since disbanded book group as she wanted to see if we could see what her daughter saw in the humour – like all the books we ever chose, it received a mixed and lively response.  

Her reason for attending the authors’evening was simple. She was exhausted and stressed and needed an early night with a hot water bottle but as there was a dearth of culture in her life of late, it was important she came.

Our second member is more of a non-fiction reader, finding herself all too often frustrated by ‘contrived’ novel plot and subplots, but she is also open to persuasion. It would be fair to say that she was keen to be somewhere other than her own home, having spent as long as she could bear in recuperation after her death-defying 53mph fall from her bike down an otherwise spectacular mountain in the Pyrenees.

Then there’s me, also a book junkie but generally incapable of remembering an author’s name, or indeed the title of their novel. However, I can be relied upon to describe the cover and central plot line in detail, enforcing an impromptu quiz-cum-charades game for anyone daring to ask what I’m currently reading.

I’m always keen for ideas for new reads, although I like surprises so a teaser will suffice and anything more makes me jumpy.  Hearing about the gem from which the book was born and how the characters become who they are, always interests me. Book signings are a bonus and impress my children but I wouldn’t say I was a groupie - just who would get the washing on, help with homework, scrub the toilet, write a novel while I wasted such great chunks of quality time flying around the country? - however, that isn’t to say that I didn’t stutter and fluster and leave her looking a little perplexed when I first met the wonderful Maggie O’ Farrell. So bad was the spectacle I made of myself, I didn’t join the end of the very long line for her book signing at a second meeting, for fear she’d recognise me.

But more important than all of that, I enjoy the company of fellow writing hermits who spend more time than can possibly be good for them, on their own at their keyboard for precious little pay and months, nay, years of little feedback. Hearing writers speak is like attending my own group therapy session; an evening with a motivational guru doubling as mediator between the frustrations of breaking into this hugely competitive and ever-changing market and the reminder that there are few better places to share your days than in your imagination with your characters. It’s comforting to know that in my insanity, I share wholesome company.


Many thanks to Isabel Ashdown and Marika Cobbold for a truly inspiring, supportive and entertaining evening in Ilkley.  I’d already cried for Jake and reminisced with a wince reading Ashdown’s Glass Hopper and Hurry Up and Wait (I spared you the charades) and recommend both for a smile and a cry. After laughing out loud at Cobbold’s uplifting take on life and writing, I was compelled to let Guppies For Tea leapfrog my To Be Read pile. I'm currently engulfed with anger for Gerald, frustration for Amelia and great sympathy for Selma whilst recognising that she would, truly, be a difficult house guest.  It’s an amusing but soul searching read which I’m in no hurry to finish - although, happily, Cobbold has six other novels to her name.

And the other two of our motley crew, did they enjoy the evening? Yes! We bought four books between us. “Fascinating,” my death-defying friend said,“put me off wanting to be a writer though.”  

Back to those horses for courses. 

Run that by me again.

Today I became the proud owner of my first ever hearing aids. I know, I know, I’m doing well for 80, I hope I hear you cry. Actually, I am a mere 43 years of age, simply have the hearing of a pensioner. ‘Wouldn’t it be great to hear your grandchildren tell you about their holidays,’ the literature asks, I’d settle for hearing my own children offering to do the dishes when we’re on holiday, I’d suggest.

I had great expectations for my aids, as did my family and friends. In fact, I’m not sure who was more excited. It’s hard living with someone whose favourite phrase is, ‘Run that by me again’. I thought they might change my life, hand me a seat back in the world of school halls, pubs, children’s concerts, in fact, in anywhere that has a ceiling over six feet high. Don’t get me wrong, I can function in such places but I often use up my ‘pardon lives’. I read once that social settings will allow you two chances at a ‘pardon’ and by the third you have to try something different. What it meant was that by the third, your interlocutor will decide that you are a: an idiot, b: not concentrating, c: not giving their company the attention it deserves – or a combination of all three. It’s quite easy to gauge what should be an appropriate response (that isn’t to say that I haven’t, famously, got it wrong sometimes) if you don’t mind simply nodding or shaking your head at opportune moments in an effort to keep the conversation moving. But this base level of chat doesn’t really lead to a riveting evening for either party.

And then there’s the TV. With all my training into following plots through settings, actions and two out of every three words on a good day, make that one if strong accents are involved, I could be a veritable Inspector Clouseau with 100% of the dialogue available to me. It would be nice not to have to read subtitles which are half a sentence behind the words I can half hear, too, grateful as I am to them for transforming my viewing experience over the past few years. Whispering, I wonder. Are the hearing aids that good? It’s only when you’re hard of hearing that you realise quite how much people whisper on TV and in films. I’m all for authenticity but what directors fail to grasp is that people whisper so that others can’t hear.

