A slice of toast with 007 (and why farmers always moan about the weather)

June 11, 2019

Bread is made with wheat flour. This variety is called SKYFALL 🖤

This morning I needed to pop and get some washing up liquid – thought I’d treat the kitchen to a few minutes of my time. Man of the Woods offered to drive me so we could ‘check the crops’ (hadn’t gone down overnight with the rather torrential rainfall).

Most of us know that bread is made from wheat but how often do we see the crop close-up during the growing season when the ‘ear’ is developing each individual seed which in late July/August will be harvested.

Some farmers grow wheat for feed whereas we grow wheat aimed for milling. It is more expensive to nurture a milling wheat crop, right from the day it’s drilled, because the criteria for bread-making flour is complicated.

Protein in the seed needs to be 13% minimum and moisture needs to be 15% maximum. Every batch of grain taken from the farm after harvest is tested and if the criteria are not reached, your 6-months of hard work becomes obsolete. The expensive seed you bought, drilled and nurtured – because you have the type of land which can support a milling crop (rain-willing) – will be sold instead to a feed merchant for a lot lot less per tonne than it would have been to a milling merchant.

Every time Man of the Woods goes out with his sprayer with fungicide, or fertiliser early on to increase the yield, he is attempting to insure the future of his crop (and yes, I did mean to type insure, not ensure, because these sprays and fertilisers cost thousands). He does this so it will make milling quality. So it will go for flour to make bread. So that we can buy bread and enjoy a slice with blackcurrant.

But in Jan and Feb you simply cannot predict what the Gulf Stream will be doing by May and June. Farming is a gamble. Did you know there are more suicides in farming than any other way of life?

There are some interesting facts here about mental health and farming.

He did make it down to Cornwall, for the final day .. and spent it at an agricultural show 😂😂😂

We mustn’t laugh. The Royal Cornwall show is the jewell in the crown of country shows and there was lots to see. I managed to delay our return to Suffolk and secure two further nights in the holiday apartment so he could enjoy his brief holiday 🤗

I’m not entirely sure where this post is going, I simply had the idea of sharing a rather cool close-up photo of water droplets on some wheat but my words have morphed into something with more meaning.

MoW helps me when I’m low and it is the role of the farmer’s wife to be there morally when they are low and spitting feathers because their multiple working hours have been in vain.

Today he is happy. Only a few patches along the edge of one field has suffered and the green crop is lying flat against the ground and unlikely to recover, lift and continue plumping each seed out to its full potential. The crop is at its heaviest now and therefore susceptible to being knocked over by heavy rain. Once it starts to ripen and go golden (basically dry out and die) it weighs less and can withstand a summer shower.

Can we just take a moment … all washing up done and Joseph still alive on the windowsill ⛩

When all you want is a friend, but all you have is imagination

June 5, 2019

So that’s my new shout line for Book 2.

The one line eye-catching piece of prose at the top of your synopsis, before the thing starts, in the hope it catches an agent’s attention. We were taught about them on my recent CBC course. Some even make it all the way through the process and appear on the front cover of a book!

Taylor Jenkins Reid’s book, ‘After I Do’ had a great shout line, look..

It’s at the top; FALLING IN LOVE IS THE EASY PART. When I read that, I hear an enormous BUT THEN ….

I finished reading it two days ago, with tears steaming down from behind my sunnies. I was sat on a bench (dedicated to somebody who enjoyed years of holidays in this area) as the two main characters re-built their crumbling marriage. An intense, emotional and gritty read about the realism of taking your partner for granted and about what that can lead to. I actually sent Man of the Woods a text immediately I’d finished it. It’s the little thoughts that can go a long way when you’re apart…

📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚

Yesterday we padded around Padstow and ate pasties from the famous Chough bakery and lemon meringue pies from Stein’s Patisserie.

There is no photo of the Cornish pastie as we had to eat them sharpish before the seagulls succeeded in their efforts to swoop in and win a mouthful.

