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.)

Don't Spill your Soup.

I've been too focussed on the ‘Etta problem’, aka trying to make the reader love my unassuming, guilt-ridden, loyal, stubborn, big-hearted, unswervingly ethical, joint main character, just as much as I do, and hiding eggs for the Easter egg hunt (what do you mean, aren’t they teenagers? Well, hubbie’s 42 and he’s never let a pesky little thing like age get in the way of a chocolate scramble) to think about posting. Even though, dear blog, I have missed thee over the past two weeks.

However, I am desperate to tell you about two books which really surprised me in how much I enjoyed them. The first, Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, would certainly have passed me by had it not been for the furore I stumbled across over at that large internet book and kitchen sink seller. A reviewer had let out an enormous stinking, howler of a spoiler. The cover has far too many silver stars and sprinkles of glitter for my usual higher echelons of cerebral taste - ok, I'm just not drawn to books with stars on - but the review war had my interest piqued.

Before reading Me Before You, I admit I thought the heated discussion was all a little unnecessary. If somebody was going to get so upset by a spoiler then I wondered if they might prefer to stay away from the high-risk strategy of reading reviews. However, after being absolutely engrossed in and emotionally battered by this tale of a quadriplegic contemplating euthanasia, I was bound to admit that the spoiler really did have the potential to ruin reading and wasn’t one which would be easily forgotten.

Have I hidden the spoiler well enough? I truly hope so!

The second book is The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend. Now, I admit to turning my back on Ms Townsend after devouring Adrian Mole’s teenage hood, his Cappuccino Years and even the hard-backed version of The Wilderness Years after happening upon The Queen and I from many years previously. 

The farce, her usual parallels and satire and her wonderful ability to get away with being delightfully un-politically correct whilst being sub-consciously thoughtful all at the same time are all on top form in the Queen and I. However, this novel was my first taste of feeling used and cheated as a reader. I cannot tell you what happens at the end of the book to cause me to throw it across the room and vow never to spend my precious pennies on a Townsend classic again, for fear of issuing a spoiler of Me Before You proportions. (Happily I hadn’t read her books in order and had snuck in all the Adrian Moles to date before my vow so that I wasn’t forced to renege on my principals on sight of a new launch.) Suffice it to say, never have I remembered the ending of a book so precisely and with so much grinding of teeth.

However, something about the title compelled me to pick up The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year and after laughing out loud at the blurb in the middle of a quiet book store, I decided to give a Townsend novel ‘one more go’. Let’s just say, this book isn’t to be taken too seriously but it makes me smile just thinking about the spilled soup which served as the catalyst to one lady’s decision to turn her back on the world.

I’ve reviewed both of these books over in Chase Magazine, the supplement to the Rotherham Advertiser which you can view here Page 36/37.

Next month I’m reviewing Emma Donoghue’s, The Sealed Letter which has propelled me down a path of literary fiction, so absorbed was I in the plight of the fickle Helen and her hard-done-by husband, and The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler of which I’m only half way through, and totally engrossed so no spoilers please!

What are you reading at the moment? Please share!

Happy To Judge

At five o’clock this morning I slunk out of bed, gathered up my phone, three empty mugs and a pile of washing and made my way to the only place to go when the small hand is still registering ‘5’: the kettle.

Sometimes I put the washing on while the water boils, occasionally I pair odd socks but today, I read my emails. Skimming past the daily list of price reductions at local hostelries and hairdressers (engaging willpower of pandemic proportions as March is tightening-my-belt month), the daily call from a national blind making company (I’m not sure how many windows they think I have) and the weekly reminder from the French catalogue, of which, beautiful as the little girls’ dresses truly are, I can’t quite imagine my teenage children in white lace and purple velvet, I noticed that BBC Radio Two had been in touch.

I’d been hoping for this email.

‘Congratulations,’ it said, ‘you have been selected as one of our volunteer judges for 500 words 2013’ – which means that I will be scoring a batch of short stories in the first round of judging in Chris Evan’s massively popular children’s writing competition. Excited? I have floated down from the ceiling for a moment to explain why:

1. I was moved to real tears by the poignancy and brilliance of last year’s winning entries so decided way back in May 2012 that I would find a way to be involved this year.