Excitement? Definitely. Anticipation? Certainly. But trepidation was uppermost as I entered the room to take ownership of my aids. What if they didn’t work? What if the reality was that I just don’t concentrate? After all, I spend a fair amount of time away from this world in the company of fairies or what’s politely called, my imagination. Granted, my audiogram would attest otherwise, pronouncing me profoundly deaf in certain frequencies, but perhaps the recording equipment has been faulty every time I’ve been tested, that I happen to turn up every year precisely when the machine has mysteriously malfunctioned, leaving no evidence in its wake, nor needing an engineer to fix it for the next guest? The aids are very expensive, you see. I do feel guilty about spending our savings on my hearing when I can still, almost, function without. So what if the benefit doesn’t justify the spend? When I discussed this with the audiologist, he chuckled a little, offered a shake of his head, 30 years of experience in his smile and said, ‘Just you wait.’

So, off I trot with tiny cones pushed into my ears, a wire hooked around the back connected to an inch long receptor and my remote control to turn my hearing up and down, with its potential for hours of amusement should it fall into the eagerly-awaiting hands of my children. In truth, I didn’t trot. I walked, very gingerly, out of the hospital doors, eyes darting in every direction. There was just so much going on - a lady’s crutches tip tapping across the linoleum to the right, a man coughing in A&E, a siren which wasn’t  from the hospital car park but an ambulance was clearly on its way. The traffic was so loud, so close, I hardly dare cross the road. I made it to my car feeling like I was in a Bond movie. I didn’t even need to look to know that there was a man approaching who had bought a newspaper which he didn’t intend to read until later because he was forcing it into a loudly scrunching bag. I’d already learnt that you can tell the speed people are walking just by the sound of their feet tapping on the pavement. I never realised that my seatbelt makes a noise when you pull it across. I know I can't hear crickets, I wonder if I will.

I had a few minutes for my favourite past-time: a coffee and a scribble in a well-known coffee outlet. My friend called en route. ‘I can’t talk,’ I whispered, ‘you’re too loud.’ We persevered, the phone held six inches away from my ear but when I entered the coffee shop mid-conversation, I had to walk straight out. Everyone was so noisy! How could I possibly carry on my own conversation? 

I’ve learnt that the hearing aids ‘wake up’ messages to the brain which have been redundant whilst hearing has been disintegrating and that this heightened sensitivity calms down once the brain has regrouped and worked out which sounds it really needs to focus on. Clever, isn’t it! Much as I enjoyed the new sensation and hearing sounds I never knew existed, amusing as it was to hear every word of the news set at 36 instead of 60 or, rather, maximum volume, I admit it was quite tiring and a little unsettling. My first impression is that, yes, in a fairly significant way, these aids will change my life but, for now, it was quite a relief to unplug my ears, tuck the aids back into their nifty little box for the night and snuggle down with just me, my tinnitus and a little normality for company.

Dusting the Piano

As I was flicking off a faint sprinkling of dust from my piano today, whilst studiously avoiding the burgeoning forest of cobwebs hanging from the lights above my head, I had to laugh at my priorities.

Whilst not claiming to be in the same stratosphere as a concert pianist, I am in love with my piano. I’ve pretty much always had one around, but none so fine as this. It was last November when I became the excited owner of my Yamaha Y3; a proper piano, loud, crisp and with notes that play however many times you touch them. Of all the inanimate objects in my house, the piano is my favourite which is why it receives most of my limited cleaning concentration span.

I’m going away tomorrow, to cycle the Pyrenees across France with nineteen others (hence the, admittedly, limited pre-‘holiday’ cleaning) and the fast approaching prospect has me lurching from great waves of excitement to petrified nausea. It isn’t so much the cycling uphill which worries me, I either will or will not get up, it’s the losing the pack, losing my way and ending up in Spain (sense of direction is not a phenomenon known to me), or my brakes failing downhill. At this late stage there is nothing I can do about this so I have to practice a little distraction.

From thinking how nice it would be able to sit down at the piano instead of on my bicycle seat on my return, I started thinking about which of the two pursuits I prefer. Cycling is much more sociable but for total relaxation, the piano wins every time.  And then there’s running. That’s my favourite sport, not least because I write my best ideas in my head while I run, but because it’s the ultimate drug - I know because I’m addicted. 

