ABOUT

April 3, 2018

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People.  They make the world go round, don’t they?  I adore meeting new people and what better way than to do so through the medium of writing?

While writing is part of our everyday through form-filling, emails and texting, don’t you sometimes find yourself creating stories from something?  Or nothing?  Perhaps a scene unfolding through the windscreen while sat in your car, or a journey taken by a stranger in a dream you wake from? Strings of words appear in my mind; plots and twists, creating worlds which need exploring.

I have joined the Romantic Novelists Association and have somehow secured one of only 300 places on their New Writers Scheme for 2018. I can submit a manuscript (ideally around 80-90,000 words) by August, but earlier if possible … so should you choose to jump aboard and watch me progress, procrastinate, spend time on ‘other projects’ will you do me one favour? Shout and remind me I should be working on my WIP 🥂

I love the art of writing.  When I was a teenager I even loved to buy a new fountain pen and quality paper to go with it.  I would clear the desk of all ballpoint pens (riff raff) and push all homework away from sight (ghastly, even if necessary) in order that the new pen and paper would not be disturbed in their first outing.

The spoken word, then in ink but now mostly on a keyboard can entertain and educate,  make us laugh and cry.   If you read any of my posts here then I hope you leave entertained, educated or amused.

March update.  20,000 words down …. only another 60,000 to go … are you having a laugh????

This is not sounding good

July 18, 2018

Typed and posted at 2am – because I needed to write stuff down.

Deleted at 2:10am – because you can’t publish personal family details like that.

7am – I’ve heard nothing .. so assume she’s still with us and have restored the post – because this is a place where I feel I can be open and honest.

10am – plan A is I’m meeting dad at the hospital

•••••••••••••••••

My father rang this evening to inform me he’d had to call an ambulance for my mother, his wife, ten weeks after that fall I mentioned in which she fractured her shoulder and refused to return to the fracture clinic the next day, even though we all know that’s standard practice following an A&E X-ray.

She also refused to go in to see her diabetes nurse .. a specially allocated lady who helped her five years ago at the point of diagnosis. Mother has refused to go in for her last two annual reviews, preferring instead ‘self-healing’ … and scenes played out in her living room of ‘I won’t be told what to do and I’d appreciate it if you lot (that’s dad and me) would listen and HEAR me on this one. I know what I’m doing.’

Now, while many will read this and think ‘why the F didn’t you just force her to see someone?’ living with a narcissist means you end up complying with all they want. You don’t even know you’re doing it. Except I now do… following my 23 weeks of counselling, therapy, soul-searching, call it what you will. I recognise that I’ve been an enabler to her and so has dad. Recently, I’ve utilised the lessons I’ve learnt and pushed the boat out a bit and dared to state that while I recognise her right to make her own decision about her recuperation, I would have felt better that she had at least seen a doctor who could explain why her side effects of diabetes were getting worse not better. She smoked more and warned me to ‘back off’ … had a physical reaction ‘you’re stressing me out, please stop this discussion, it’s not good for me.’

Well, she’s had it her way for the ten weeks. For the five years. In fact most of her life I’d say. And tonight she will be unable to grab a cigarette and will be giving the staff hell. She’s not a social smoker where she might enjoy one or three with a drink, she’s a 30-a-day uses them as oxygen smoker. They must have her on sedation because she will be feeling totally out of control and that’s just what a narcissist doesn’t want to be.

😶

I can’t sleep .. dad said he’d ring if the hospital rang in the night. The consultant said her organs had started to shut down. Her sugars in her blood … in fact, I can barely bare to repeat this, were 57 and in twelve hours they brought them down to 20. They’re aiming for 7. Whether she’ll recover to the point she can lead a relatively normal existence remains to be seen. Monday on the phone, she was berating dad for ‘not getting on with buying a bungalow’ … and even though he’s given up his one day a week little job which gave him company and something to focus on, she’s been moaning at his nursing skills. Yet when she first fell and Man of the Woods and I went in daily with meals to help dad out as much as her, after the third day she actually rang and asked me not to go, stating that she needed to ‘regain control thank you and I’m taking your father away for a few days – he’s knackered.’ (They got about 26 miles up the road before she announced it had been a mistake to try and she needed to go home).

