Smelly Memories

I’ve been thinking about smells today. My main character in Glass Houses spends time coming out of a coma and is tickled when the whiff of her mother’s stale coffee breath is the first sign that her sense of smell is returning. All she wants to do then is smell and takes a good drag on a host of items from her mother’s handbag. But it’s an old book which she stays with for the longest. The pages squeezed against her nose remind her of childhood memories – good and bad.

When I was growing up my father often had a book pressed to his nose. First-hand, and he wanted to imbibe the book’s newness, the printing process, the excitement of the story to come. If it was old, a good inhalation took him back to night time reading under the covers with a torch. That’s what he told me anyway.

I am not as cultured as my main character or my dad. If I’m asked what smells conjure up my early years then I am compelled to mention Shock Waves hairspray. My friends and I used to buy huge bottles of it from the ‘cheap shop’ (we didn’t have pound shops then) and I don’t particularly remember noticing the smell at the time. I was far too busy back-combing and choosing the most appropriate ribbon or netted scarf to lose in the tangled pile of hair to notice.

But when my children happened upon a bottle a few years ago, I couldn’t get enough of it. You’d think it was Chanel no. 5 – which takes me back to my twenties but that’s another story. One puff of the horribly environmentally unfriendly aerosol and I was back with Madonna and the school disco on Wednesday nights, even though I wasn’t allowed to go until I was in the third year - year nine to the uninitiated – much to the outrage of my friends. I’m not sure I was that bothered, more worried I wouldn’t know how to dance when I got there. It took me back to boyfriends and Adam Ant and make-overs with Rachel which would take us all day just for the before-and-after photos. Where did we get the time? 

It took me back to my yellow bedroom, to tennis in the garden which was way too small and to the breeze block garage we painted white one year much to the total humiliation of me and my three sisters, broadcasting to all our friends our parents’ embarrassing flirtation with the Mediterranean. Oh the shame of the white garage!

But most of all the smell took me back to the holiday in Majorca when my five foot four grandpa with size three feet drove us to the airport and had to take my hairspray home again because they wouldn’t let it on the plane. He hadn’t got a bag with him and we were amused at the prospect of him walking through the airport back to the tiny car (in which we’d crammed six of us including the driver) with an excessively large tin of pink hair spray; particularly as he only had one of those white rings of hair which orbited a bald head. He died soon after the airport lift. This tiny man with a huge bottle of hairspray is one of my last memories of him and it does make me smile.

My bottle was definitely pink!
Thanks to Helen nee Dion for
remembering the name :)

So, what I want to know is, what is it that takes you back? What’s that smell which propels you into your past? Is it a book or is it something less cerebral? Please share! 

A Walk down the Aisle

My short story, A Walk down the Aisle started life as a play on the Grease idea; Danny and Sandy having a bit of a make-over when it finally dawned upon them that they were meant to be together, whatever it took. Somehow, the plot ended up more Green Card then Grease albeit with my main character, Isaac, more of a Lancashire, Colin Farrell (swoon) in my eyes than a Gerard Depardieu (great accent though, G).

That’s story writing for you, when those keys start tapping, there’s no knowing what will appear on the page.

I wrote the story for a competition, pressed send, had a moment of euphoria that I’d hit the deadline, a couple of hours of doing some ‘proper’ work (ie slightly less enjoyable but slightly more profitable) and then the inevitable panic that the story was muddled and dull and how on earth did I have the audacity to send it?

It didn’t win the competition.

But, the words of the everso lovely and extremely amusing Katie Fjorde at the first York Festival of Writing forever ringing in my ears - you’d take your baby to hospital when it was sick but you’d give up on a story when you could make it better? - I did some more work on it and submitted it instead to Chase magazine.

And, I’m very happy to say, that’s where it appears this month. I’d love you to take a look, Click Chase – pages 92/3 (tip! Click 'last' and then flick back three pages) to read the whole story.

I hope it makes you smile :)

Stories for Homes

Today I’m Celebrating Small, as in briefly, if that’s a concept within my capabilities, because really, this is much more of the celebrating medium variety, if not, the humongously large.