If I was on a desert island, which would I have, piano, bike or trainers? Of course I’d also have to have a notepad and pen. And books; a mobile library which turned up on Thursdays. I cleaned (sketchily) the entire house to the choosing between the aforementioned items and aside from dismissing the bike on the technicality that the wheels would get stuck in the sand, I couldn’t choose between them. However I did conclude that there wasn’t anything else I couldn’t do without (other than a special request for my favourite people to join me, of course). As my chosen items would all fit inside the mobile library van, I decided my demands weren’t excessive.

So while I’m away, I thought I’d leave you pondering the same question: you have a day to pack, which activities would you take with you and why?

Larkism – the sequel

Three months ago, I began an experiment into Larkism. The question was whether I could turn this hardened night owl into a lark.

It was a tough call. There’s nothing I like better than tapping the keys after midnight in an otherwise silent house with no untimely interruptions and no nagging to-do lists – none that can’t be hushed until morning for fear of waking the family, at least.  And there are few things I like less than getting up on the command of the alarm clock when it’s still dark, to take that long, lonely walk downstairs to the kettle, knowing I could just turn over and have-a-few-more-minutes.

Or so I thought.

Since that life-changing day in June, I have been jumping out of bed at 5am like the archetypal lark and have discovered that my love for that chunk of day rarely previously experienced  (following sleep, anyway) knows no boundaries. These days, if I wake after 5am, I’m cross. This is why:

- Having a set two hours of time at the start of the day has made me more focused and thus more productive. Whatever happens, by 7am I have two hours of writing behind me and I feel more fulfilled than I often used to feel all day.

- I’ve discovered that the hours between 10pm and 2am weren’t four but two and a bit. Midnight was the beginning of ‘faffing’ time. I was slower at every task than I’d realised, easily distracted and much as I think there’s a place for Facebook, Twitter, emailing and home shopping, I don’t think it’s worth a lethargic two hour chunk of my life every day.

- I’m tired at night and I like it. I can’t pretend to be exhausted like my they-broke-the-mould-when-they-made-this-particular-lark husband but I’m happy to wind down. The day has more structure and it feels more natural.

- I like the fact that by 4pm and home from school time, I can have double digit hours of constructive work behind me. The pressure of always trying to figure out just when I could fit in another hour of writing is no longer there. I still write in the evenings but now it’s a bonus.

- Before my foray into Larkism I was not firing on all cylinders. People used to marvel at how I could survive on four hours sleep a night, comparing me to Margaret Thatcher (DON’T even go there) but I’ve realised that survival was exactly what I was doing. I had a diet of tea (I still do tea) and lists. In my owl days, notes scribbled in the small hours were the only way I could possibly get my children to school with the correct allocation of sandwiches, clothing, homework and plaits. It took me until around 10am to manage anything near lucid thought without my array of prompts.

So, after my three month experiment into changing body clocks, it’s a definitive yes to Larkism for me. I think underneath I’ll always be a natural owl – I can’t imagine ever leaving a party early because my bed is calling – but for an easier, more fulfilling way of living, this lark is setting her alarm for 5am for the foreseeable future. In the words of the wonderful, Jimmy Cliff, I can see clearly now the rain has gone.

How about you?

My Name in the Credits

I have just peeled myself away from cloud nine to share my excitement at clicking on Christine Tyler’s wonderful blog, only to see my name in the list of credits J

I really enjoyed being part of the Sparkfest and am very happy that one of my posts hit enough of a chord to earn an honorary mention. Thanks Christine! Well done to all, I’ve copied over the list as I’m sure the blogs must be worth a look. I’m going there now…

Christine says: Sparkfest Interviewees!

Ready to find out who our future interviewees are? Interested in some of the entries that caught my eye? Here are some more of my favorite reads.
If you haven't read them already, you really should!

Shelly Brown--saw an author go through the throes of "phase one," and then witnessed their immense success. You'll never guess who it is...

Jackie Buxton--gained inspiration from real events and compassionate people...and some hypocritical ones

Ru--talks about Stephen King and some awesome philosophy on Amidala

Bess Weatherby--makes me wish I wrote about Tolkien.

Lisa Vooght--gives us the best story I've ever read about a book signing, and a sense of what we can achieve as authors and mentors.

Pocketful of Playdough--made me cry.

Bonnie Borrow--shares a story about her crush that I more-than-kind-of wish had happened to me.

Interview winners are:

1) Tyrean--makes me want to know more about "The Horse in the Well"

2) Mel Fowler--shows us the games we play with our sisters in the yard can grow up with us.

(Mel, you must be having a good week. That's 2/2.)

3) SB Stewart Laing--reads a book that makes his blood boil, so he writes a better one.

4) Dawn Hamsher--makes a Spark a prompt in itself. She also changes her life when a person helps her draw near to God in her writing.  

