The Lucky Button

Big son has just gone out to brave the motorway to get to yet another interview at noon. At least he’s getting the interviews and second interviews, but as yet no graduate job. I’m sure children don’t appreciate the anxieties of their parents – I want the best for him, but know there is nothing I can do when he’s at this interview.

He’s continued to surprise me through his educational years getting ten GCSEs when I’d resigned myself to him getting none, these were followed by three A Levels and an AS. He graduated in the summer with a 2:1 in Business Studies and Marketing and I cried all the way home after the graduation ceremony. I think I was letting out the tension of struggling with a dyslexic child through the sausage machine of education – his reading age was 8 when he went to secondary school.

Anyway back to today, I knew he’d shout if I did it, but this morning I was tempted to press a lucky button into his hand when he left. I gave him a button once when he was scared at nursery and told him to press it whenever he felt scared. Needless to say he lost it, but I’d tried. So I’ve sent him out, tall and smart this morning with a metaphorical lucky button and a blast of Reiki. Good luck son. Maybe today is your lucky day.

December being such a short month this year and Christmas coming early!

I once sat next to a colleague at work as he was making excuses on the telephone for not having completed a piece of work. In a voice without any hesitation he pronounced, ‘What with December being such a short month this year and Christmas coming early…’ We never let him forget his words, but I think I’ve started to believe them!

Finishing NaNoWriMo on 28 November, I went into a sort of shock. The post Nano decline made it impossible to write anything or even think logically. I may have completed 50,000 plus words in November, I hope coherently, but I haven’t written hardly anything since.

Following the Nano shock came Christmas panic. I have now written a family newsletter, 144 cards and purchased all of the presents. Phew! Now I wonder why I set myself such impossible targets. The quilted Christmas table runner I began before Nano still needs 75 gold stars stitched into it. I am also making a quilted mat for my Mom – needless to say it is nowhere near finished and the one I planned for my sister not even started. Mmm revision of goals needed perhaps?

I’m also helping a friend with her family tree – no pressure, she wants to give it to her son on his 50th birthday at the beginning of February! However, this one lights me up, I love tracing family trees. Gold stars may lose out to ancestors.

My diary for 2012 lies empty, not because I haven’t anything to put into it, but because I need to sit down and transfer everything over. Last day of term today – I wonder if I could trust my eight year old to write in all the birthdays? He’s just graduated to pen at school and his handwriting is far better than mine. He was star of the week for a poem – A recipe for Christmas – I can’t tell you how proud I was, particularly as he wrote the lot in class so the teacher couldn’t claim parental assistance. Maybe he has a few of my genes and we do have Browning ancestors!

Anyway less rambling. If I don’t get around to blogging again before Christmas, I wish you all a Merry Christmas.

NaNoWriMo Success

If I’ve been blog-quiet for the last few weeks it is because I’ve been working on my NaNoWriMo 50,000 word manuscript to be written in the month of November. I finished the challenge at 50,103 words, but this is by no means the end. The manuscript has a way to go yet and the dreaded editing of course.

What have I learned over the last month? –

• That saying I haven’t got time to write isn’t true – I easily managed 1,700 words a day.

• That I am definitely happier writing longer pieces of work.

• A confirmation that characters can have minds of their own and lead your book into unexpected waters.

• That a theme is definitely emerging in my work which seems to point towards my genre being romantic suspense.

• That my hunger to be published is growing.

This is the third novel I have now completed at first draft stage and I am now determined to edit all three and send them out to prospective publishers.

Off to celebrate now with a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate. How do you like to celebrate your achievements?

Serial First Drafter?

Day 7 of NaNoWriMo and I am enjoying writing a new story. This one has the chain saw carver in it, who was the subject of an earlier post. Anyone who knows me is aware that I am a planner and very organised. When writing a first draft, however, I tend to be a panster not a planner and enjoy this unaccustomed freedom.

I am a little worried that I am becoming a serial first draft writer though. After this one I need to settle down to edit the last few. Does anyone else have this problem?

I went to a talk on Saturday by Sue Johnson about the two books she has had published this year and her road to publication. Fable’s Fortune is doing well and her latest “how to” book Creative Alchemy is very useful and a wonderfully tactile small size.

Good luck to my fellow NaNo writers – keep going!

Friendly Blogger Award and Historical Author Talk

My blog has been awarded a friendly blog award by Catherine Miller. Thank you Catherine.