How happy was I to see that my short story, A Life with Additives had been chosen for inclusion in the Stories for Homes anthology from which all proceeds go to the homeless, charity, Shelter? The eBook is now out and the soft back is following hot on its heels. My story is, embarrassingly, a little light and fluffy but there are some much more cerebral, poignant beauties for your delectation. My advice would be to grab yourself a coffee (or a gin), a packet of hobnobs and a comfy chair - with a box of tissues placed firmly at your side. If you feel compelled to make a purchase either for the stories, the charity or to keep me happy - or a combination of all three - thank you so much. Click to buy Stories for Homes  

Charlie Wade, my blogging friend who loves a good rant now and again and boy, does he rant brilliantly, kindly asked me to guest blog on his site this week so I’m over there talking about Stories for Homes, mushy peas and dubious acting skills. Please pop over if you have a minute Charlie's Blog - Batteries Aren't Included.

And finally, I’m celebrating a birthday, my blog’s birthday, because this is my 100^th post. Frankly, when I wrote my first and checked hourly (ok, it was every few minutes) to see if my page views would reach double figures, I don’t think I ever dared to dream I’d still be here over two years later. I only started a blog because my very wise and very lovely writer friend, Jane Alexander, told me to. I thought it would be just another Facebook-esque distraction. But, right from the start, I realised how much I loved writing it. In this world of novel writing where the stories take months to hit the paper, years to edit and back to months again to hear back from potential agents and publishers, the positively rocket speed process of posting my missives and reading your comments which always make me smile, is joyfully refreshing and rewarding.

Thank you so much for reading.Please enjoy a piece of virtual birthday cake, you deserve it - take care with the golden hearts, they aren't edible.

The Things We Never Said

Last month in Chase I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Susan Elliot Wright, author of The Things We Never Said – a tale of strength in the face of adversity which wouldn’t let me go to bed. This is Susan’s first novel and I was delighted to learn that her second is due out next summer. Susan was hardly sitting around waiting for her fiction deal and when the phone call came, it wasn't in the most salubrious of surroundings - but it didn't make the moment any less sweet. 

The Things We Never Said…

It’s 1964 and Maggie has woken up in a mental asylum. One distracted look, she’s advised by a sympathetic inmate, one choice word to a nurse and she’ll be whisked off for seizure inducing ECT with as little fuss as if she were going to the dentist. When Maggie realises that she’s had this treatment before, that the one thing she needs to get her out of this place is her memory but that’s being destroyed with every dose, she forces herself to remember what the combination of the ECT and a specific trauma have made her forget.

Meanwhile, Jonathan, a good-hearted but frustrated teacher, is struggling to maintain focus in a modern day secondary school where a teenage pupil is bullying him through a provocative show of her breasts and an infamous pupil is whipping his classmates into a frenzy at Jonathan’s expense. He doesn’t yet know that his response to this intolerable behaviour will spiral his life out of control. As Jonathan surmises later, the laws of teaching seem to be contrary to the rest of society and he’s guilty until proven innocent. Throw into the mix his angst about impending fatherhood and his regrets about his less than perfect relationship with his recently deceased father and you see why Jonathan’s finding life pretty tough at the moment. Perhaps this isn’t the best time to have the link between him and Maggie revealed but the connection is to prove valuable to both.

Un-put-down-able is easily used when describing great books but this is absolutely true of my response to The Things We Never Said. I read it in three sittings, emerging from each emotionally battered and sleep deprived. The circumstances bestowed upon Maggie and Jonathan are not for the faint-hearted and I found the dual narrative and inter-weaving of the plots very well-crafted. I was keen to learn about its author’s motivation and inspiration for the story so was delighted when I had the opportunity to chat with this Sheffield-based writer, Susan Elliot Wright.

Susan explains that she has always been fascinated by the question of nature versus nurture and how people behave when the control over their life it taken away from them. Although Susan only had the bare bones of the plot before she started writing, she always knew that these themes would be at the centre of her story. 

Susan is also fascinated by the environment and its effect on our actions. It’s no accident that weather plays such a strong role in the novel, indeed, one of its pivotal moments takes place during the famous Sheffield Storm of 1962.