By ‘we’ I mean myself, my young adult offspring and their respective partners. Gone are the days when holidays with children mean holding their hand, watching them jump and down at the sight of blue ice cream, and dealing with over tired whiny pleas of ‘when can we go in the sea, mummy?’.

Now, it’s a delicate balance of suggesting loose plans, being flexible when those fall apart, watching your daughter decide whether she wants to be a fisherman’s wife as her eternally patient BF prepared his various hooks and baits them with now-disgusting pieces of fish from the not-so-cool box he has under his landrover 🤣🤣🤣🐟🐟🐟.

Then you’ve got the clown of the family – the happy-go-lucky son who still eats babybel cheeses and pretends to cry for our entertainment when he can’t find his whatever it is he’s looking for. He’s 6’4″, and I think gained an inch since New Zealand!

On the phone yesterday, MoW told me it rained more than 9mm yesterday in East Anglia and hence he and his father are stopping irritating (that’s not a typo; it’s how farmers refer to irrigating!). So we are holding our breath today for their arrival later. In my experience, the chance that something else can happen on the farm to prevent them making the 7-hr drive is quite high. I won’t believe he’s coming until I see his dad’s car pull up. (All the other cars in the family are here already 😂).

Anyway, back to books. We like a book don’t we. And we like a book shop, especially those cute independent ones, yes? Here’s a cutie – Padstow Bookseller.

This cover caught my eye, as did Julie Cohen’s words upon the front. oooh, I thought. I know and respect this author and if she says it’s great, I might just buy this. Then I opened the dust jacket and saw Susan Elliot Wright is a fellow RNA member, so the connections got even better and I opened and read the first page.

Yup, that was hooky enough for me to get my purse out!!

🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌

On our return from Padstow, being sure to leave the ‘kids’ some space, I retreated to my room with my laptop. After choosing how will spend my sessions at the conference next month, I went on to type up those penned-words I created last Friday towards a synopsis for Book 2. It’s the first draft obviously, but it’s a mini map of the whole idea. On paper/screen it now exists and is not simply only a notion inside my head. I’m excited by it. I even re-watched the Hidden History episode of Michael Portillo’s series which inspired this story!

Then we went in the sea ….

I finished the day studying the list of agents and publishers who are attending the two days of conference … just for us New Writers Scheme members! I mean, just how amazing is that? A chance for us to sit in a one to one meeting, the profressional having read the first 5000 words and a synopsis of our novels, yet knowing we are newbies and don’t really have a clue. It’s their opportunity to find a new voice, a nugget amongst the mountains of debut manuscripts!

I shall enjoy the weekend, the meeting of fellow authors, the standing in line for lunch with famous writers like Katie Ford, Jill Mansell, Julie Cohen, Rowan Coleman .. so many, too many to mention 🌸🥂

If anyone likes my work, it shall be icing on the cake ….

The farming calendar does not pause to fit the whims of its human caretakers. But the writing goes on …

June 1, 2019

… and so I find myself here without Man of the Woods. He is back in East Anglia, irrigating the potato crops which become ‘Charlottes’.

The science behind the ‘new’ potato’s nurture is surprisingly exacting. It is not a question of the agronomist instructing the farmer to: “give this an inch of water any time in the next three weeks.” whereupon he could hurl it on and then leave for his holiday.

No. It is more along the lines of: “These will be sprayed Monday morning, and will need 20mm of water within a 3-day window of that application.

I used to stamp my feet and look surly that I was married to someone who put his job before his time away with the family. Many friends used to raise their eyebrows – while eating potato-based products – and insinuate he was being awkward and boring. What’s more, I’d often agree 🙈.

Now I’m just proud. Speaking to him for half hour a few minutes ago, sat on the floor nursing my now 3/10 migraine (in what is a stunning holiday apartment that he would love) I can hear in his voice the acceptance that this time he cannot join us.

And although his 72 year old father tried to persuade him to drive down and that he would cope with the irrigation alone, MoW will not leave his father with that worry. Machinery has a habit of breaking down, pipes become blocked, the irrigator can sink into the mud just before you’re due to move it twenty yards along the field for the next ‘pull’. It’s hard physical work and while MoW’s father is relatively strong and fit, I know it would worry my husband to leave him to it.

