Moving On

Exactly five years ago, at the beginning of January 2012, I submitted my first book reviews to Chase Magazine. I'd toiled for ridiculously many hours over them, I always over-prep when I'm nervous, my way of coping. Thankfully, the reviews were accepted and three editors and 30 bi-monthly issues later, my final two page spread has just been published. I've only glanced at it. I don’t want to wallow but feel quite sad about the situation - a bit like your child leaving home, I imagine, you know it's going to happen, you're excited for them but still your heart breaks a little.

Simply, life got too busy and something had to give. That's a good thing, I know. I'd hate to be bored. Besides, it's somebody else's turn now. Someone who'll read different books to me and see different things in them.

Chase introduced me to books I'd never have entertained, particularly biographies and other non-fiction, and gave me the excuse to continue reading 'unputdownable' books whilst stirring a sauce, ironing (you need a recipe book stand for this – or a Kindle), on the exercise bike, walking home, when-I-should-have-been-doing-proper-work. I have yet to try reading a book whilst running - those of you who know my accident prone self, will be relieved to hear this - but I have discovered Audible books for the gym.

I'm certainly not planning on doing any less reading, but I admit to relishing the chance to choose titles forced to be neglected at the bottom of my To Be Read pile because they were too similar in genre to a book I'd recently reviewed.  

Meanwhile, to mark the end of this era, I thought I'd look back through every book review spread and come up with my Top Ten of Chase reads over the past five years. How hard could it be?

Very, very hard.

I've reviewed 81 books and the best I can manage is a top 18. And that took me two days of soul searching. I feel that if I gave it any more thought I'd change my mind again and for that reason, I'm also going to post the remaining titles in their own, 'Highly Recommended List'. I only ever review books I love and thus it seems wrong to leave any out.

  

I'm keen to know how many of these you've read and what would be on your own top ten of the last five years. Please do share with us!

Meanwhile, thank you to Joe Cawthorn and all the team at Chase. They are a wonderfully kind and talented group of people to work with and I've had a ball :D

My Top 18

1.       Defending Jacob by William Landay, published by Orion Books in 2012.
Did he, didn't he? And a brilliant twist at the end.

2.       Flying Under Bridges by Sandi Toksvig, published by Sphere in 2001.
Wonderful dark humour – just why is this sassy woman narrating from prison?

3.       Perfect by Rachel Joyce, Published by Doubleday in 2013.
Great characters, brilliant observation, pithy narration.

4.       The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood, published by Headline Review in 2016.
Massive feel-good factor from wonderfully quirky characters.

5.       A Song For Issy Bradley by Carys Bray, published by Hutchinson in 2014.
Wonderful characterisation, a sometimes humorous, enormously fascinating tear jerker.

6.       We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, published by Serpent's Tail in 2014.
So clever and I love the way Fowler tells a story.

7.       When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman, published by Headline Review in 2011.
One about rocky rides, growing up and older, and the power of love and relationships.

8.       The Devil’s Music by Jane Rusbridge, published by Bloomsbury in 2010.
Beautifully descriptive writing of characters dealing with different recollections of childhood.

9.       Crossing The Line by Christian Plowman, Published by Mainstream Publishing Company in 2013.
A superbly written auto-biographical account of undercover officer, Plowman's, torrid working life.

10.   The Tell-Tale Heart by Jill Dawson, published by Sceptre in 2014.
Does a transplanted heart bring a soul with it? Great question, great fiction narrated by three very different characters.

11.   Glasshopper by Isabel Ashdown, published by Myriad Editions in 2009.
Life with an alcoholic mother told through the delicious voice of adorable (and humorous) 13 year old Jake.

12.   The Boy Who Could See Demons by Carolyn Jess-Cooke, published by Piatkus in 2012.
Unlike anything I'd normally read and had me guessing right to the end.

13.   The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty, published by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2013.
Couldn't put this down. What is the secret in the envelope: 'For my wife' and how on earth can this be resolved?