“I heard fantastic stories about the storm,” Susan says. “I describe Maggie seeing a garage flying through the streets of Sheffield in the novel and this is something which actually happened in Sheffield that night.”

Susan really enjoys research and as well as the weather and local history, studied the story of mental asylums. Attitudes and treatments were becoming more humane in the early sixties but nonetheless, people could still find themselves in a mental asylum for situations where today they’d receive sympathy and therapy. Electro-convulsive Therapy (ECT) was being carried out all too regularly to ‘calm’ depressed women but it often suppressed their memory, a truth which Susan uses to good effect in the novel.

For Jonathan’s story, Susan’s many teaching friends gave her such a great insight into the education system that readers have assumed she was a teacher herself, “That’s a huge compliment,” says Susan.

When I ask Susan if she’s always written, she smiles. Her CV is certainly eclectic. She’s enjoyed being a civil servant, cleaner, bar maid and washer-up before working as a chef’s assistant - something she adored until RSI recently forced her to give it up. Susan currently tutors creative writing but has also worked as a journalist and features editor and, most tantalisingly, a cake decorator.

With several promising ‘near misses’ and re-writes along the way, Susan’s route to publication of The Things We Never Said, took her from the gem of an idea in 2005 to her launch date in May this year. Even though she can put her name to hundreds of articles and a non-fiction book, fiction has always been her ambition.

“I’m loving it,” Susan says when I ask if she’s enjoying being a first time novelist. Her novel’s launch day was one of torrential rain which seems quite fitting for an author with a passionate interest in the weather, even if Susan was convinced everybody other than her family, her agent and the loyal friend from Waterstones would stay at home that evening.  She didn’t need to worry, extra chairs had to be put out for all the guests and the 50 books allocated to the launch weren’t enough. Even the pen used for her book signings ran out.

The day Susan found out she was going to be published was not quite so grand, she recalls.

There was a missed call from her agent. ‘I have news,’ a message said, ‘good news.’ Later, as Susan was leaning over to scoop up her dog’s deposits into a poop bag, she chuckled to herself, wouldn’t this be the worst time for her agent to call back? The phone rang. It was her agent. As she tied together the ends of the poop bag, Susan learnt that Simon & Schuster UK were to publish The Things We Never Said.

Susan has already submitted the first draft of her second novel to her publishers who’d like to launch it next summer. The book is loosely based around motherhood, guilt and adoration and again takes place across two eras – the present day and that very hot summer of 1976. Personally, I can’t wait. 

Susan has two signed copies of The Things We Never Said to give away. Click Chase Magazine, page 73 to enter the competition. Hurry! The closing date is 15th August.

Return to Dragons' Den

I’ve reached a milestone today. My blog counter flipped over to a magical round figure: 35,000 which was my target for page views in 2013. So I’d like to say a huge thank you to my lovely readers, you got me to my goal five months early!

It seems apt that I should think about a very early blog post, one which ratcheted up a whopping, wait for it, 35 page views. As I believe I’ve spouted here before, if you’re new to blogging, hang on in there. It takes a while for people to find you in the blogosphere but seeing the number of readers wandering over to your little blog increase in volume, is one of life’s more than simple pleasures.

The post in question is this one: Dragons’ Den for Wannabe Authors and pretty much describes the week I’ve just had, but from three years earlier. The difference is that after three years of editing and re-writing Glass Houses (I have written 70,000 words of another book in-between, honest), I’m happy to say that this time, it didn’t take me to chapter twenty to find a 500 word section of text I liked enough to read out to a room full of writers - published and not-quite published - as well as the truly wonderful cluster of agents musing over whether they should sign me now or wait until the fuss had died down. (Did I mention they’ll be looking particularly beautiful that night?)

But the detail of the abject terror which would ensue should my passage be picked as one of this year’s seven to be read out on stage at the York Festival of Writing’s version of Dragons’ Den, is every bit as real as back then. The difference is that this year, I have absolutely no doubt that this is an opportunity to be grasped with fingers spread wide and pulled into your chest so tight it can’t possibly be snatched away. I remember thinking, ‘there’s your winner,’ when I heard the lovely Shelley Harris read her 500 words on stage during the first York Festival of Writing. Her book, Jubilee, was subsequently published and, gasp, selected (amongst other accolades) for the Richard and Judy Summer Book Club in 2012. Can you imagine! 