2. There’s something about children, anybody’s children, doing something well that just makes me want to cry. I’m not sure I can explain why that’s a good thing but it’s certainly right up there with the list of happenings in my life which make me feel alive.

3. Because I would feel an irrational sense of pride if I happened to be the judge who put forward one of the eventual winning entries.

4. Because I might read the story of the next Francesca Simon (I think my daughter possibly was the biggest Horrid Henry fan), Anthony Horowitz, Malorie Blackman…

5. Because I am ever so slightly in love with Chris Evans (I’ve always been a sucker for a GSOH and a PMA). And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be one of the lucky winners of the golden tickets awarded at random to 25 of the volunteer judges who get to attend the live broadcast of Chris’ show at the Hay Festival on 31^st May. I have a one in eighty chance of being a winner which, put like that, sounds like an odds-on cert, she says, finger hovering over the link for a favoured shopping website with the force-for-good clearing its throat loudly from its place on her shoulder, to remind her that it's belt-tightening-month. It’s ok, I have no time for shopping, I have three stories a day to read until the deadline of 22 March. 

Do you know any of the entrants? I wish every one of them the very best of luck. Whatever the results, I hope they’ll keep writing because winning entry or not, there are few things in life quite as fulfilling as writing stories.

I'm Celebrating The Small Things - click on the link to join us!

Small Job, Big Task

As part of sparkly VikLit’s happy bloghop, Celebrate The Small Things, I’ve been challenged to talk about the small things which make us happy. And I happen to have some big news about a small project which took on unprecedented proportions but is today, finally, finished.* It’s my beautiful, re-painted, re-furbished and inflated (it really wasn’t this big before) study. And its wonderful calm and cleanliness is making me supremely happy. Work, you say? Bring it on!

*Ok, it isn’t completely finished, (I only started on the project five months ago and did you ever hear about Rome?) as my notice boards still need to be hung up. Essential as they are, they will make the study seem a little more cluttered again so today I’m going to call it finished and show you a picture before we all start to unpick the good work.

  

Shameful! Click to see how it got quite so bad.

‘Sorting Out The Study’ had been on our to-do list since we moved into this house eight years ago and finally, we had a date: December 2012. Meanwhile, in November, I would, ‘clear it out’. I took the job very seriously, sifting through the junk, every photo and every piece of paper in my determination to keep only the absolutely essential. The five months the task took I blame on the ‘photo box’, reams of my teenager’s pre-school artwork, my slightly baffling need to keep copies of every freelance project ever worked and several notes to boot and, ah yes, the diaries I wrote between the age of 13 and 23. But all that work! It would be such a shame if nobody read them from cover to cover, wouldn’t it?

New desk beginnings.

There was a gremlin in our plans. With the hugely expensive debacle of the boiler in December, as detailed in A Damp and a Freeze A Damp and a Freeze, I’d put the new study on the *back-burner* for a while. However, my very lovely and equally handy husband, who likes few things more than an excuse to browse an internet auction site which begins with ‘E’ and ends in ‘bay’, secretly sourced some end-of-line wood officially assigned to kitchen work surfaces and set about building a desk and shelving. He paid £400 for the wood. The nice man at the wood merchant’s, who agreed to saw the pieces down to size for a few pennies in the ‘beer pot’, assured hubbie, with much in-taking of breath and nose-tapping, that we would normally have paid five times as much.

Nearly there.

With some careful planning of how to re-use parts of the old desk and re-arrange some of the existing cupboards, and with the purchase of one pot of paint and two packs of dye for the curtains, the entire job came to less than £500. Wasn’t that the budget for Changing Rooms? And not a staple in sight.

Et voila! Note to self: tidy pc cables.

Every day’s a school day, as my French friend frequently quotes and this is what I’ve learnt, or perhaps been reminded of, over the past five months of the Study Job.