14.   The Things We Never Said, published by Simon & Schuster UK in 2013.
Hooked from the off – why on earth is Maggie in a 1960's mental asylum?

15.   The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue, published by Picador in 2012.
An unusual step into historical fiction for me, but with contemporary narration. Fascinating story based on truth.

16.   The Woman Before Me by Ruth Dugdall, published by Legend Press in 2010.
A psychological drama based on love and loss. Characters I still remember today.

17.   The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer, published by The Borough Press in 2014.
Principally a book for teens but I devoured it. How Matthew, who suffers with schizophrenia, deals with his brother's death. Another emotional, humorous, life-affirming tale.

18.   Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson, published by Black Swan in 2012.
Gripped by the story and impressed by the brilliantly complicated premise.

My Highly Recommended (in alphabetical order)

• A Barrow Boy's Cadenza (Kind Hearts and Martinets), by Pete Adams, published by Urbane Publications in June 2015.
• All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews, published by Faber & Faber in 2015.
• Awful Auntie by David Walliams, published by Harper Collins Children's Books in 2016.
• Christmas Cupcakes by Annie Rigg, published by Ryland Peters & Small in 2011.
• Christmas Magic by Kate Shirazi, published by Pavilion Books in 2012.
• Christmas with Gordon by Gordon Ramsay, published by Quadrille Publishing Ltd. in 2011.
• Close of Play by PJ Whiteley, published by Urbane Publications in April 2015.
• Cloud Riders by Nick Cook, published by Three Hares Publishing in 2014.
• Daisy in Chains by Sharon Bolton, published by Bantam Press in 2016.
• Dear Thing by Julie Cohen, published by Bantam Press in 2014.
• Do No Harm by Henry Marsh, published by Phoenix in 2014.
• Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey, published by Penguin in 2014.
• Feel the Fear (Ruby Redfort, book four) by Lauren Child, published by Harper Collins children's Books in 2015.
• Flight by Isabel Ashdown, published by Myriad Editions in May 2015.
• Gorgeous Christmas by Annie Bell, published by Kyle Cathie Limited in 2009.
• How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury by Cressida Cowell, published by Hodder Children’s Books in 2015.
• Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell, published by Tinder Press in 2013.
• Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult, published by Hodder Paperbacks in July 2015.
• Little Gypsy by Roxy Freeman, published by Simon & Shuster UK in 2011.
• Me Before You by Jojo Moyles, Published by Penguin in 2012.
• Mrs Sinclair's Secret by Louise Walters, published by Hodder Paperbacks in 2014.
• On a Beam of Light, A Story by Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne, published by Chronicle in 2013 (children's literature).
• Paradise Lodge by Nina Stibbe, published by Viking in 2016 (Young Adult).
• Please, Mister Postman by Alan Johnson, published by Corgi in 2015.
• Rook by Jane Rusbridge, published by Bloomsbury Circus in 2012.
• Salvage The Bones by Jesmyn Ward, published by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2012.
• She is Not Invisible by Marcus Sedgwick, published by Indigo in 2014 (Young Adult).
• Start With Your Sock Drawer by Vicky Silverthorn with Emma Cooling, published by Sphere in 2016.
• Starter for Ten by David Nicholls, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2004. 
• Stone Seeds by Jo Ely, published by Urbane Publications in 2016.
• Stranger Child by Rachel Abbott, published by Black Dot Publishing in 2015.
• Survivor by Tom Hoyle, published by Macmillan Children’s Books in 2015.
• Sweet home by Carys Bray, published by Windmill Books in 2016.
• The Brilliant & Forever by Kevin MacNeil, published by Polygon in 2016.
• The Children Act by Ian McEwan, published by Vintage in April 2015.
• The Fault in our Stars by John Green, published by Penguin in 2013 (Young Adult).
• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, published by Abacus in 2014.
• The Good Children by Roopa Farooki, published by Tinder Press in 2014.
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows, Published by Bloomsbury in 2008.
• The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood, published by Bloomsbury in September 2015.
• The Humans by Matt Haig, Published by Canongate Books in 2013.
• The Idiot Brain: A Neuroscientist Explains What Your Head is Really Up To, by Dean Burnett, published by Guardian Faber Publishing in February 2016.
• The Kindness by Polly Samson, published by Bloomsbury paperbacks in 2016. 
• The Last of Us by Rob Ewing, published by the Borough Press in 2016.
• The Life and Loves of a He Devil: A Memoir by Graham Norton, published by Hodder Paperbacks in July 2015.
• The Little Book of Lunch, by Caroline Craig and Sophie Missing, published by Square Peg in 2014.
• The Lonely Life of Biddy Weir by Lesley Allen, published by Twenty7 in 2016.
• The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce, published by Transworld Books in 2014.
• The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins, published by Black Swan in 2012.
• The Man Who Forgot His Wife by John O’Farrell, published by Black Swan in 2012.
• The Runaway Smile by Nicholas Rossis, published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing in 2014.
• The Secrets We Left Behind by Susan Elliot Wright, published by Simon & Schuster in 2014.
• The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, published by Vintage Books in 2012.
• The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, by Joanna Cannon, published by The Borough Press in 2016.
• The Undertaking by Audrey Magee, published by Atlantic Books in 2014. .
• The Woman Who Went to Bed For a Year by Sue Townsend, published by Penguin in 2012.
• The World According To Bob by James Bowen, published by Hodder and Stoughton in 2014.
• Tom Kerridge’s Proper Pub Food by Tom Kerridge, published by Absolute Press in 2013.
• Until You’re Mine by Samantha Hayes, published by Arrow Books Ltd. in 2014.
• Us by David Nicholls, published by Hodder Paperbacks in May 2015.
• Vigilante by Shelley Harris, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in January 2015.
• What On Earth Wallbook from The Big Bang to the Present Day, by Christopher Lloyd and Andy Forshaw, published by What On Earth Publishing Ltd., in 2015 (age 10+).