So please, wish me luck, I’m about to submit my 500 word section from my novel for potential inclusion in the York Festival of Writing 2013, Friday Night Live.

Be on hand to hose me down if it gets picked, won’t you?

Working With Other People

Today, I’m Celebrating The Small Things, very softly and quietly in fact, creeping in the side door, hoping if I can just sneak onto a pew at the back with the merest of small waves only to interested parties, the rest of the congregation won’t notice that it’s Saturday and I’m a day late.

But I just had to share the love, the love of working with other people. This is not an everyday occurrence when you’ve made the dubious career choice of writing cocooned in the empty study of an even emptier house while the rest of the world is either out playing or thinks you’re actually out playing.

Ok, I realise that the rest of the world isn’t playing, rather working, albeit in grinning teams of people all patting each other on the back – oh, there I go again – but it was better for my story to paint a desolate picture.

I love to write slightly more than I dislike not being with other people so any chance to work with others I snatch up. That’s probably why I love teaching and my editing work so much.

Recently I found out that I’d had my short story, A Life with Additives accepted for publication in the anthology, Stories for Homes which intends to raise money for Shelter, the charity for the homeless. This is a charity which is close to my heart as my parents worked tirelessly for Shelter when I was growing up. So I was double delighted.

The anthology is the brain child of Sally Swingewood and Debi Alper who also came up with the inspired strategy of pairing short story contributors together to help edit each other’s stories. It was a pleasure working with my writing team mate. Thus far, he's managed to stay away from all forms of social media (what IS his secret?) so to protect his privacy, we’ll call him Bob. His story is hysterical. I can’t divulge more at the moment but suffice it to say, after stifling giggles in my favourite writing place, a well-known coffee shop in Harrogate with my extra hot cappuccino on hand, one paragraph had me laughing out loud (my children would tell me I can’t use LOL and I tend to agree) like the archetypal deranged writer in the corner.

Aside from the joys of working in a team, the process reminded me how much I relish feedback. No, really, I do. Of course it would be wonderful if your partner came back with a gasp and a scratch of their head as to how they could possibly help you to make this ground-breaking story of exquisite excellent-ness any better and by the way, had you thought of entering it for the Bridport Prize? But that isn’t going to happen. No two people will ever see the same in a piece of writing. No two people would ever write a story in exactly the same way. And that’s a good thing. That fresh eye showing exactly how the words have bounced off the page on first viewing - let’s not forget that readers of books don’t actually have the time nor inclination to pore over our missives in the same way we do - always throws up howlers and confusions. I’m so happy that I’ve received feedback on my personal howlers and confusions, if a little embarrassed on occasion.

So, I’m celebrating lots of things this *Friday*:

- that my story is to be published
- that the anthology will raise money for a vital charity
- that I was assigned to Bob and his brilliant story and for him pointing out before any readers got to it that the repetition of the musical flute and the fluted of the bowl looked like the main character had a mixing bowl hanging from her lips
- that I’ve had the joy of working with real people this week
- that, although I must work this weekend, the sun is shining so I'm off to do some in the garden.

I hope you're celebrating large and small - please, come share the love...

The Staples in Life

The first known stapler was
handmade for King Louis XV

I’m worried about the future of staplers. I admit, I haven’t given mine a great deal of attention over the past few years and should have shown greater appreciation for its capability and reliability. Quietly it binds clumps of unruly papers together with little complaint and, despite a bent staple in need of extraction with the help of some long scissors occasionally or the odd stapled finger through particularly ambitious attempts at multi-tasking – but we can hardly blame the machine for that - it never goes wrong.

I fear the humble piece of paper will disappear from our lives and what then the use for a stapler? I’m typing this on my pc. I could have done it on an iPad, a tablet or even a phone. What I haven’t done is written it out on a piece of paper first and this from someone who likes nothing more than the feeling of pen making marks on a blank page. If even notebook hoarders like me are using paper less, surely its days are numbered?