Even if the tax man says, ‘Keep This’ with a demonic point of his stubby cigar of a finger, it doesn’t mean you have to keep a record of every pencil ever bought since 1998. Ditto electricity statements, last year’s totally defunct house insurance and the MOT certificate for the car you sold three years ago.

It’s so much easier to discard children’s artwork if it can be left alone for ten years after its production (NB. Factor browsing and cooing time into its disposal).

Photos which do not make it to the photo album do not need to be destroyed and thus should not heap guilt onto the shoulders of the principal house keeper on every sight of the bulging box. Ok, boxes. Indeed, the small house required to store them should be off-set against the great waves of reminiscent joy on their re-discovery. However, easy access is not required, and frankly not conducive to the industrious purpose of a study, so a dusty corner of the loft might be a more suitable place for their housing (loft conversions may be possible).

A4 plastic wallets were of far superior quality in the good old days, as were cardboard index dividers. Gosh, things were made to last in the much maligned nineties!

Notice boards benefit from a clear out, rather than an additional box of pins.

It’s ok not to be able to get rid of cherished favourite novels but they don’t need to be on sight for you to know they’re there. Double rows of books are perfectly acceptable.

Just because something doesn’t have a specific purpose, doesn’t mean it does not have a place in a room where many hours are spent. Although, for the greater good, it is reasonable to fabricate a use to help the husband’s understanding – the door hanging heart, for example, would it double up as a stencil?

I have a lot of notebooks. I’ve spoken of my love of notebooks here before. It will be a sad day for me if I-pads, smartphones, tablets etc. etc. usurp the art of hand-writing. I know I should embrace the times but I’ve always been something of a luddite, way before I reached three score years and something. Besides, they do look pretty, don’t they?

I hope you’ve had a happy week and may all your projects be fun ones which unexpectedly take half of the allocated time!

A Damp and a Freeze

A Squash and a Squeeze by the wonderful writer/ artist duo of Julia Donaldson and Azel Scheffler, was, much to my delight, my youngest daughter’s favourite book a lifetime ago. Only young, I think the fable of its message passed her by, she simply loved the sing-song rhyme, joining in with, ‘Wise old man won’t you help me please, my house is a squash and a squeeze,’ with gusto. However, I’ve been referring to the brilliant simplicity of this tale ever since.

Move over Aesop.

A tired old lady seeks the help of the local vicar when her house on the farm just feels too small. It’s a fair gripe, the house is poky. Instead of instructing the Hand Of God, however, the vicar commands the lady to fill her house, one by one, with her animals. How on earth will that help? the woman cries but, nonetheless, trusts in the vicar’s wisdom.

Once she’s filled her house with every one of her animals then summarily removed them all, the house no longer feels a Squash and a Squeeze but positively roomy. Clever vicar.

A few weeks ago, my boiler broke. I returned after a night out to find the floor around it flooded but, once ascertained that this was indeed boiling water and not oil and I would thus not need to evacuate the sleeping household, I simply switched off the boiler and hoped that my Carlsberg of a boiler engineer would be able to fix it quickly and cheaply the next day.

Oh dear.

The new one - not so different from the old.

The boiler had died. Over the next three weeks the floor had to be replaced as the leak had caused it to rot and my washing machine was threatening to slip through into the foundations below. Meanwhile, I had to amass quotes with constant sharp-intaking of breath. Phew! Oil (gas hasn't made it to our village yet) boilers are expensive.

During the wait for the new boiler, I:

- learnt that there is an optimum temperature under which clothes, particularly children’s school skirts, will not dry

- rekindled my love for our wood burning stove, the kettle and the oil-filled radiator.

- fell in love with the immersion heater

- realised that the immersion heater does not heat more than enough water for half a shower and was reminded that being stranded with a head-full of shampoo and the deluge of cold water to wash it away, is tantamount to torture

- realised that tumble driers still shrink clothes however desperate the washer woman’s plight.

- used over a pound of sugar in the oil engineer’s tea. Honestly – three spoons in every cup and skinny as a pole with, as far as I could tell, great teeth.