 

In keeping with the award I must tell you seven things about me and recommend fifteen other blogs. So here goes:-

1) I met my husband on the internet! Married nine years next January.

2) Once starred as the Artful Dodger in the school play.

3) My first car was a Mini City nicknamed “Beep Beep”.

4) I have a Black Country accent and am proud of it.

5) I love watching Grand Prix. Favourite drivers are Jensen Button, Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber.

6) My favourite bird is a goldfinch.

7) Suffer from “Stationary Acquisition Disorder” – pens and notebooks.

I recommend and pass the award onto the following fifteen blogs. It was difficult to choose, but these are some of my favourite reads. Please check them out, all are worth following.

A Zigzag Road
Annie Seaton
Bucolic Frolics

Cara Cooper's blog

Elizabeth Hanbury
Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes
Not Quite a Blonde
Flowerpot Days
India Grey
Kate Hardy
Sarah’s Book Reviews
Serenity Woods
Sue Moorcroft Writes
The Wittering Woman
The Writer’s Toolkit Blog

I went to a superb talk/writers’ panel at Kidderminster Library on Monday evening – Elizabeth Chadwick (Lady of the English, To Defy a King), Jane Sanderson (Netherwood) and Barbara Ewing (The Fraud, The Circus of Ghosts). Some useful tips emerged:-

1. Write to entertain.
2. If you write historicals try to include a real minor character.
3. Again for historicals, ask yourself - “Is it possible?” “Is it likely?”
4. Don’t feel you have to include all of your research. “As you know Bob” moments make books boring.
5. Try writing in ten minute bursts with thinking time between.

I came back full of writing ideas so I'd better get back to it. what has inspired you lately?

Reading, Research and News

I haven’t blogged for a couple of weeks. It has been a funny old time and I haven’t felt quite right one way or another. Hopefully on the mend now and bouncing back to my old self.

Happy birthday to Teresa Morgan

Get well wishes to India Grey, who had a nasty accident in London.

Congratulations to Sue Johnson on the publication of Creative Alchemy. This is a little book with an amazing feel and a lovely cover. It is billed as a writing course in a book. It was featured on Pauline Barclay’s blog this week.

I had a great lunch last Friday with Sue Johnson, Sue Watson (Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes), Ellie Swoop (my writing buddie) and Sheila Hames (an up and coming regency writer). We talked non-stop. Ellie and I also had lunch with Sarah Broadhurst. It was interesting talking about books from a reader and reviewer's point of view. Check out her blog for great book reviews.

At the weekend I went to a woodwork tool exhibition in London. Hubbie and little son wanted to go and I needed to do some research on chainsaw wood carving for a story. The poor guy doing the chainsaw demonstration couldn’t have been further away from the image of my hero. It was a little off putting that he kept completing these huge supposed mushrooms which to me looked more like sculptures of a certain part of the male anatomy! Nevertheless, I got my research information and hopefully can make my hero more realistic now.

I have been reading some great books:

• Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes - Sue Watson
• A Gathering Storm - Rachel Hore
• House of Silence and Untying the Knot - Linda Gillard

Lots of my friends have been getting publishing deals. If you read this blog please feel free to mention your publications below and congratulations from me.

Are Boxes the Answer?

For my sins I look after the second-hand uniform cupboard at school. Whilst I love the accounting side of it – counting money and sharing the proceeds of sales between school and parents – I’m not so keen on the cupboard itself. I felt sick at the beginning of term when I opened the doors, imagine a jumble sale which has exploded. I decided that if I was to remain sane and do the job I had to restore order.

After a sleepless night punctuated by dreams of school tracksuits and blazers, a vision arose. Cue lots of teasing from parents spotting me sneaking into school with boxes. They may laugh, but when I open the doors to my domain now I am met with tranquil neat labels.

Returning home after the tidy up, I began to wonder if I had just been taught a life lesson. Was the uniform cupboard a metaphor for my existence?

Don’t worry, I haven’t packed up my world into boxes, but I have changed my way of doing things. I am determined to finish projects and not leave them around incomplete cluttering up my ,home and creativity. So far this week we have a completed tapestry and a bean bag. I now need to translate this way of working to my writing. All of those half-finished stories, poems and novels beware, you are about to be extracted from your boxes (lol) and finished. Watch this space and wish me luck.