And then there’s the pen. Unsurprisingly, as the owner of multiple parker pens, (each refill capable of writing 600 metres of characters, apparently, or 500 of mine, my writing being particularly large and ever more illegible) I don’t want to see them go. Where are they currently made? I have visions of a hive of industry of Charlie and his Chocolate Factory proportions bubbling and fizzing away to bring us this simple contraption. And I wonder if these factories will be turned into flats.

Will print presses go the same way? Will the printed book cave under electronic pressure and the paper versions be confined to the shelves of nostalgic old relics like me, secretly leafing through the remains of the towering To Be Read pile under the dead of night, the guilt of the trees slain for their production weighing heavy?

If the printed book goes? What then of book shelves? Granted they take up a huge amount of space, particularly for those of us who feel the need to keep a book which will never be revisited, just-in-case-someone-wants-to-borrow-it (I never read a book twice, I have too many in my TBR pile for that), but used books to me are another person’s ornaments. They’re not entirely necessary but the sight of them all lined up, the colour they add to the room, the enjoyment I associate with reading, makes me smile. It’s hard to pinpoint what makes a house a home but without the spines of books representing the worlds I’ve frequented and those where I’ve yet to go, mine would feel like something was missing.

If I took the stapler, paper, notebooks, pens and books from my study, it would look like this: 

Yes, I know it wouldn’t need dusting but I don’t do too much of that anyway. Yes I know other things would replace the missing items and I dare say I’d become ridiculously attached to those, too.

But I don’t want to.

I want a world which doesn’t need to be re-charged, which can’t be accessed with such ease that it becomes acceptable to make notes whilst supposedly also in conversation. I want a world where my children talk to their friends on the bus rather than watch YouTube clips on their iPads, where they listen to the teacher in a lesson rather than message their friends in another class. I want a world where you can eat supper and have a drink with friends and nobody feels the need to check that somebody more interesting isn’t texting them or worse, that they’re missing something at work. I want a world where people go on holiday rather than, ‘will be contactable via email’ so that they and their family life returns fully refreshed.

I’m still clinging on to most of that so, for now, I’m Celebrating the Small Things. I’m celebrating the fact that the stapler is still regularly brought out of my drawer.

Clumsy Oaf Award ... would be more apt

Three cups of tea, a handful of mixed almonds, a banana and a 5am start and I *think* I may have my grateful response to the lovely, Amanda Saint’s Liebster Award. It’s taken me a short while to ponder the important things in life – milk, white or dark chocolate, she asks, is it acceptable to answer, ‘all’? - and wince at old memories but I’ve had fun. Thanks so much Amanda!

Amanda isn’t just a great fiction and copywriter but she also runs writers’ retreats, principally in the South of England. And… I think we’ve managed to persuade her to venture up to the Yorkshire Dales in 2014 – I’ll keep you posted. You can find out more about Amanda and her work here Amanda Saint  

The Liebster award asks for the answer to eleven questions, a list of eleven random facts and eleven bloggers whom I’d fervently recommend.

So, let’s go:

What do you do to relax when you suffer from insomnia?
Well, insomnia isn’t really something I know. Give me a flat surface and permission to shut my eyes and sleep will generally follow within a nanosecond or two. However, if it takes any longer than that, I deduce that I’m simply not tired enough, get up, run a bath and read a book. It’s as if someone’s given me a spare hour in the day so I have no problem with it. I do realise that this might be a bit galling for the insomniacs I know and love out there and you have my utter sympathy. Falling asleep is one of life’s simple pleasures and I cannot begin to imagine how awful it must be not to be able to sleep on demand.

What’s the worst holiday you ever had?
Hmm, I’ve had a few which could have been better in parts – usually weather and canvas related - but none that I’d like to erase from memory. The worst couple of days on holiday, however? That’s simple.  May I refer you to Plant Pots and Holiday Nightmares and the screaming two year old on a campsite with an undiagnosed dislocated elbow. Can you imagine? Not a soul got any sleep that night.

Oh, and that screaming toddler was ours.