- learnt that even fingerless gloves are not conducive to typing

- adored the winter quilt

Now, I don’t believe that a boiler breaking down when you are fortunate enough to have a rainy day fund to tap into (do you see what I did there?), is anywhere near a crisis. Yes, our health is the most important pre-requisite to happiness and four walls also help a lot. But I have to say, when the temperature plummeted and my fingers became so cold I had to plunge them into a bowl of water direct from the boiled kettle (I know, I know), my eldest daughter was going to bed in pyjamas, gloves and slippers and my youngest announced that she hadn’t had a shower for four days because she kept missing the one-shower-a-night slot, the passage from old boiler to new did become a little trying.

The Carlsberg engineer fitted the new boiler in only two of the allotted three days. The house warmed up like a Ready Brek advert and, once my family were showered and cleansed and packed off to warm beds, I had a bath; a full, steaming, bubbly bath. Never has hot water felt so luxurious nor bubbles so soft. How much do I now appreciate constant hot water and warm toes? The instant gratification of pink skin again, was almost worth the time without.

This was my Squash and a Squeeze moment. Or should I say, my Damp and a Freeze?

Have you had a Squash and a Squeeze moment recently? Please share!

You just gotta love it when...

I’m particularly glad I survived my previous post’s date stone attack as I’m having a very good week.

So, I’ve been asked to teach two day courses in creative writing at the school of adult education where I take an evening class. I love teaching and secretly hoped the evening class would lead to something like this.

This week, I’ve really launched into ‘Scrivener’ which is a piece of writing software personally designed for me, it would appear, to get the piles of half print, half-scribbled paper often extending out of the study and into the hall, off the floor and on to my virtual carpet on screen. Seriously, if you are a writer who is doing any planning or re-structuring, this software is heaven-sent. I have my stubby little fingers stuffed into so many delicious pies at the moment that I’ve had to be strict and commit myself to only two hours’ work per day on the novel this month. Scrivener means that even in this limited time frame, Glass Houses is still moving on a-pace. http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php 

Regular readers might be interested to know that my experiment into Larkism is firmly embedded in my daily routine now and my two hours of writing take place between 5 and 7am. It’s such a great feeling, often a relief, to have two hours of writing behind me before the rest of the family stirs.

And I had my biggest every month of page views of my blog in January – 1,800. Thank you!

I have one piece of vaguely bad news but even that is a good thing in disguise. I didn’t get the contract I wanted with the agent who was looking at my full manuscript. However, she was kind enough to send me detailed notes of suggestions on what I needed to do to make the story sing – it seems the plot and even the writing are on track but some of the characters are a bit of a tease – I hook the reader in and then leave them hanging. The agent phrased the problem in such a way that I had an instant light-bulb moment – hence the re-structuring which I’m really enjoying. It’s an exciting process because I know that whatever the fate of Glass Houses, this novel is certainly going to be a better read after the re-write.

And the other reason I’m particularly happy with life at my desk is because I’ve picked up a Versatile Blogger award from the multi-talented Karin Bachmann. Karin blogs about all things writing, being a tutor as well as a short story and novel writer, and I’m enjoying the behind the scenes posts she’s writing about her latest project,  Mord in Switzerland. This is an anthology of crime stories written with a handful of other writers with whom she appears to regularly meet for lunch. (Please can I have a job like that?) You can read Karin’s blog here: http://stories47277.blogspot.ch/2013/01/the-versatile-blogger-award.html

Now, you know what’s coming next. I have to write seven things about myself. As I had to dredge up old memories for the first time I was lucky enough to receive an award of this type and as I was really scraping the barrel for a similar award a little later, I thought I would do something slightly different this time. Because I’m feeling particularly upbeat at the moment, I thought I’d simply list seven things that I love. My disclaimer at this point, is that family and friends are a given, so I’m not going to wax lyrical about people you don’t know – wonderful as they all are.

In no particular order:

Running in the snow. There’s something so peaceful, almost ethereal, about being alone with the whiteness and the crunching under foot. I like to pull my hat down over my ears, feel the icy wind against my face and start to warm from inside out. I know it’s not for everyone but for me, this is when I feel most alive.