5) Emily Seuss--answers an ad for "someone kind of like Queen Latifah from that movie," and ends up in the middle of Nerdfighteria. If you know what that is, you are awesome. 

Thanks to The Press…

This is the final day of the Sparkfest tour so I thought I’d just sneak in a short(er) answer to another of the questions which has been motivating fellow scribblers around the world this week: which author set off the spark of inspiration for your current work in progress?

There was no particular author who inspired my completed manuscript, rather two very different people in the news. One was a lady who spoke evocatively about why we should forgive the London Bombers of 7/7 even though she was the mother of one of their victims. I was in awe of her amazing strength of character, thought how much more powerful this emotion was than the, nonetheless, entirely understandable anger of other relatives and friends. She was crying, I was crying and I thought that if we could just harness what this lady had and spread it around, the world might just rub along a little bit better. 

The second person was the driver who allegedly fell asleep at the wheel causing the Selby Rail Crash. I remember seeing his face splashed across all the newspapers and thinking how complex it was. His actions were avoidable and people died as a result. And yet I knew his life would be affected for ever, that this wasn’t the face of a cold-blooded killer we were seeing, rather someone who made a stupid mistake. I wasn’t sure that this man really needed our vitriol; he’d never forgive himself anyway. Some of the people who were chastising him, had perhaps made stupid mistakes themselves but hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you know my novel is called Glass Houses, you’ll see where I went with this…!

My current effort is a re-write of a novel which I first drafted thirteen years ago.  I vividly remember scribbling down the idea on the back of three airline serviettes (I had to beg for the second two) on the flight back from my honeymoon when everybody, absolutely everybody else, was asleep. It’s funny to think that in those days I didn’t carry a pad of paper and pen with me everywhere I went! The idea came from an article in The Guardian on ‘Paupers’ Graves’. I can’t remember anything about the piece itself but I can absolutely picture it, full page as it was with its dishevelled oval shaped tombstone falling away from the tufts of grass at its base and do recall the reaction that inspired the book: how could anybody die without a single person to say farewell? What could be so bad as to lose somebody every friend and relative they ever had? That tombstone isn’t in the book but the concept certainly is.

So there you have it; I have the press to thank for hours and hours and hours spent alone in my study, just me and my keyboard.  How nice to be able to thank The Press for a change J

Sparkfest! Jane Austen? It's complicated.

When asked the question, which book inspired me to write, I could only initially think of great works of literature which contrived to put me off reading for ever and threaten to turn me down the almost scientific path of linguistics which was my other great love.

At the risk of provoking a deluge of contradictory evidence, I have to admit that, ahem, Jane Austen just doesn’t do it for me. It may have been the way A-level English was taught by this one particular teacher who did, through our eighteen-year-old eyes, have a slightly obsessive passion for Jane Austen’s writing and everything else that went with it. However, I watch the odd period drama now with all its flouncing and pontificating self-doubt, its innocence with just a hint of naughtiness and yes, I appreciate the history but no, I still can’t get excited about a Jane Austen story.

I can picture my teacher back then in 1987 launching into another attempt to light our Austen fuses.

‘What do you hear behind the words? What is Austen doing so cleverly here?’ she’d ask, enthusiasm screaming out of every muscle in her face.

‘I-r-o-n-y?’ we’d offer. There was generally a good chance.

‘Yes! That’s it, so clever isn’t it?’ she’d say, adding, ‘for the times,’ as our cue to nod.

I know her writing is clever. I do appreciate her literary skill and, even back then, wished I could share our teacher’s exuberance for Jane Austen, but I just find the plots and characters too similar within and across the novels (granted I was only forced to read three), differing largely only in clothing or background. Perhaps I might have appreciated one Jane Austen novel in different circumstances, but six?

So, Jane Austen remains squarely in my brain as the author who put me off reading and started a literary drought which lasted into university where I read only compulsory French and German works which doesn’t count. It’s staggering really that reading for pleasure just didn’t enter my psyche during this period, having never been without a piece of fiction in my pocket up until my A-level years.

However, a chance conversation with my first employer changed all that. Astounded that I hadn’t picked up a novel of my own volition since my teens, she bought me a copy of the Power of One by Bryce Courtenay.

‘Read that,’ she said, ‘you’ll be back.’

Spare cash was an enigma to me back then. I was still paying back student debts (no student loans though, little did we know where student funding was headed) so I was extremely touched that somebody I didn’t know particularly well, would spend money on a book for me. It would be churlish not to read it.

Suffice it to say, I did read the whole of The Power of One. It’s quite lengthy, 629 pages to be precise and around three-quarters of the way through, I scraped together enough pennies and went to my local bookstore to buy the sequel, Tandia, all 900 pages! I had to order it, making a special trip into town a week later to pick up my copy, in its own, perfectly-fitting, crisp, white paper bag.

