Category: DEBUT NOVEL

… rather like customers at a car boot sale, and my blog is that trestle table sagging in the middle, random items trying desperately to look interesting and all down to a pound because I’d rather not haul them back home again.

Goodness it’s been ages since I went to a car boot sale. Certainly not since the kids became teenagers. When they were smaller – both under ten and outside the rugby season – we would often drive to a nearby and regular car boot venue on a Sunday morning and become ecstatic as we snaked in-line towards the spaces in the car park (sheep field Monday to Saturday).

Man of the Woods would put the driver’s seat flat back in the truck and have a nap, and we’d promise to bring him a bacon buttie and coffee within an hour.

I’d give the kids a fiver each and they had free rein to buy whatever tat they liked. That freedom was a drug to them, but the tricky challenge was deciding if they should buy the first item they spotted and decided they couldn’t possibly live without, or risk losing it into the arms of another child while they continued their search for something ‘even better‘.

(Have a hand-painted scene by a backstreet artist on Skiathos which I watched him create in about fifteen minutes 😱)

I’ve been having a few Marie Kondo moments in the house recently and have practically re-stocked the local Sue Ryder shop with enormous amounts of clothing, shoes, games, books and … stuff. Like, why did I keep random wire shelving units… or wooden boxes… or candle sticks and I don’t mean a decent silver pair such as those in ‘Les Miserable’. Did you watch that? We did and loved it.

I was invited to watch the opera once, probably twenty years ago. I delighted in the opportunity to surround myself with intellectual people and accepted. I had absolutely no idea what was going on – during any of it. I recall the stage revealing a spiral walkway and a battle scene but my history lessons at school had been spent day-dreaming through the windows.

Here’s another history lesson.

I’m reading this novel by Jodi Piccoult – Small Great Things. I’d heard of it and seen the cover bandied about of course but had no idea what its conten might reveal. I can tell you, I’ve not been able to put it down!

Prejudice… is what it’s about, in one word.

Jodi has weaved the most believable characters into this contemporary tale. People trying so hard not to be racist, they are tripping over their political correctness time and time again.

The book is about seeing what humankind can do – has done – to each other.

Within sentences of meeting the white supremacist, I hated him with a passion. Yet even he and his world and what led him to his beliefs, has burrowed under my skin of intrigue. I just hope they can sort all this out amicably 😢. (Yeah, right … I doubt they are going to be buying each other shortbread any time soon.)

If you read my post some weeks back ‘Everyone’s Talking About Jamie’ you’ll recall I support all things equal, tolerance of different people. Perhaps I should add a small caveat here. Anyone who is hard-working at living their lives without attempting to disrupt others for their own gain.

Long term readers of my blog will know that following a year of counselling, I don’t tolerate bullying within my own walls – and that’s a middle class white family. Believe me when I say there’d been plenty of prejudice going on there to fill a small back street in Paris with old furniture. My mother’s living room is so jam packed with verbal judgements aimed at everyone, from the dentist, the woman in the flower shop, the dog breeder on the end of the phone that the air in there is stifling.

How’s my book coming along did I hear one of you ask? Aside from the fact I’ve not touched it for five days at the time of writing – and I’m going to blame Jodi and weekend antics for that – I’m two thirds of the way through incorporating the pink pen edits 💃🏼

This is taking considerably longer than anticipated as some pages, such as this one under my home-made soup, were practically re-written 🙈

I’ve also finished a brilliant read called ‘Save The Cat’ by Jessica Brody. This 15-beat method of plotting a novel makes more sense than putting your shoes on the correct feet. How I wish I’d discovered this book before I started this story!

Following a small tantrum I knuckled down and read to the end, furiously scribbling notes along the way of additions seriously needing to be made to my manuscript. So this will be the next edit. No-one said it was a quick job, and the last thing I want to do is submit to anywhere while I know it can be so much better.

(It’s 4 in the morning FFS. Why aren’t you asleep?)

Brain iron filings.

(Pardon?)

It’s what my head feels full of when I do that turning-over thing in the early hours in the dark, listening to Man of the Wood’s steady breathing. I debate about rejoining the pages of an unread-novel, or stew over ideas for the manuscript. I lick my lips with a dire need for a coffee with CoffeeMate; newly discovered and being consumed in copious amounts because it is soooo creamy.

(So now you’ve been down two and a half hours will you go back up to bed now? You know you’ll look like death all tomorrow otherwise…)

Thanks. But no, I’ve got a court case to read about. One where the white lawyer is going to be played by Julia Roberts in the forthcoming film adaptation. Viola Davis will be playing Ruth, the black labour and delivery nurse accused of the murder of a baby in her care. It’s going to be such a moving and important film of our time.

Hope you’re all having a good week. If you’ve read to the end, do leave a comment just so I know who is still reading this blog. I think the algorithms may dictate that because I’ve been far less active than I used to be, my blog is floating somewhere in oblivion. Three days ago, I had one visitor 🤣 seriously. Just the one!