My first cup of tea of the day. Particularly if it’s brought to me by my lovely husband (ooops, broken my no family rule). The second cup isn’t bad either. By the eighth, I’m starting to get a bit of a fuzzy head.

Putting on my glasses. I know, this is such a dull one but not being able to read anymore without them has taken me quite by surprise and the instant transformation of the hieroglyphics on the page, washing label or side of a tin, to name but three, deserves my appreciation.

Cafes. With friends (there goes the rule again), chatting or with my hard-backed notebook, writing. Oh and hard-backed notebooks, I love those, too.

Learning Slovakian. I’d forgotten quite how much I enjoy learning languages – even though I sometimes curse the homework, even though I sometimes still throw my books across the room, even though I sometimes think I’ll never manage it.

Really cold dry white wine in a large glass. Or really warm, heavy red wine in a really large glass – and Lindt Lindor chocolates.

Singing. I’m not pretending to have any great ability but I belong to a small group and we have the most wonderfully talented and generous hearted teacher who brings out the best in us. When everyone’s singing and the harmonies are working, it’s simply, so uplifting.

Now it’s my turn to propose fifteen bloggers whom I think are particularly deserving of this award. I’ve chosen a couple of old favourites but also some recently discovered gems. Please do go along and see what they’re up to:

http://www.standingnakedatabusstop.com by Lesley Richardson

http://theperfectplot.blogspot.co.uk by Jill Paterson

http://excusemewhileinotethatdown.blogspot.co.uk by Linda C

http://alisonpercival.wordpress.com by Alison Percival

http://sarsm.wordpress.com by Sarah

http://strictlywriting.blogspot.co.uk by a group of nine bloggers whose posts always make me smile.

http://www.janerusbridge.co.uk by Jane Rusbridge

http://www.heatherwebb.net by Heather Webb

http://saintlywriter.blogspot.co.uk by Amanda Saint

OK, I’ve only listed nine but if you add in the nine at Strictlywriting, then I’m actually way over my quota ;)

These are the rules of the Versatile Blogger Award:

• Display the award certificate on your website
• Announce your win with a post and link to whoever presented your award
• Present 15 awards to deserving bloggers (Versatile Blogger)
• Drop them a comment to tip them off after you’ve linked them in the post
• Post 7 interesting things about yourself

I look forward to reading your posts!

Just imagine if...

Sometimes my imagination is a little over-exuberant. I’m not complaining, I quite like the world of fairies and ‘what if’s?’ I frequent, even if it does mean that I bang my head sometimes (or put my arm in a fully-functioning spin drier or break my knee falling over a plant pot.)

Take the date stone incident this morning.

Unsurprisingly, when I placed the said date in my mouth, I wasn’t giving the task my undivided attention. I do believe I was looking for the phone number to cancel my daughter’s dentist’s appointment while straightening out the pile of washing-up. I stopped. Checked. Then I checked my mouth again. Flesh of the fruit, yes; date stone, no. I’d swallowed a date stone! I reflected for a moment. I seemed to be OK. It did appear that I was still breathing and, duly tested, I could still speak.

I wondered if I should cough. But what if the stone was lying safely at the top of my oesophagus and a cough disrupted its angle, turned it squarely across the width of my windpipe and all breathing ceased? Just like that, with nobody aware, save for next door’s cat which would remain un-fed while its owners were in Australia.

I thought about my children at school, my friends at work and my husband on a train, no doubt in a tunnel without mobile reception, and felt panic rise up of proportions last felt six years ago at the top of the Eagle’s Claw at the local theme park. I’d have given myself a slap but uppermost in my mind was any ill-fated jolt to my insides. I took a few breaths in through my nose – was the air getting stuck somewhere between my throat and lungs? I couldn’t be sure but there was definitely a stone-shaped lump there, I could feel the ache. I shuffled over to the tap and poured myself a pint of water (in an unwashed glass, that’s how serious this was), hoping it would smooth the passage for the date stone and we could put the whole, sorry incident down to a blog post.