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  

A Day that Was

You know those days when you collapse into bed, pull the duvet up around your ears and, totally spent, realise that was a day that was? That day was Friday 9 December.

It started like any other day. Bags packed for Newark, boot loaded with books, back seat stashed with Christmas presents, and me, bursting with good intentions of not being late to meet my mum for lunch in our new favourite coffee house, Strays in Newark. I was thwarted, of course, by my just-one-more-email habit and thus screeched into my mum's drive a *little* later than intended. Still, we managed our sandwich, and threw in a bonus second coffee (and mince pie) at the end of the afternoon as well, so I think I'm forgiven.

Meanwhile, I had the small matter of my talk at Newark library. I was nervous. Even more nervous than usual. There's something about speaking in front of people you know which makes you feel much more self-conscious, don't you think? It's where the 'worst case scenario strategy' doesn’t work anymore: if I trip when I stand up from my seat and drag the chair leg with me to the front of the stage before propelling myself into the lap of the unfortunate person who chose a front row seat, then, scuttling back into position, forget why on earth I'm standing in front of all these people and wonder if they'd be happy to hear about the contents of my Christmas shopping list because that's all I can think about right now, - then hey! It's not so bad because I'll never see these people again.

Oh yes, I will.

And if you think that the above is a figment of my warped imagination, click here to see why my fears have valid substance.

In the audience were some school friends, including one I hadn't seen for thirty years (remembered fondly for walking me home from many a night out in Newark, we being the only two who had the misfortune to live an hour's walk from the pubs) together with the handful of others who constantly support my endeavours. While it warms my heart to know they are with me once again, I don't want to let them down. I recognised some lovely tweeps with whom I've bonded over cancer on-line (I told you cancer wasn’t all bad). One even brought me a present of gorgeous, home-made, paraben-free (oh yes) soap and lip balm. With her were a gaggle of fire safety officers, passionate about keeping phones out of cars. You would be wouldn't you, if you attended the road traffic accidents they do. And last but certainly not least was the local radio presenter, June Rowlands, with whom I'll be chatting on air on the 29^th January. I was humbled that June took the time to come and listen and while it was wonderful to meet her in person, there was the niggling fear that five minutes into the talk, she would fiercely regret ever booking me in the first place. All this in addition to the many new faces who'd taken time out of a busy Friday afternoon in December to listen to me, when I suspect they had the odd other job to do.