I’m sure Tandia is part of the reason why I’m still resisting a Kindle. I know it makes sense, particularly having recently flown with a certain cheap airline where half of my meagre luggage allowance was taken up with books. But the excitement of feeling that new novel pressed into my hand by the enthusiast assistant in the book shop, who assured me that the sequel was equally as good as the brilliant Power of One, is a feeling I don’t want to say goodbye to just yet.

In answer to the original question, The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay is the novel which re-inspired me to become a writer. On and off throughout my childhood I’d imagined penning stories and wrote many a plot line in my head when my family thought I was simply away with the fairies (where, granted, I was, the rest of the time). During my reading drought, I forgot that dream. I pursued a career in Charity PR and Fundraising of which I enjoyed every minute but the writing dream came back once I started reading again.  And it just won’t leave me now.

365 More Sleeps

About six weeks before we go on holiday, my husband starts counting down. If he could recall his 7 x table, he’d probably tell me how many sleeps it was. I’m ashamed to say, however, that his enthusiasm is generally met with a  grunted, ‘Nooaw, don’t tell me that,’ unless I can catch it in time, remind myself not to be quite so bah humbug and mutter, ‘yes, it’s great, isn’t it?’

Until a chance chat with a friend recently, my lack of frenzied excitement for holiday remained my guilty secret.  My friend, it happily appears, has the same view of Christmas. Is it really worth it? she asks herself, as she takes the forgotten Christmas Cake out of the oven after the date’s changed one cold December night or secretly repairs her daughter’s hand-made Christmas cards where glitter festooned fairies have become rather sparkle-less as all were too busy to remind her to smear glue before the glitter. And then there are the adults’ cards - although I think I am on my own when it comes to sealing the last envelope on the eve of Christmas Eve.  But, my friend adds, once, and only once the event is in full flow, she has to begrudgingly admit that it is, indeed, worth the sleep deprivation.

My friend’s Christmas is my Holiday Preparation where I am on my own - literally, at 2am, the first suitcase teetering on the tiny metal clip above the cheap-flight-must-have-handy-weighing-scale, my quivering bicep curl bringing the scale to nose height to reveal another case a nudge heavier than 15 kilos. Then I play the in-out game again, the game which quite amused me the first time, the, ‘pick the item least needed and looking most like it weighs ¾ of a kilo’ game. Without wishing to spoil the fun, a couple of bottles of toiletries generally do it – who needs their hair de-frizzing on holiday anyway?

So I decided that this irksome, lonesome business of packing had to be done together. Many hands make light work, I told my non-plussed children and husband, the latter telling me not worry about him, he only needed a couple of pairs of pants.

Still, my dutiful children set about tackling their lists. Under stopwatch management they raced each other to grab their clothing and belongings, pausing only to ask me to iron faster, they’d lose if they couldn’t get their jeans into their pile quicker than their sister could.

When I was called to inspect, I was flabbergasted – not by the speed with which they’d accomplished the task or that each had managed everything on the list (give them a competitive angle, dangle the promise of a larger sweet for the winner and they’ll rise to any challenge) but by the difference in the size of the piles they’d created.

Both had exactly the same lists. But my youngest, seemingly the most extrovert but actually, the most cautious, had twice the pile her laid-back sister had. In front of me lay two piles of personality; my daughters there in the form of light hand-luggage and excess baggage smiling up at me, eldest with her, ‘that will do, can I go back on the trampoline now?’ attitude and youngest just wanting to be absolutely sure, so let’s pack a couple of alternatives.

I had to smile, for I, too, perform to type when I prepare for holiday and so can only admit that it’s my personality which ruins the build-up for me. Why does the fridge have to be cleaned out if I haven’t managed it before 11pm and the alarm is set to go off five hours later in order to get us to our early flight? Why do I need to sweep the floor, too late to hoover, before we leave – frightened the local mouse contingent will choose our house for their annual vacation and party while we’re away? And the towels. They don’t really need to be clean and dry. I could wash them after holiday, yes, even with all that extra post-holiday laundry.

After all, what did my children wear on holiday? A third of what we packed. Will I learn for next time? Goodness, what kind of a mother do you take me for?

Sparkfest! Something a bit different

People write for many reasons and I definitely write to be read. Even though there is nothing better in life for me than those heady days when the words are appearing on the page as fast as I can type and the characters are writing their own story, I don’t think I’d be able to justify the time spent on it if I didn’t have the dream that one day somebody other than me, and my trusted critiquing readers, would be entertained by it.  I really enjoy researching, editing, re-writing even proofing but this first draft stage is my ultimate love. Put me in a café with a notepad, pen, a cappuccino and an hour and I defy you to find anybody happier with their lot than me.