I spent the night worrying about the reason for the screaming and worrying about being lynched by sleep-deprived holiday-makers and the next day worrying about unhappy campers realising that we were the parents of the child at the root of the sleep carnage induced the night before.

Where’s your favourite place to write?
This is simple. It’s ‘in my feet’ and I’d like to refer you to A writing Place  where I, hopefully, explain it better.

If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
Tofino in Canada. But I’d pick up the whole of Canada, and its wonderful people, and plop it right next to Britain because leaving friends and family is the only thing which stops me moving there tomorrow. That and a visa.

White , dark or milk chocolate?
Milk.

What’s your favourite thing to have on toast?
Bananas and honey.

Which book do you wish you’d written and why?
Brave New World because the world and its obsession with technology with total disregard for human jobs (personal impact on a family aside for a moment, does anyone every think about the fact that machines can’t pay taxes?) upsets me on a daily basis. But whenever I think I should write a book about where we’re headed, I remember Mr Huxley’s beaten me to it. Meanwhile, I’m fighting my own crusade: I will not use automatic tills in shops. Nobody’s noticed, of course, but it makes me feel better.

Film adaptations of novels – love them or hate them?
Good question! I don’t rush to see a film of a book I’ve loved. In fact, I’m more likely to want to watch the adaptation of a book I haven’t enjoyed too much to see if I can find in the film version, what I missed in print. If the film is based on a favourite book of mine, I can watch but it’s with a bit of a squinty eye. Sebastian Faulks’ Bird Song is right up there in my top 10 reads, for example, but, and massive apologies to Eddie Redmayne whom I adore in other films, particularly Les Mis, was one TV adaptation I couldn’t bear. I found it turgid and one dimensional. However, The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay is my favourite book of all time and also one of my favourite films.

Do you think Al Pacino is overrated as an actor?
Overrated? Give the man a knighthood!

Coffee or tea?
Tea. Unless I’m out with friends and then it’s an extra-hot cappuccino, please.

Would you ever do a sky dive?
No! I like sport where either one foot or a wheel is touching the ground at any time. I think I’m far too accident prone to consider anything else.

11 random facts? Some you may already know…

1. I have an inability to watch TV, drink wine or eat chocolate on my own.
2. I like rain (sorry!) - you can get all your jobs done and write a novel, without distraction.
3. I was reprimanded for dropping a burger from the grill in a well-known fast food eatery where I was working because I went to put it in the bin.
4. My hair only went curly when I was 14.
5. My Eustachian tubes are too narrow.
6. I have three sisters, a half-sister, half-brother, three step-sisters, six nephews, five nieces and one step-niece and two daughters who yes, get a lot of birthday presents.
7. When I was ten I broke my arm twice in five minutes.
8. I had the most horrendous hallucinations waking up from a general anaesthetic that had me clinging on to the arm of the anaesthetist until the poor man could finally convince me that they weren’t real.
9. I told him (the anaesthetist) I loved him but then I always fall in love with the anaesthetist when I have a GA – with varying degrees of embarrassment.
10. I have a massive phobia of swimming in the sea. The trouble is, I only tend to remember this when I’ve already swum out a little way…



Utter Clumsy Carnage

11. I am a clumsy oaf. This month I have managed to prang my car (for which I am deeply embarrassed), drop a weight on the glass hob and smash it (for which I am deeply sorry) and spill an entire cup of tea on our beige carpet (for which I am cross as I’m sick of scrubbing at it with ‘spot’ cleaner – try ‘flood’ cleaner and I might have more success). Even chanting the no crying over spilt milk mantra does wear a little thin when the amount of milk you’ve spilt could fill a small tanker.

If you look closely, you can see two people. Neither of these is me.

Now to find 11 original questions of my own. I apologise, this is more difficult than it looks…

1. Cheese or chocolate?
2. If you had to go on Britain’s Got Talent, what would you do? (Apart from run away …)
3. What’s your best childhood memory?
4. Favourite song lyric?
5. If you could ask one question of your great-grandmother, what would it be?
6. Have you ever lived abroad?
7. What’s your dream job?
8. What job couldn’t they pay you enough money to do?
9. If you were prime minster, what would be your first priority?
10. Twitter or Facebook?
11. What would your perfect day look like?