So there it is. The reality of a farming way of life when you don’t have farm-workers; no-one to do the work when you’re not there.

Enjoy your crisps today and give a thought as you crunch that real people produced those for all of our pleasure 🤣

🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌

Meanwhile, in other news, I brought with me a journal for notes to develop my Book 2 idea.

‘Save the Cat’ was also packed because I wish to plan this novel with more care than Book 1! I’ve studied for over a year now this art called fiction writing and while I shall never know all there is to know, my goodness, I have a greater understanding of what makes an okay book into a really good book. (Whether I’ll be able to transfer that knowledge onto the paper remains to be seen but I am excited for the process of Book 2).

Yesterday, as the sun burned away an early haze, I set to work on a synopsis and a tag line.

I had always believed you could never write a synopsis until you’d written an entire novel, because how would you possibly know what to include? The chapters will jostle for position, as we know they always do as we write, and therefore a synopsis surely should not be contemplated until after the book is written to at least a first draft?

Well …

For those of you who have been reading my posts for a while, you’ll remember I attended a course in Devon at RetreatsForYou to study alongside the talented Julie Cohen who has written over twenty books; here are just a few:

Many of her tips have stayed with me, but one particularly.

She asked us all to pause and think about the theme of our novel; the thread of aim or goal for the protagonist through the pages. Without one, even with quality writing, we simply end up with prose about things happening. Julie went even further and encouraged us to think about narrowing it down to a one-word pitch!

It was a hard exercise as we all grappled for words that narrowed our story down but the lesson has stuck. As I contemplate Book 2 (even while Book 1 is in the ‘system’ and being critiqued right now) I find my approach is completely different this time.

I know roughly my story outline but before I type a word, or even map out the chapters I wish to narrow it down to a synopsis, an elevator pitch, a tag line and even one-word. Without telling you yet about Book 2 in detail, let’s look at what I mean in regard to this exercise. Below is a potential 3 star piece of mini fiction;

She walked to the beach and dipped her toes in the Atlantic water. The icy chill took her breath away.

However with a theme, we have heart and soul. For example, let’s give the previous sentence a one-word theme and re-write it slightly;

‘LONELINESS’

The knowledge she would be alone when she had least expected it cut through her plans like a sword. The laughter she’d known they would share was silent before it had chance to exist and as the icy waters stole the warmth from her feet, so too did the wind her hopes. She pulled the jumper closer to her skin in a desperate attempt to protect the shred of courage her journey there had given her ….

We have a real vision of someone now, and how she might be feeling. We have a question – why is she alone yet wasn’t expecting to be so? That’s the hook.

Do excuse me while I pause for a coffee. My migraine is receding and usually around now I can eat without feeling nauseous.

I’ll be back!

Tuscany, reading, writing and archery – so much common ground! #RNA

May 28, 2019

Found this Christmas card in the cupboard when I was tidying at 3am this morning, five months too late to send. It depicts Il Duomo in Milan and when I spotted it, it took me back to my weekend with my travel buddy Hannah last March. I knew she’d appreciate the card – so perhaps you’ll remind me to send it this coming December 🙄

Italy Italy is everywhere it seems .. and a very popular location for romance novels. I give you this link … 💒 … in which you should find the wonderful blog by Angela Petch. A fellow-RNA member, writer and all round kindness-filled lady whom I met and clicked with at last year’s Conference near Leeds.

In this post Angela chats to Daisy James, author of the Paradise Cookery School series and now the Limoncello series, published by Canelo Escape Publishing.

I enjoyed reading about Daisy’s writing day, seeing her summer house where she writes when it’s warm enough. The archery link is something I’ll bring up when I see her next time at an RNA event. (We sat next to each other last autumn at the York tea ☕️)

Perhaps now is the time to submit my Tuscan novel to these guys at Canelo to see if they fancy a little romance/mafia 🖤😅

No. For now, we wait. The manuscript is with the New Writer’s Scheme for its read-through by one of the multi-published authors of romance. Receiving the feedback report will be a double-edged sword; petrifying and exciting! To see what the reader thinks works or not. eeeeek!