That’s probably why I like blogging. I get to scribble down my thoughts in a disjointed fashion and, unlike submitting a novel for potential publication (which is nonetheless exciting in its own way), receive instant feedback. So, please excuse what my 11 year old would describe as ‘random cheesiness’ and let me thank you for reading, it makes me very happy to think somebody is interested enough to click and often, gets to the end of my ramblings.

I also enjoy reading other people’s blogs. I like the quick insight into other people’s thinking, subscribe generally to those that read a little like a monthly magazine feature. I like the wry take on life, the ones where you smile and think, ‘yep, I’ve been there,’ or ‘help! I’m still there, are they watching me?’

Blogfests are a way of finding new blogs and introducing new readers to yours and so the Sparkfest (great title!), hosted by Christine at The Writer Coaster caught my eye. I appear to have signed up. Unless something untoward happens between now and then – I should be wary of making such statements as three days off a big deadline I once returned from holiday with a fixator holding my wrist onto my arm after throwing it around the drum of a spin drier at full pelt, the night before supposedly driving home (domesticity, I find, is very overrated) I didn’t hit the deadline but I did type one handed to deliver the piece a couple of weeks late - I’ll post again between the 22 and 26 August with my answers to one or more of the questions below.

The criteria below are copied over from Christine’s blog, please click the image to go straight there. Please sign up too, keep me company J

 

As writers, we're always striving to get out a message of inspiration to others. This blogfest is a celebration for those who have done this for us. Join the Spark Blogfest, aka Sparkfest, by posting your answer to any of the three prompts above (or make one up as long as it fits the theme).

What book made you realize you were doomed to be a writer? 

What author set off that spark of inspiration for your current Work in Progress?

Or, Is there a book or author that changed your world view?

I’ve been thinking about tears

This week is my youngest daughter’s last week at primary school. The Headteacher is also retiring so the week is passing with great aplomb. It culminates in the Year Six Leavers’ Assembly; always a tear jerker. I know because I went to my eldest daughter’s last year and managed not to cry, oh, at least until I sat down. My equally stoic friend and I rallied ourselves and stemmed the sobs until the sight of one of the leavers at the edge of the stage bawling her eyes out. Sadly, it transpired that she wasn’t looking forward to secondary school one iota but, you’ll be relieved to know, is absolutely fine now having raced to the end of her first year.

I don’t have a good record of coping like a brick. I remember when my eldest daughter was finishing her first year in reception and word came out of the Leavers’ Assembly. Said daughter knew nothing of it but she was only five. Off I duly trotted, hand in hand with my youngest, taking our seats in church only to realise we’d mingled with a different set of parents to whom I usually attached myself: this special assembly wasn’t really aimed at everyone, more the parents of enormous children, six years older than mine.

I stayed, it would have been rude to leave, and this time lasted a minute or so longer before reaching for the tissues to dry the tears shed at children, and their memories, whom I’d never met before.

I was thinking about crying, how these kind of tears are more about happiness than sadness and that nature has missed a trick. Yes, it’s the end of an era and that’s always a moment to ponder. Yes, every milestone is a more tangible reminder of the fact that the day will come quicker than we ever imagined that our babies will leave home for ever. But mostly, these are exciting times. This transition to secondary school has enjoyed much frenzied anticipation and it’s hard not to be swept along  - separate classes for every lesson, just imagine! Bunsen burners, tri-pods, language labs, computers in every classroom, not just the ICT room, or rather, suite; not just one but four netball courts, more people in their form than there were in their whole year group at primary school, more than double the amount of students in the year as there were in their whole school. It’s a world of newness and a slurry of peers and opportunities which we know, as adults, have the potential to make these next years the best of their young lives.

So nature, why the tears?

I see how love and hate can be closely aligned. I see how disappointment and anger that something so powerful didn’t work, could take energy from the original intensity of love and tragically transfer itself to bitterness. I understand how great despair and sadness can literally lead to an outpouring, a very basic way of showing our dislike for the situation in a way we did as babies. 

But happy and sad? They’re poles apart aren’t they?

I think that human nature is wanting and as we evolve further as a species, a new emotion, a new sound, a new method should form to show we are feeling great pride and enjoyment, no longer to be confused with pain and despair.  Children would understand this reaction to their performances; adults would no longer feel physically drained at the end of the show.