It's fair to say, I felt the pressure.

I'm happy to report that my feet stayed firmly planted in position with no suggestion of a stumble (although I note from my friend's photograph that I was crossing my ankles and my physio - she's not strictly 'my' physio, you understand, but it feels like that sometimes -  would take a very dim view). I remembered what I wanted to say and said it in just about the allotted time frame. Although this is remarkable in itself, it isn't what will make the day memorable.

It was everybody else's input.

There were so many pertinent questions and anecdotes from people's lives relating to the themes of Glass Houses and Tea & Chemo and they kept on coming, so much so that I felt compelled to flash a glance or two at the organiser of the event to check it was ok that we were all still there. We spent a long time on the meaning of life, including near death experiences, but trust me when I say that it was a truly upbeat conversation about getting the most from life. I stood in that room in Newark library and all the rubbish, both globally and closer to home of the last few years, seemed so far away in those two hours. There was so much positivity even though people were talking about quite harrowing experiences. One lady even spoke about her mother who died as the result of a road traffic accident and how, it took a year, but eventually she felt compelled to talk to the driver of the car. She needed to let the driver know that she forgave them, that she knew it wasn't intentional. She had to express her forgiveness so that the driver could move on with their life. And thus so she could move on, too. I think there were a lot of us in the room holding it together at that point. What an incredible lady.

Some normality returned as I drove home, touching 50mph maximum because the run flat light had come on in the car. It's the second time in two long trips for me that this has happened. Me and this car do not get on. Still, at least we didn't have this little experience which is what happened last time the light came on. 

Only a few people beeped and gesticulated to make sure I was under no illusions that I am an idiot. I think I need to construct a sign saying that I am driving in the inside lane of the dual carriageway at 50mph because otherwise I will have a blow-out and that, my friend, is going to slow up your journey even more than the speed I'm currently driving which, by the way, is much more frustrating for me as I have to do it all the way home.

I didn't mind the elongated journey. I was happy to stay in the moment. There is much goodness in the world and it isn't the total bleakness we can trick ourselves into thinking. Ordinary folk, the ones having the ordinary days, are doing extraordinary things. People put up with so much in their lives and keep smiling, keep being kind to others and if we want to feel better about the world, I wonder if we should simply look to those closer to home.

There is madness. I have an enormous dollop of Weltschmerz sitting in my head at the moment, like so many of us. I really do fear that the world may not exist in any recognisable form for even my children's generation, for so many and varied reasons. But I came away thinking that people never really change. People are the constant and people are what might just make it work out in the long run.

That is why that Friday afternoon in Newark Library will be a day to remember for me.

Thank you so much to everybody who came along, to the library for their organisation, to those who spoke and those who listened and those who enthused. It was a day that was. 

Thinly Disguised Campaign?

Glass Houses isn't a thinly disguised anti-texting while driving campaign – although if it made people think twice before lifting their phone, after doing the research I had to do for Glass Houses, nobody would be happier about that than me.

Where Glass Houses really came from is the subject of a talk I'm doing at Newark Library on Friday 9^th December at 2pm and I'd love you to join me. There'll be an opportunity for chat and questions and to buy signed copies of Glass Houses and Tea & Chemo. Refreshments provided, of course!

And I promise the whole event will be a lot more jolly than my introduction might have lead you to believe.

For further information and to register (entrance is free but the library request that you sign up in advance, please) click here: contact details and map. 

Hope to see you there!

Great Coffee, A Few Tears...