Have a great day folks!

Boiling phones, Ireland and submitting to agents

May 15, 2019

Best not to leave iPhones on the car seat behind glass on the (private) driveway at a friend’s for two hours.

But do grow climbers along your washing lines as they look pretty against an azure sky..

Final week of the Curtis Brown course … eeeek; had to post first 3,000 words plus synopsis and example letter to an agent of our choice!

Now I shall wait for any feedback from fellow students. I’ve filled a ring binder with course notes from the previous six weeks and simply need to get on with making some scene changes in the middle section of the book. Then I can do that thing we’ve all been waiting for – submitting to agents for real 😳

I keep getting side-tracked and exploring though. I’ve been to Ireland these last four days but sadly was too far to meet up with WordPress writing buddy Sabina over at Ortensia72 .

Pop over and check out her interview following recent publication of her first novel – woo hoo 🎉

It’s got 5 star ratings so far and I’m so please and proud. I’d been hoping to pick the brains of this author who went ahead and became an indie author. She bit the bullet and is already writing Book 2 🥂(I would love to have that faith in myself…)

On arrival at Maryborough Hotel & Spa, we were greeted like old friends and told we’d been upgraded! (I’d mentioned it was my birthday weekend at which Man of the Woods was unable to join me so I was dragging a friend along, kicking and screaming).

We had such an amazing time, and we were really rather sensible and did grown up things like visit the Queenstown museum in Cobh…

Oh my word. What history this place has. This statue is Annie Moore, aged 15 with her brothers. The first emigrant to be registered on Ellis Island.

Over 3 million people left Ireland from this port once called Cove (then named Queenstown after Queen Victoria visited) and then re-named Cobh in 1920s by the then government, who wanted it returned to Cove but the Irish version.

The cathedral! The blue sky!

And my travel buddy choosing menu options with an ocean liner in the background, docked for the day mid-cruise.

This was also the final docking venue for the Titanic on that fateful maiden voyage. My brain started doing somersaults over fiction ideas and on the last day I actively wrote out a whole but basic plan of a brand new story!

I was, at the time, relaxing in the Airbnb for our final night. The Lux Bus can only be described as the cutest conversion ever … if you visit Southern Ireland, I highly recommend staying in it!

Anyway it’s back to business, and I’m sorry I post so infrequently at the moment. I trust my absence will all have been in a good cause 🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌

Pernille Hughes and her gym buddies have given me a lust for progress 💪🏼

May 10, 2019

There is nothing to dislike about this story.

I have over eight novels which I’ve started and not yet finished because I have an addiction – reading the first page to see if it hooks, I then buy and read a few chapters before putting the new book to one side and promising to come back to it “after I’ve finished the others“!

Something kept me reading this though. Maybe the writing style being easy on the eye when my brain is so full of my CBC coursework made it a relaxing reading experience. The petals of humour falling upon each page are utterly hilarious and had me laughing out loud with recognition. Pernille writes characters so relatable you expect to bump into them in your town… well hopefully not Aaron. 

The hopes and dreams of Tiffanie have been created with care and passion. I wanted and needed her to succeed, against all the odds. This is why I had to finish this book. I learnt things about boxing along the way and might just go and buy a skipping rope…

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07BK163PS?ref=cm_sw_em_r_rw_mw_7h8pedii3rnin

How can I lose weight when I’m sitting on my arse typing these days! I may not be medically classed as overweight but I’m a stone and a half – 20lbs I suppose I should say – heavier than I was two years ago and than I was all my adult life. And I don’t like it.

Having hit 50 (if I keep saying it, I’ll eventually believe it) I’m now ready to think about getting fitter, yet I fear my body got bored of waiting around while I brought up the kids and started my business twelve years ago. Bugger.

Healthier choices on the food front will surely help….

(*cough*)