My daughter and her friends have been rehearsing for weeks for their end of year play to be performed twice today - don’t get me started on how I’ll react to that one - and, I wondered to myself, could be perhaps a little performance-d out.  I asked my daughter if she was looking forward to the Leavers’ Assembly which follows on Friday.

Oh yes, she said. It’s funny watching the parents cry.

Baghdatis, the race is on!

Sometimes we’re lucky enough to experience a day which we know we’ll remember forever. Yesterday, with my centre court ticket for Wimbledon in my hot little hand, this was that day for me.

After hitting a ball relentlessly against our tin garage door before progressing, much to the delight of the neighbourhood I’m sure, to the pitted, gravel courts near my grandparents and the instant game of doubles which was me and my three sisters, my love for tennis was cemented around my twelfth birthday. This was when I finally procured a racquet of my own. It was a white Slazenger with a purple handle and was Juvery of-the-moment compared to the wooden racquets loaned out at school. There wasn’t a speck of steel or graphite and the head was only the size of a large tea plate.

I should point out here that, although an enthusiastic amateur, I don’t recall ever winning anything more significant than a hearty handshake. Even if I’d had the skill, which I didn’t, I certainly didn’t have the head for it.  ‘Don’t throw it all away now,’ the little voices would say. ‘Just don’t do a double fault for goodness sake, don’t do a double…’ Oh dear.

It didn’t matter. Tennis for me was more about meeting my friend, Rachel, at the town club (it wasn’t as grand as it sounds) and bashing the ball back and forwards over the net as we discussed our burgeoning love lives, our fast deteriorating school and the general trials and hairspray which accompanied teenagehood in The Eighties.

Lack of skill, height and hunger for the game were major contributory factors as to why my tennis never went any further but it didn’t stop me following Wimbledon on BBC2 every year, in the days when McEnroe still had the anger and the headband and Connors wasn’t stopped from jumping over the barrier to sit with the crowd while the slightly befuddled umpire attempted to sort out whatever battle of wits he’d generally started.

Yesterday, the first two matches went pretty much as the winner would have planned.  Caroline Wozniacki, the number one seed, finished off her opponent’s Wimbledon in an hour.  And Roger Federer showed us why he has won quite so many tournaments to date. Both were incredibly impressive. But it was a little like viewing a painting from an undoubtedly talented painter which you wouldn’t hang in your home; you can appreciate the skill but you’re seeing it with your eyes and not your heart.

Then came Novak Djokovic and Marcos Baghdatis. Although a fan of Djokovic (largely, and I apologise to tennis purists, because he always signs autographs and smiles when his opponent hits an unassailable winner), I found myself cheering for another seemingly nice guy, Baghdatis. Djokovic had won the first set and I didn’t want my day at Wimbledon to end any sooner than it had to.

When Baghdatis won the second, I flung my arms in the air like it was my child out there. I’d lived that second set with him, my heart pumping harder, willing the stunning rallies to continue and for Baghdatis to finally outwit Djokovic. I found myself thinking positive thoughts on his behalf.  Ranked 30 places behind Djokovic, I willed Baghdatis to tell himself that he was his equal.

And when they sat down at the end of the third set and Baghdatis was trailing two sets to one, I thought to myself that winning tennis matches at this level is a little like the battle to publication. It’s understood that tennis players have talent, it’s also true that without the self-belief and determination to go with it, they will not succeed. Assuming a writing competence, this is the same of writers who are not yet published.

‘What’s the difference between a published and an unpublished writer?’, thriller writer and witty man, JR Ellory, asked us at a writers’ conference. ‘The unpublished author gave up,’ he said.

Djokovic crashed out of Wimbledon in 2010 and vowed he’d come back better.  He changed his diet and the way he trained and an amazing year followed. I’m not sure all writers will get published who continue to submit the same rejected material - but have a re-read, act on some new feedback and chances must surely be higher.

It is hard to receive that stinging slap to the face when your baby is rejected, without rubbing the sore patch for a while. But tennis players don’t take months off.  They take a day, perhaps, but then they’re back out training, tweaking their game.

Baghdatis’ submission for the ultimate prize in tennis was rejected yesterday. He’s never yet won a Grand Slam. Many, even some close to him, will think he never will.  But nobody can influence the outcome more than Baghdatis and come the next major tournament, I know he’ll be back out there trying again.

Will Baghdatis win a Grand Slam tennis tournament? Will I get published? Marcos, the race is on.

Baghdatis, the race is on!

I'm honoured to be guest blogging over at the wonderfully versatile Thea Atkinson's blog today. I'd love you to take a wander over there to see, 'Baghdatis, The Race is On' and while you're at it, check out Thea's blog which is a great mix of thoughtful, frothy, poignant and amusing posts. http://theaatkinson.wordpress.com.  