Thanks so much to everybody who came to Stray's book shop and fantabulous  - it truly is - café in Newark last Saturday. It was magical to see old friends, parents of friends who couldn’t make it, two of my former teachers, new readers and of course, my mum, my brilliant pseudo-agent for The Midlands :) 

Big thanks to Stu, for his photography and event management (i.e. the pub, ahem, the pubs, afterwards). Great night! We sold lots of copies of both Glass Houses and Tea & Chemo and I'm ever grateful to everyone who takes time out of their busy Saturdays to ensure us poor little writers aren't sitting alone with a pile of books as high as my To Be Read pile and a bowl of chocolates we're trying not to eat.

Thanks also to 'Louise's hubbie' who reduced everybody within earshot to tears when we heard that he had, unbeknownst to Louise, come in to buy her a signed copy of Tea & Chemo. Recently diagnosed with cancer, Louise and I have become Twitter buddies and she had wanted to come in herself. Unfortunately, her plans were thwarted by a complication following her mastectomy operation.

Louise thought hubbie was just in Newark to buy Ibuprofen but no, he procured said signed copy, earned himself humongous caring husband points from the doting crowd and probably reduced Louise to tears when he got home, too. I'd like to wish Louise and her husband, and everyone in the same loathsome boat, all the very best as they continue their journey of beating cancer to a pulp. I am with you in spirit, willing you to that finish post.

I hate cancer. I hate that it still exists but, for the moment, it does. So please, check yourselves. It won't stop you getting cancer, but early diagnosis might save your life.

Meanwhile, the lovely Katherine of Bibliomaniac has been busy again and this time she's talking about Tea & Chemo over on her blog. Katherine is masterful at thinking up original questions so I've had fun conjuring up my responses to things I haven't been asked before. You can read the post here.

Jumped Ship

Just popping in to say that I've jumped ship to a different blog today. I'm over on 'BiblioManiac', Katherine Sunderland's wonderful book review site. I'm talking about Glass Houses via some new and exceedingly clever questions such as 'the most difficult character to write' and 'what's the deal with the glass??'

And here's a link to Katherine's review of Glass Houses which brought me to real, big fat tears because this is exactly what I'd hoped people would find in the novel. Thank you so much, Katherine, the review alone must have taken hours.

Meanwhile, I'm still stuck on 6,000+ words of The Tree House (more about this here) but today is the day that I change that. So I shall leave you in the eloquent hands of Katherine and continue tapping away in the very much unfinished world of Evelyn, Joan and Bea. 

Have a wonderful week, whether you're a NaNo writer, or way too sane for that. 

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.  

Home is Where the Pin is

When I was posting an event on Facebook earlier for my latest Glass Houses signing in Newark, and when I was so excited to see lots of familiar faces from my past and present showing their interest, I remembered a story-cum-memoir about my move to Newark in the late 70s. 

Much-loved Newark Market Place

I remembered the account as being quite an amusing tale. However, re-reading it now, I found it quite emotional. This wasn't just about the plunge back into those first few terrifying weeks of life for a ten year old in a new town, although the memories did make me gulp a little, nor was it much to do with the throwback to the 'sandshoes' incident which will always make me cringe. It was the reminder of the friends I'd made and how much had happened before I left Newark eight years later, which made me sniff a little.   

Suffice it to say, I am ridiculously excited about going back to Newark for a book signing at Stray's Bookshop and Coffee Bar on Saturday 12 November. Local folk, or if you just fancy a day out in Newark ("Yes, it's on the train line to London."), I would love you to come and say hello. As you may have noticed, wherever I sign a book, I'm never far from a quality, often quirky, bookshop café and Stray's is no exception. More details here. 

I hope you enjoy the beginning of Home is Where the Pin is. Click on the link to my website at the end of the extract if you'd like to know what happened to Poe (name changed to protect his identity :)

“Sandshoes,” I said. That was all it took. Would we need our sandshoes for the PE lesson in the hall with the piano, stage and non-sport related paraphernalia pushed to the side? I’d come from a middle school, you see. We had timetables and different teachers. And French. And we certainly didn’t have a hall-cum-theatre. Oh no! We had a gym. In our gym we wore sandshoes, unless we were doing gymnastics and then we had bare feet.