Sorry to dump on you … I’ll read instead .. and I might delete this post in a minute

(This is not a post which will generate likes… it is a horrible read in fact. But it is a warning to anyone suffering from diabetes what the eventual effects on your body could be if you choose to ignore the medical profressionals)

The smell of you (#flash fiction)

July 17, 2018

He was a vague notion I think, then was gone. I must have imagined him. Bass continued to thump the floor which had become tacky under foot, clinking full glasses clutched by hands pushing through crowds, the early hours of the next day had arrived along with the detris of revellers who started hours before.

The smell of him was divine – I search towards the door one more time.

My arm is tugged and my old friend does that thing with her head which silently means ‘hey, this way!’. I follow her and leave his memory by the bar, the place I’d been sure he had brushed past and caught my eye and made everything else disappear.

It was louder still by the speakers and placing our drinks on the top where their surfaces wriggled in time within the confines of the glasses, I soon focused on the moves at which we were so practised.

Some time later, fresh air was in short supply so I took a walk through the garden where people could talk and be heard, groups huddled in the smoking area enjoying mixing with like-minds and sharing the air and ignoring gross pictures on their cigarette boxes. A united force.

I paused by a bench, slightly damp from the showers earlier that evening. I sat. The relief from my feet was immediate and I ran my hands down my shins and over my insteps, my hands cooling the heat radiating from my sore feet.

I stayed there a while, my head between my knees, my hands on my feet. I noticed ants emerging from the cracks in the concrete slabs. Busy and focused – they ignored all obstacles, choosing to go round or climb over but rarely pausing. I moved a heel into the path of one and sure enough it altered tack slightly and continued its journey.

When I looked up, there were legs in front of me, hairy calves and neat knees below smart blue shorts with turn ups and a brown leather belt. It was there for aesthetics as no big belly hung over the top of it, only a white linen shirt tucked in. A lean man… omg.. could it be? Had he been wearing a white shirt?

I stood up and came face to face with the open neck where the tendons straddled that soft bit I couldn’t stop looking at earlier, tickled with a few dark hairs. Those tendons strong and leading down to below where the linen started and his skin disappeared from view. He held out a hand after I stood and lost a heel to the crack briefly and his hand was warm.

‘You came back!’

He smiled and I moved a little closer. It was him – that woody lemony aftershave hit my senses and did not stop in my nostrils. His hand seeped round to my lower back and my whole body yearned to be closer…

17:16 from Leeds – on my way to Romantic Suspense 💜

July 16, 2018

So you’re itching to hear how I got on aren’t you?

Have you ever been so tired, you’re almost delirious? You’re aware of how many bags you need to keep near you and which pocket your ticket is snuggled in, but there’s a general fog? Not a hungover fog as I kept my alcohol intake to a sensible level so as to attend my one to ones with wits about me. Drunk on information and inspiration maybe….

I did have a little lift selfie moment. Does my bum look big in this? Doesn’t matter if it did because I found a hibiscus 🌺

Maud has become Blanche as the niggle about introducing two characters in a first chapter with names starting with the same letter grew into a cactus which kept meeting me head-on at every corner.

I’ve been advised also to think about an aspect in my early chapters so they make more sense – feel more ‘true’ – as opposed to simply convenient.

An agent did ask to see more than the three chapters I’d sent her so this, for me, is very positive. My plans are now as follows:

• Utilise what I learnt to improve early chapters.

• Do a Find/Replace name-change Maud to Blanche.

• Polish as far as I can the 24,000 words and submit by 30 July to NWS.

• Send the sane 24,000 words to the agent who was ‘intrigued by this rich family story with so much going on.’

• Re-write submission pitch as I now realise what genre my book is – Romantic Suspense. Before this weekend, I wasn’t sure if it was a crime thriller with some romance … or a love tale with a backstory of crime.

• Wait to hear whether I’ve been successful with my application to be on the Curtis Brown Creative novel-writing 6-month online course which starts in September (perfect as I can help Man of the Woods with harvest support).

• complete manuscript by March 2019 and this time next year be receiving NWS critique for the whole damn thing! Because yes, you can do the scheme more than once and many published authors I spoke to this weekend went through it two, three and sometimes four times, getting stronger each year.

• Mentally prepare for Book 2’s birth during NaNoWriMo this coming November with A LOT more planning than my zero effort during 2017!