Should I call an ambulance? To tell them I was fine? No, I’d try my husband. I’m not sure what I thought he would be able to do, now an estimated ten miles away, but as he is always the consummate hero, and well-practiced, in a crisis, it seemed the only logical step to take. He said he thought I’d have already died if it was going to happen but that he’d leave his phone on just in case. 

Maybe NHS Direct was the answer but I couldn’t risk them suggesting I take myself to hospital, just to be sure, only for me to be sent home with a clean pair of heels and a stomach full of guilt for taking the staff’s time away from a proper patient.

You see, I was starting to think I might have had a lucky escape from a premature death without witness but still, I wasn’t taking any chances. The stone could move at any moment. I took both the landline and the mobile with me to feed the neighbour’s cat, happy to see me alive, I noted, from its tail swish against my calf, and thankfully made it back into my house. Could I risk a shower? First things first. I left the door on the latch in case the paramedics needed quick access and I couldn’t wrench myself from the heap I’d become on the floor. Having worked at Crime Concern, I know all the statistics about opportunist crime so was pleased that in my impromptu test, I unequivocally valued my life over my possessions – even the photos. I stood one phone against the bathroom wall and the other just outside (in case the steam should render the first one useless) and took with me the largest towel in the house and a plan to grab it if I fell, to cover my modesty.

When I emerged from the shower, although the date stone was still making its presence felt, I was still breathing. Three further glasses of water later and I decided that the initial danger had well and truly passed. Wikipedia told me that the greatest threat now would be a blockage in my intestines but that was of little concern. It meant I’d still have time to prepare my evening class before the problems started. Time itself right and I could have a gaggle of people around me willing to offer me up to the hospital in which all responsibility for my own survival would happily be taken from me.

Then the plot lines kicked in. Without the threat of imminent death, I sprinted down stairs to lock the door. Was that, I asked of my barely functioning hearing, a single foot step in the kitchen? I threw myself against the wall, braced myself and peered around the door frame, à la 50th anniversary of James Bond. Nothing there, it would appear. I tiptoed further into the kitchen. There was just a pile of half-washed dishes, a discarded phone, the business card of the orthodontist and a half-full packet of dates. But what if the noise hadn’t come from the kitchen at all but was, instead, behind me? I spun round. Clear. But I would still check every room in the house.

There was only me. I had survived a potential chocking fit and my house was free of vagabonds. 

Six hours later, I still find my hand intermittently reaching to my wind pipe and my ears prickling at the slightest rustle. I can see the opened packet of dates goading me from the work surface as I write but there they will remain. I will never eat a date again - which is a shame as we still have three punnets of them left over from Christmas. Quality Street, anyone? Soft centre, just to be sure…

Immobility

I had a surreal experience in the run up to Christmas. Cursing the fact that it generally took so long to drive the short distance into town to do my present buying due to the long trail of cars of, err, present buyers, I decided a single minute before its departure that I should catch the train instead.

The station, on a good day, in indifferent weather, without traffic on the only road I have to cross and with a clean pair of heels, I can reach in two-and-a-half minutes. And so it was, sliding over the black ice, dodging the plentiful, albeit driving very gingerly, stream of vehicles, that I saw the train pull in. I gave one last sprint up the hill. As my toe hit the platform, the doors slowly, but defiantly, closed. However the conductor, with Christmas spirit a-plenty, laughed and re-opened the doors. I say, ‘doors’, more accurate would be, ‘his’ door, the one at the far end of the train and thus forcing me to run the entire length, passing every single waiting passenger en route, now fully cognisant as to the exact reason for their delay.

No matter, it was my lucky day.

Oh dear. In the rush I’d forgotten my phone. Once I’d chided myself for the inconvenience, settled down the panic that one of my perfectly well children may be taken seriously ill at school without her mother being contactable and once I'd surmised that the texts and e-mails I’d usually answer seated on Northern Rail would be waiting for me once I got home, I realised I had no watch. Its new battery had been on my to-do list for weeks but there had never been any hurry, my phone chooses to flash the time at me at every available opportunity.

And so I arrived. With no phone or ready access to the time, I sped off towards the shops with one foot firmly trailing in my youth.