It seemed a safe question to me in this terrifying place that was Farndon Primary School, where, if people did understand what I was saying, they certainly weren’t letting on.

“Say it again without the ‘man’ in it,” one eleven year old ordered.

“It’s not ‘why aye’,” said another with more of a snarl, “it’s ‘yes’, just ‘yes’, you ‘dimler’.” This was Poe. He had white hair and tight blue eyes, thin lips which never really moved, even when he spoke, just rested on the slim gap between them. From that moment on, Poe ruled that I would be known as ‘Y Eye’.

Did we need to wear our sandshoes in the hall? Get it wrong and the laughter would start all over again. Had I realised that my question would be the cause of such mirth, pre-pubescent children writhing around in hysterics like the Martians in the Smash advert, I would have simply waited until the last minute, risked a telling off from Miss - considerably preferable to the ridicule of my peers - and taken my lead from others in the group.

I was only a day into my eight weeks with a class of children a year older than me; the only room in June to be found at the inn at this late stage in the season. My antenna for derision-inducing-dialect was becoming more proficient but it was still an imperfect model: more of an Apple 1 computer than a MacBook Pro.

“Ignore them,” Sarah said, a lone voice in the cacophony of references to deserts, sweaty feet, beach towels and deck chairs. She was my buddy, assigned to look after me, and she rose to the challenge as best her eleven year old self could.

“Enough!” Miss said, “Goodness, not everybody’s from Farndon!” No, they weren’t but I wasn’t sure my classmates needed any reminding.

I don’t remember whether we did or didn’t need sandshoes that day but I can vouch for a ‘sandshoe’ being a ‘plimsoll’ ever since.../cont'd here 

Onward Travel

This Saturday I'll be in Cardiff, a city very close to my heart for many and varied reasons.

Half my family are from South Wales and annual trips for the two week summer holiday from Wylam, our bijoux village in Northumberland, to Bridgend to stay with my tiny, pepper pie making, story-telling grandma and our slightly terrifying but softly spoken, one sweet-a-day-from-the-tin giving grandpa, are a staple memory of my youth.

I remember weather watching after the 6 o'clock news – no Apps back then - to find the best day for our visit to Swansea beach or our essential trip to the local cinema on inclement days. From Wylam, you had to travel to Newcastle to see a film and so we never did, which meant our holiday visits were a Big Deal. Then there were the trips to Auntie E and Uncle E who doted and fussed and plied our enormous family with the best-ever filled sandwiches and if we were lucky, let us print photos in the dark room. If we were really lucky, we were allowed to stay the night and marvel at our equally doting and very grown up twin cousins who got up at 6am to set their hair in rollers before going to work.

I'm sure they were delighted to have the very young me around at that time as they made their preparations to leave.

But my strongest memory of them all is spending most of our days on the glorious foot high wall which edged our grandparents' front garden. It seemed enormous at the time and it was only in later years that I realised the garden, although pristinely kept, was little bigger than the footprint of the house. The wall, with its slightly curved hard stone top, provided the perfect beam for my three gymnastics-mad sisters and me to choreograph and 'perfect' our routines, ready for the shows for interested adults at the end of the day.  

But Cardiff? Well, my older sister went to university in Cardiff and thus I was afforded my first real taste of freedom at sweet sixteen. Mind you, as well as the 'hanging out' with incredibly cool students (they were three years older and, at 16, you don't get much cooler than that, do you?) etched in my brain are also the memories of Birmingham Bus Station.

Oh my!

I had to travel from Newark via Nottingham and change at Birmingham for onward travel to the final change in Bristol before reaching my destination, surprisingly only five hours later.

How I ever managed the logistical feat of boarding a bus in Birmingham remains a mystery.

There was a 'unique' system where people were ejected from their first coach into an area the size of a school playground which was already screaming at the edges before the coach crawled in. The flock of onward travelling passengers were then left to fend for themselves. No chance of a cup of tea in a white plastic cup, even if I could have afforded it, picture being centre of the Mosh Pit when Wham! were playing and you'll know why keeping a firm footing was my first concern.  