While I was checking a few spellings today (or rather, being distracted for hours by tales of McEnroe in his angry hey-day and having a nostalgic swoon over Pat Cash) I came across this clip. Ouch! I compared tennis to getting published in my post but I'm not sure it's quite THIS painful. What do you think? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALHObkStAt0

Larkism

I’ve never been big on sleep. Generally it’s an inconvenience to be fitted as unobtrusively as possible around work and play. Don’t misunderstand me, I relish that moment when my head hits the pillow as much as the next person, I just don’t yearn to get to that point.

Mind you, I least I sleep every day. I did know a man who claimed to need so little sleep that he only closed his eyes every other night. Worse, this was pre-24 hour TV, shopping or the internet and he only liked to read biographies, which were distinctly fewer in number in those days. I do remember he had a very extensive record collection, however, and a long-suffering girlfriend who finally swapped him for a man who fell asleep the minute his bottom touched a sofa.

I put my good fortune of being an economical sleeper down to Deep Sleep. No messing about in the REM stage for me, I’m plunged into blackness within seconds and not retrieved from it until that alarm clock chimes five and a half hours later.

I’ve been a night-owl forever. My first memory of the benefits was when I read the entire copy of James and the Giant Peach in one night. I was about nine years old and my understanding parents had given me permission to read on – no torch needed. I got to turn my light off at midnight, I was so grown up. 

I remember starting my homework at 10pm and still putting in three hours before bouncing into school next day. And of course, being an owl is fantastic for parties, unless, of course, you’re the host who's ready for you to leave. 

The downside of needing little sleep is that I always push it too far. 1am is when I should go to bed. 6.30 is when I should rise but no, I can always find another blog to read as I wind down at midnight ready to log off for the day. I can tweet uninterrupted with fellow night-owls or distracted writers on the other side of the world for another half hour, prepare myself a little snack, unload a wash, scrub a pan and make some notes for tomorrow before deciding that really, I’m absolutely wide awake and at last, I have uninterrupted time to read whatever novel I have on the go. And then it’s 3am and I know that come lunch time tomorrow, my writing will be reduced to sludge.

Being a night-owl is also quite anti-social.

I remember staying at my Auntie and Uncle’s as a child and thinking it sad that my Uncle stayed up long after his wife had gone to bed, only to fall asleep, alone, in front of the test card. I remember my Dad tapping away at the typewriter keys in the early hours long after my mother was asleep and telling myself that I would never do that when I was an adult.

Hmmm.

So, in order to attempt to better align my sleep patterns with the rest of my family’s, I’ve been conducting an experiment; I’ve been trying to turn an owl into a lark. I call it Larkism. My friend, who retires at 9pm and wakes at 4, ready to run at 4.30 (which is not what I’m proposing) didn’t think it possible. We are genetically disposed to being morning or night time creatures and there’s nothing we can do to change it. I’ve tried, she said. 

Larkism requires two things: I have to go to bed before the date changes and set my alarm for five and a half hours later. My Larkism started a month ago. The first day my alarm went off at 5 and I woke with that queasy, early flight kind of feeling. My husband slept on, I could so easily have done so too. Thank goodness for tea.

Quickly I got into a routine and realised that half way through my first cup, I was feeling surprisingly sparkly. I also noticed how alert I felt when my children got up at 7am and that I knew exactly what they needed for school without having to constantly refer to notes scrawled at 2am. Having already banked a couple of hours of writing, I found I could accept a coffee invitation guilt-free without the gremlin at the back of my mind reminding me every ten minutes that it was OK, as long as I worked late tonight.

The most unlikely result has been in my productivity. Larkism has only given me a maximum of ten extra hours every week. Being an owl, often afforded me double that, or so I thought. Not so. Because in my life, to be an owl, is to be a midnight faffer. Don’t get me wrong, those first two hours preceding the bell tolling were often massively productive. Often I’d write hundreds, if not thousands of words in this time. But then I should have gone to bed.

Larkism has made me focus.

The biggest surprise, however, has been to realise that I actually like feeling tired. I like clocking off at at the end of the school day and realising that my writing day is also done. Full stop. No need to think about how much work I might possibly be able to fit in later because I’ve done enough; I’ve made progress. And I love the fact that having been up since 5am, at 11pm I am tired, like a normal person, and it’s time to go to bed. I suppose, like babies, I’m enjoying the routine.

Nobody is more surprised than me to admit that Larkism is working. I’m told the biggest test will be when those mornings get dark and cold. I’m determined to continue. I’ll keep you posted.

So, are you a lark or an owl? Could you change and would you want  to?