My list of eleven. Difficult as ever but I’ve decided to go for five blogs I’ve discovered over the past few months and some old favourites. Please do go and take a look, they’re worth it!

• MJ Joachim 
• Get On With It - Karen, you’ve just answered something similar so I understand if you’d rather not respond this time (but would love to see your answers if you could squeeze this in…)
• AJ Goode
• Journey Girl - Cate
• Rowena Dunn 
• Excuse Me While I Note That Down
• Standing Naked at a Bus Stop
• Sarsm's Blog
• Alison Percival - Alison, you’ve been a bit quiet of late, come back!
• Between The Sheets
• Gap Years - The Book

Liebster Award Rules:

• Thank the blogger who presented you with the Liebster Award, and link back to his or her blog. 
• Answer the 11 questions from the nominator; list 11 random facts about yourself, and create 11 questions for your nominees. 
• Present the Liebster Award to 11 bloggers, who have blogs with 200 followers or less, whom you feel deserve to be noticed.
• Leave a comment on the blogs letting the owners know they have been chosen. (No tag backs.)
• Upload the Liebster Award image to your blog. 

Instructions Enclosed

I’ve been away, only upstairs in my study but nonetheless, cocooned in another world, immersed in words - some my own, most those of others - on the Writers' Workshop Self-editing Course. It was sent by those writing gods in the sky via a well-placed tweet, neatly packaged up with my name all over it.

I *may* have mentioned my excitement about the fantastic feedback I had from an agent who read my latest manuscript and thus motivated me to freeze work on my second novel, Misguidance, in favour of an editing frenzy of Glass Houses. We need more of Etta, the agent told me. So, me, my notebook and a good dose of Scrivener set to work writing more scenes and extending existing ones.

What I didn’t tell you, was that I was doing it wrong. Not all of it, I’d like to point out, but Etta, my lead supporting role, poor love, she was wrong.

We don’t just want more of Etta, my insightful course tutors and writing buddies told me, we want more: more love, more heart-string-tugging, more despair. We need to be thrown deep inside, allowed to delve around, pull out her heart and examine what makes it beat. We want her on display, we need to see her, really see her.

It’s obvious now. But sometimes you have to be slapped around the face with the full force of the 380 sheets of A4 manuscript before you really see it. 

But while my brain was being washing-machined with questions, ideas and more questions, something had to give - and that was life. Together with the bills which weren’t paid and the sheets which weren’t changed, my books lay forlorn, untouched, forgotten. Instructions for a Heatwave lay open at page 58 like the sails on the Mary Celeste which is staggering for a book that, like every other of the wonderful, Maggie O’Farrell’s, in any other time of my life, would be adjudged un-put-down-able. And my towering TBR pile stood stock still, save for the odd tremor caused by the vibrations as my head beat itself against the desk on its way to my great light bulb of a moment that we’ll just call, ‘More Etta’.

Six weeks on and I have been flung out of the end of the course and told to get re-writing. Normal life is starting to seep back in. At the last count I was on page 101 of Instructions for a Heatwave and I have moved my tutor, Debi Alper’s Trading Tatiana to the top of my TBR pile; it’s the least you can do when an author changes your editing life. And as a reminder of how reading for me is one of the best and most simple of life’s many pleasures, my reviews of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows as well as The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue are available to read in Chase Magazine, page 16.

I particularly adored these books, the first a recommendation and the second, because, like many others, I was blown away by Room. It came as a surprise to me that The Sealed Letter bears little resemblance to Room, save for the distinctive author’s voice. Personally? I think it’s even better. 

And finally, while I was away I wasn't completely forgotten by the lovely and talented, Amanda Saint who nominated me for her 'Liebster' award. I was truly touched and will dedicate my next post to a response. As my commitment to Celebrating the Small Things has also been a little neglected of late, it seems fitting to dedicate my Liebster award to the Small Things – even if getting any award is slightly bigger in my world than that :)

Let Them Eat Cake!