My second concern was 'The Announcement'. Would I hear it? Even back then my hearing wasn't my best asset and add to the mob of people the crackling loud speaker, and deciphering the instruction, 'Bristol bound, Zone E' was every bit as stressful as the anticipation of O-levels. Even back then, deep in the middle of the Eighties, five foot one and three quarters was pretty tiny and never did I feel smaller: invisible. And younger. My memory of the view of the others in the crush to catch the coach was grey with a purple tinge - and just because these people were four times my age, doesn’t mean they couldn't bustle and jostle with the rest of them.

Birmingham Coach Station, 2009,
after its £15m refurbishment

Once the coach had pulled into its allotted zone, and the hopeful passengers had lolloped and sprinted and hurdled their way to the awaiting coach, there was one more obstacle to onward travel. The seats were a free-for-all and I'd miss an average of three coaches before finally snagging a place on each journey. In addition to my size and youth, I blame my Mum for teaching me to queue. I do remember feeling very Mary Whitehouse about the rudeness of it all.

Still, my ticket cost about 3p so mustn't grumble.

Once there of course, hanging out with my very mature and all-knowing big sis who just wanted me to have 'the best time', I fell in love with Cardiff: the city nightlife, the university union, the castle, the sport, the shops. All this so close to your student digs? Life couldn’t get better than this. In fact, I'd have considered it as a university option if it hadn't been 'my sister's city'. No matter, she lived there for many years after and I've been visiting the city ever since.

And why am I travelling to Cardiff this time? I'm privileged to have been appointed Writer in Residence at Octavo's in West Bute Street where you will find me between 11 and 4pm on Saturday 15^th October. I'll be signing books, hosting a Q & A at 1pm and basically being in a gorgeous book shop in Cardiff, so, please do come visit if you're remotely local. You'll receive a warm welcome from me and the super friendly staff, the beautiful book shop is bursting with new reads, advice and well, cakes... 

...and lunch!

The idea is that if you don’t turn up, I sit, surrounded by books and a stone's throw from their pretty gorgeous looking café, and write. I admit that on a normal day this would be absolutely no hardship to me, however, this Saturday is different. I love, love, love to meet readers (and potential readers) of Glass Houses and Tea & Chemo – actually, it's just nice to chat with any fellow readers, in fact, just chatting generally is right up there with cafes and Prosecco and a run in the hills for me. 

Oh, and as well as a Book Café, Octavo's is also a wine bar.

See you in Cardiff, I hope!

Apologies - too busy
  to take photos, really!

PS 

Thanks so much to everyone who came to Waterstones in Harrogate last Saturday. There was a wonderful buzzy atmosphere, lovely to see happy faces old and new and… we sold every last copy of Glass Houses :)

Glass Houses: Harrogate Waterstones

On Saturday 8^th October, 1-3pm, I'll be signing copies of Glass Houses at Waterstones in Harrogate and it would be lovely to see you there.

The event is part of the nationwide Waterstones Bookshop Day with quizzes and prize draws taking place around the store, not to mention the opportunity to try out the new Harrogate Waterstones café. Being somewhat of an Aficionado of Harrogate coffee shops, and purely for research purposes obviously, I have had a couple trips to the extensive café on the first floor where I secured one of the window seats over-looking the high street and the special offer cappuccino with toasted teacake. I can vouch for it being a quality experience, suitable for chatting or writing, and you know, surprisingly reasonable.

Apart from the relief of seeing friendly faces so that I don’t look like the girl who wandered into the store and fancied a sit down, it would be wonderful if we could fill the shop and really celebrate the traditional bookshop. It isn't that I'm averse to on-line sales or eBook reading. It's simply that I'd like both formats to travel hand in hand into the next few years so that those who want to browse in book shops, seek recommendations, read the blurb, flick to the middle pages and carry the book home in a cute little (environmentally friendly) paper bag, will still have the opportunity to do so. 

For further details, click here.

Hope to see you on Saturday – please come and say hello!