Slightly stunned to have ticked off the remaining items on the Christmas list with my stomach barely grumbling for lunch, I sat myself down for a sandwich and began to write. With no alerts, notifications, texts or invitations to get ahead of the game with a seven-egg-white-a-day diet commencing January 1^st, I wrote two chapters.

I asked a lady on the next table if she had the time. She looked at her watch. She never remembered her phone, she said, much to the annoyance of her friends and family. I remembered a text from a friend who said she’d tried umpteen times to ring – I’d been driving and only for ten minutes – and the reason for her call wasn't pressing. I don’t blame my friend for her frustration but do ask myself whether it’s a superior world we’ve built where people are irritated if we can’t be reached at every moment of every day - even though we’re so much more contactable than I was in my youth with my 2p coin and a red phone box.

I caught the train home, timing it so that I only had a five minute wait for its departure, don’t ask me how. My children had survived their day at school without a line to their errant mother and while I boiled the kettle, I answered my messages.

Did I enjoy my step back into a pre-nineties world? Yes, I truly did. I was calmer and my memory was better; I didn’t once have to retrace my steps into the shop to remind myself of the purpose of my visit, for instance. Was my day more productive? Yes. Was I more efficient, more satisfied? Yes, definitely yes! And it was so pleasant to chat with a stranger, as I always used to do when I caught a train or stood in a queue. Would I do it every day? Probably not, unless everybody went with me on this, I think I’d find it quite lonely on a regular basis. But as a brief reminder that the world doesn’t stop when we’re not contactable by at least three methods at any one time, and of the time it really takes to perform everyday tasks when they are constantly punctuated by a glance at the phone or a response to a text, wouldn’t do any harm.

Happy new year everyone! May the year be filled with fun and happy times and here’s to technology working for us all.

The Next Big Thing

I met Karin Bachmann at the Swanwick Writers’ Festival last summer where she taught a meticulously planned and engaging course in editing – in English, her second language. I know, I know! Some of the examples she gave of published texts in need of a good comb were eye-opening to say the least – she says, checking particularly carefully for her own typos and howlers.

Karin recently blogged about her latest Work In Progress in contribution to The Next Big Thing, a blogfest currently whizzing its way around the world in which writers from different countries and writing backgrounds answer the same ten questions about a work in progress.

Karin is one of a group of writers working on an anthology of short stories under the title, ‘Mord (murder) in Switzerland’. Her story is about a young photographer whose pictures cause a whole heap of trouble. You can read more about it here: 

http://stories47277.blogspot.co.uk/

 

I was delighted that Karin chose me as one of her five to take the Next Big Thing baton from her but must admit to cheating a little. My Work In Progress is a book called Misguidance and I’m a third of the way through the first draft. Like many before me, however, I am a little superstitious about discussing a story that’s still in my head so I’m going to concentrate, instead, on the completed manuscript of Glass Houses.

Here we go…

- What is the working title of your book?
It’s Glass Houses but I’m afraid I’ve gone off it. I fear it’s too twee, too safe, even if it does do what it says on the tin. I’m told not to worry about it though, that the worst a writer can do is be precious about a title because a publisher will always change it. So, really, my dissatisfaction is a good thing.

- Where did the idea for your book come from?
When an amazingly charismatic lady spoke of her forgiveness for her son's killers in the 7/7 London bombings, I was struck by how much more powerful this was than the, nonetheless, very human reaction of anger.
I also remember noticing the utter devastation in the face of the driver who caused several deaths in the Selby train crash, by falling asleep at the wheel. The press demonised him but I couldn’t help thinking that this wasn't the face of a cold blooded killer, rather of someone who'd made a dreadful mistake. He'd punish himself for the rest of his life - maybe he didn't need us to do it too? 

I decided I wanted to write a – what happened next – type story but this time with the perpetrator of an incident at the helm.

- What genre does your book fall under?
General fiction with a contemporary smudge.