The authors who gave talks at the conference this weekend about patience, perseverance and struggles were very inspiring. Milly Johnson, for example, has fourteen published titles and she spoke of how hard it is each time she sits to start a new first page. An after-dinner speaker, Milly had us in fits of laughter, a Yorkshire lass proud of her roots, her stories are set around her home county and the trials of real life. Just ordered the title below as it’s about time I introduced my reading-self to this amazing woman and writer.

I am relieved I did not hurl a rushed manuscript through to the NWS, in an effort to gain a larger wordcount. (NaNo wordcount is a different beast – it’s a great to accrue a foundation from which to work).

I rubbed shoulders with Jill Mansell, Katie Fforde and Kate Walker.

I also met Julie Cohen who as well as writing, runs residential courses and I very much hope to attend one in Devon this November. Have you read her? This title below is a Richard & Judy Book Club 2018 choice and I can see why.

I have been blown away by part One .. which covers the first forty pages. I became quickly invested in her characters; I am worried for them and can feel the love shared between. It’s beautiful prose and she shows with clarity and vision the home of this new family I wish to find out everything about. Oh, goodness, I just LOVE it when a book grips me like this 💙

10:03 to Leeds … on my way to Romance ❤️

July 13, 2018

Oh Lordy… some bloggers would save all their information regarding this weekend and create an organised, mature, edited and polished post from a post-event point of view.

But that’s just not me!

I need to share the fun bits, the nervous bits, the embarrassing bits with you as I speed towards my first RNA conference aboard one of Richard’s trains which I have to admit are way above those of East Anglia in the way of comfort.

A sneaky breakfast date with daughter for forty minutes at King’s Cross listening to her tired anxieties about having too much work for the hours available (Email the team and tell it like it is darling; they love and respect your work ethos so you can explain you need to think about time management to regain that feeling of treading water rather than drowning. Do it. By lunchtime. You’ll feel better).

This train will be full of writers and authors and plenty of aspiring authors all excitedly waiting to pick the brains of agents and publishers at their one to ones (my first is with Jo Bell at 2:50 today, from Bell, Lomax and Moreton agents). It is going to be such as honour to meet industry profressionals, to hear what they are looking for in the way of fiction this year, to hear what they thought of my synopsis and chapter 1 🙈 (*can I go home now please? Stop the train*).

Take copious amounts of wine, the message came across loud and clear. Fiddle. I don’t drink wine. Ha! Vodka nestles amongst my clothes for tipples later🥂

I am beyond excited to be spending time with my friend Julie from A Little Book Problem and for us both to be mingling with many like-minded New Writers Scheme members and making new friends 🖌

A woman named Julie

July 12, 2018

Jack noticed a new regular sitting daily at the same table.

Always reading, her slender fingers had not escaped his notice.

She would turn pages, the glare from the sun masked by sophisticated shades.

He made sure he walked past at the same time, waiting for her to look up.

Where was she going or whom was she meeting? No-one it seemed.

He knew the waiter and her choice of refreshment was always the same.

Today he sat at the next table sketching; he’d watched her for 12 days.

He started to draw her, to sketch the dainty feet tucked beneath.

She paused in her reading and smiled across at him and his heart skipped a beat.

He smiled back and continued his work, as the waiter emerged,

“Your lunch Mr Vettriano!”

🥂

Amazing what treasures you find when you go searching … such as a Lancaster Bomber

July 10, 2018

I’ve only three days before my journey to Leeds for a weekend surrounded by RNA members and NWS participants.  I really should be concentrating on my ‘pitch’ as I have three one-to-one meetings during the course of the weekend, all of whom will by now have read that first chapter (oh my word; now I’m starting to feel sick).

First, just had to share this ..

The last time I went rooting around in the barn I came across a letter to my much younger self .. do you recall that post?

Well today I went searching for a photo of my dad in his RAF uniform to show you guys but didn’t find one. However I did rediscover the gem above.

My other grandad, my mother’s father, was a watercolourist and particularly specialised in aircraft.

He painted this Lancaster long, long before I was aware I would enjoy powerful machinery. When he passed away, I was left this painting and I’m glad I’ve found it today (of all days!) because I shall bring it inside and find a frame for it.  How apt is that?

What treasures have you found from your past? 🌸