I’ve been to a few parties lately, I’m delighted to say. There was my friend’s 50^th where I came away feeling relieved that actually, even at around half a century, we danced for hours and looked more young than old - only to be flattened by my children who’d been waitressing there, had ample chance to view all invited guests and felt compelled to comment on just how ancient we all were.

I also went to a friend’s 30^th a few months ago, although to be honest, I can’t claim to be invited to too many of those these days. But, despite wearing a bag over my head and the highest heels to mask the frumpy inadequacy of having fourteen more years to my tally than most of the invitees, I had a fantastic time with the wonderful guests and came away thinking they were no different to me. Thankfully, my daughters were not in the vicinity to pass comment.

I’m going to a 21^st this week - anybody know where I can find a pair of 24 inch heels? – and this got me thinking about a post I wrote a couple of years ago when my blog was quite new. A whopping eight people read it. (Any new bloggers out there? Stick with it, it does get better!) So I figured I could get away with re-posting it. Mum? I’m sorry, you’ve read this before...

I don’t know why people get upset about being 40. There’s a whole industry devoted to telling us we should, but I say, it's time to have your cake and eat plenty of it.

Hear me out on this.

My teenage memory of my father’s 40^th was that he spent the entire previous year moaning about it which really rather overshadowed the whole event. I thought it was a bit of a shame, not to mention slightly tedious to live with, after all, he didn’t seem any different to me when the calendar flicked to July 4^th of THAT year.

About three years ago I started celebrating 40^th birthdays with a vengeance. It started with my older sister’s where we got to dance with Kevin Adams – swoon - the choreographer from Fame Academy during a pamper weekend with our other sisters. I left the three day weekend topped up with love and joie de vivre. Every few months thereafter another party popped up. Champagne flowed and friends buzzed with the excitement, and the planning, of the special day – a lot like a wedding really – a whole group of people keen to party with you because they like you.

I don’t think it gets much better than that.

And then came mine. It was a surprise, not the birthday you understand, but the party really was. I know, it was ridiculously naive not to suspect. Everybody knows I love a surprise – and magic - and that’s what I got. I will remember that party for ever. My 40^th year was a bumper year of celebrations. Three fortieths in one week was the record, like Four Weddings and a Funeral all over again.

And there’s the rub.

I’m sad to say that I have been to funerals too, three for people who didn’t make it to 45. I think the least I can do is be grateful for being one of those fortunate enough to reach another milestone.

And nobody could claim they didn’t know. There’s no cackling imp on your shoulder one morning, hissing the words to Happy Birthday before announcing that, although you thought you were 20 with no dependents, no money and no cares, the harsh reality is that you’re double that. 

I didn’t feel any different when I tipped over into the forties, save for feeling a little more special for a few days because all my lovely friends and family had made such a special effort for me, but my hair didn’t suddenly sport a grey hue (well and truly sprouting now though, isn’t it? – Ed), nor did, alas, my spots disappear back to my teenager years where they really should have stayed in the first place. My dodgy hip didn’t sort itself out as a good will gesture but nor did it get worse overnight. The things I ‘hadn’t done’ at 40 I also hadn’t done at 39 and the things I have on my to-do list – getting Glass Houses published, please - well I’m a whole lot closer to them happening in my forties than I was two years ago.

So you see, I think it’s all a big con, an inspired ploy by the greeting cards industry. And I propose a counter move. I shall set up my own niche market: the Formidable Forty-Ones because surely 41 has the potential to be much more depressing? When do you ever hear anybody ask more than a day in advance, ‘What are you doing for your 41^st?’ or, ‘Are you planning a surprise party for [insert beloved’s name]’s 41st? Let me know if there’s anything I can do.’ Do you ever see anybody collecting photos in a clandestine manner for an embarrassing 41^st slide show? Or having them enlarged to A2 and giggling with excitement at the result with the bemused printer? 

No. And this needs to be rectified. My best selling card will be, ‘No surprises, no big presents, no bubbly...’ and as the chintzy music plays on opening, the words, ‘but we still love you all the same,’ will spring out. Corny? Oh yes. But if you can’t be slushy on your friend’s 41^st, when can you be?

Happy Day to all of you! And may you always feel younger than you are. (Unless you’re eight, of course, and then it’s the other way around – Ed.)