Brenda Blethyn

- Which actors would you choose to play characters in a movie rendition?
Please can I have Brenda Blethyn for Tori, my main character? Tori is a killer, albeit unintentionally, she is also feisty, caring and a survivor with a great sense of humour when she gets the chance to use it. She has wild curly hair which doesn’t need washing and a face which tells the tale of a horrendous car crash followed by weeks in a coma – this isn’t true of Ms Blethyn’s face, I hasten to add, but she can contort it masterfully into a whole gamut of ages and expressions.

Imelda Staunton would have to play Tori’s mother, Rose. Imelda (I’m particularly picturing her in Vera Drake) would be masterful at the troubled, but sensitive, role of a mother who has to care for a daughter with whom she hasn’t had the best of relationships over the preceding few years.

Damian Lewis

If Damian Lewis hadn’t made it so big in Homeland, I’d snatch him up for Doug, Tori’s mild-mannered husband, whose patience is being tested to the hilt and who also happens to have ginger hair. However, Doug despises the limelight given to him by Tori’s fall from grace and it would seem fitting that he be played by a scarcely known, quality actor. 

Unfortunately, ask anybody who’s had the misfortune to have me on their quiz team, names of all but the biggest stars are not my forte so I will stick with Mr Lewis for now.

Rachel Weisz

Etta, caught up in Tori’s ‘moment of madness’ and haunted by demons from her past, would have to be played by Rachel Weisz. Etta is quietly determined and fiercely principled but her life is crashing around her ears. À la Rachel Weisz, she remains resolutely demure throughout.

- What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
Glass Houses is the story of one woman’s moment of madness and its massive repercussions.

- Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’m waiting to hear back from one agent who has the full manuscript of Glass Houses and have also recently applied to a small press who are taking an innovative approach to the new publishing world – theirs is a middle ground with no author advance but no financial outlay for the author either.

- How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
It took me about 18 months as I kept stopping to carry out more research - and it took me almost as long to edit it. I love every aspect of writing, from the research to the story writing to the editing and even the proof reading, so I’m never really in a hurry.

- What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Glass Houses is reminiscent of novels where fate plays a great part but it’s the film, Sliding Doors, written and directed by Peter Howitt, which always springs first to mind.

I recently read A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvette Edwards and it struck me that it tackles similar themes. This is also a book about redemption and taking responsibility for our actions. A daughter killed her mother (or so she believes) and the guilt has strangled her life ever since. One of my main characters, Etta, didn’t kill anyone but had Tori not intervened, her guilt would have stifled her life; her marriage, at the very least, would have paid the price. I like the way Edwards takes a dark, serious theme and gives it a light touch through her appealingly flippant writing style. Right at the beginning she slips in, ‘… and the fourteen years since he’d last stood there, the fourteen years since the night I’d killed my mother, hadn’t really happened at all,’ for our very first introduction to the main character’s secret past. It would make me very happy to think that Glass Houses had achieved a similar light touch with the ability to shock the reader as well.

- Who or what inspired you to write this book (story)?
No one person or event particularly inspired me, however, I couldn’t shake the images of the two people I mentioned earlier. During a week-long Arvon writing course, the first scene flew into my head and I felt compelled to down tools on the project on which I had been working and hurl myself headlong into Glass Houses.

- What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?
Glass Houses is about the fragility of life and how, through our own mistakes combined with those of others, our existence can be shattered in an instant. Even if we try to rebuild our life, the new model will never look the same as the original. However, Glass Houses is also a tragic love story where external forces subject three couples’ relationships to grave pressure. The lengths these people will go to in order to protect their relationships is, I hope, uplifting. 

Now it’s my turn to choose five writers for the next stage in the Next Big Thing’s journey. Some took part in NaNoWriMo, writing 50,000 words in one, tiny month. I’d really like to know what they came up with. The others are blogs I’ve fairly recently stumbled upon and have piqued my interest. I should add the proviso that if they’d rather cheat and talk about a different piece of writing to their Work In Progress, then I am in no position to stop them.

Charlie Wade: http://spiesliesandpies.blogspot.co.uk

Jacqueline Pye: http://jacpye.blogspot.co.uk/

Jo: http://gapyearsthebook.blogspot.co.uk

Alison: http://alisonpercival.wordpress.com

Gillian: http://skybluepinkish.wordpress.com/