Tag Archives: writers

Hello Stranger

Yeh, I know, I’ve been conspicuously absent. There are two reasons; it’s half term which means my time is not my own and I have been setting up another blog/website for a group n of writers I’m part of. I say group, it’s more of an affiliation really but if you want to know more you can find out here.

Let me know what you think.

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Filed under Author Updates

Basking…

OK… a good week, a very good week.

Second, I went to two book club meetings for feedback recently. I was worried they wouldn’t like it especially as one group had been fairly forthright with a previous visiting author. I got some fantastic feedback. There was a consensus that older adults find my covers a bit YA but on the other hand, one of them, a Librarian, has said she will recommend it to all the teenage boys who come in.

What interested me, particularly, was getting a different view of the book from people who might not normally read it. Lots of food for thought. One highlight was a lady who openly admitted that she loathed this kind of thing and wouldn’t want to read the sequel but still gave it 7/10 because ‘it was very well written’. Another said that it was hard work reading Few Are Chosen because the chases were so exciting that she was literally out of breath.

And yeh, some of them even bought the book.

So am I chipper? Yes. I am.

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Filed under About My Writing, General Wittering, Reviews

Reasons to be Cheerful

  1. The Sun came out today.
  2. There is no snow.
  3. I’m wearing the boots I love rather than the sensible shoes that don’t slip on ice.
  4. I am only wearing two jumpers.
  5. I am not wearing long johns.
  6. I am warm.
  7. I know what’s wrong with my book.
  8. I can fix it.

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I knew I shouldn’t have shown him that book on Florence Nightingale

McOther came home from work feeling terrible. He went upstairs for a rest. McMini and I arrived from school and went up to see if he’d like a cup of tea. He said yes please.
“When I’m ill I like to go to bed and have a little sleep and read my books, then I feel better,” McMini volunteered.
“Thank you,” said McOther.
“Come on, let’s go make Daddy’s tea,” I said and we went down to boil the kettle. While I was fishing a tea bag out of the tin and generally phaffing, McMini disappeared. When I went upstairs with McOther’s tea, there was our son sitting beside his Dad with a book on aeroplanes and a StarWars annual.
“I am just reading to Daddy, so he will feel better.”
“Good boy, do you feel better Daddy?”
“Yes I do,” said McOther’s mouth but his eyes said, “Help me…!”
“I think we should leave Daddy to sleep now though, eh?” I said.
“But I haven’t finished reading him StarWars.”
“I’m sure he would love to have a sleep first, it’ll be much more exciting if he has to wait for the next installment. Right Daddy?”
“Yes, that’s a great idea,” said McOther, with a certain amount of feeling.
“What d’you reckon?” I asked McMini.
“Hmm… Yes Mummy I think you’re right. OK Daddy. It is time for you to have a little sleep. I will come back to see you later and find out if you are better,” said McMini. “Let me turn the light off.”
He turned our three position bedside light onto medium, then bright then straight through off and back onto low several times, so I decided to save McOther’s retinas from a third searing by doing it myself.
“See you later Daddy,” he said.
I’ve managed to distract him with supper, TV and a game of football but he is very keen to take a star wars annual up to Daddy and read to him, even though it’s actually his Dad who’s doing the reading…

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Awards, rewards and stuff…

I don’t know where to start this morning. Two cool things happened in one day on Sunday. Eee – fans hand in front of face – I’m all teary just thinking about it. The thing is, they’re so different I don’t know how to marry them up into a coherent blog post. Never mind. When have I ever let that sort of thing stop me? Exactly. So here goes.

First up, The Wrong Stuff has won an award and trust me, nobody is more surprised than me. As you can see I’m proudly displaying my new badge from Indie Book Bargains in my widgety bit. Please do have a look at the site or click here, and scroll down… a bit more… a little bit further ….annnnd there!

Whahoo!

That’s all I can say.

OK that’s the authory gubbins done… now here’s another important thing. Remember this post yep, that’s right, the cheery one. A few days after writing that I found out that one of my friends from school had had a heart attack and was in hospital in a coma – because life is always absolutely brilliant, around Christmas, isn’t it? The prognosis was not rosy although his Mum was convinced that he was going to make it and I have to confess that once I saw him, so was I. He is the most bloody-minded, pig headed person I know. Apart from me. I haven’t seen him for ages but he’s one of those people where that doesn’t really matter. My parents and I consider him pretty much family so I nipped home last weekend to say hello.

He’d made it to high dependency by that time and although he’d had a crap day the day before he was able to focus, communicate with blinks and he also managed the ghost of a smile and an eye roll when I told him he was the only person I know who is pig-headed enough to get better. He also managed an eye roll when I asked him if he wanted me to carry on holding his hand, seeing as my hands were disgustingly sweaty and covered in that gloop they make you put on them at the door (he blinked me a ‘no’ unsurprisingly). I left him some snurd cards – not that I’m an egomaniac or anything but actually, he’s a massive petrol head so he might like then.

Anyway come Sunday and his sister posts his picture on Facebook. He is sitting up, holding his head up and looking very lugubrious but also very much himself. Whatever the brain damage is, and we don’t really know yet, his intellect and personality are clearly undamaged. I would post the photo but he’ll fucking kill me when he gets better.

The link to writing…? Not a huge one, just that my current work in progress is not going well. In fact, it’s like pushing a giant rock up a hill but at the same time, while my normal cure for this would be to write something else, I can’t seem to leave this one alone. I suppose, when you know what you want to achieve, the steps towards it can seem very small and the goal a long way away. Perhaps the secret of attaining a difficult goal is not to evaluate your progress too often, or at least, if you do to look at how far you’ve travelled rather than the distance you have to go.

Over the past few weeks, it’s been hard to write in quantity because I’ve been worrying about people. And that’s fine. But it has occurred to me there are a lot of them in my life, right now, with much heavier rocks and much steeper hills than me. OR to put it another way, think I should really stop fannying around, get my finger out of my arse, and just write the bloody book.

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Filed under About My Writing, Author Updates, General Wittering, winging author, Writing Conundrums

Happy New Year. Hung Over?

Why not blow away the cobwebs with one of Gladys and Ada’s famous cheese and pickle sandwiches? You know, the pickle that’s famed for its chilli heat.

No? Suit yourself. But if you are nursing a cup of black coffee with a couple of Alka Seltza in it this morning, if you have the shakes but, at the same time, are able to focus vaguely, here’s another brief snippet from One Man: No Plan, K’Barthan Trilogy, Part 3. Once again, it’s a work in progress, not yet professionally edited but here’s hoping you’ll enjoy it anyway.

One Man: No Plan, second sample.

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Filed under About My Writing, Author Updates, Free Stuff, General Wittering, Humorous Fantasy Author

Christmas Bonus

At least, I hope it is. I’m not talking about the Asterix character I mean a sort of present for you lot, who kindly read this. And it’s an excerpt. So what we have here, unedited, raw, unfinished but reasonably well polished is the first chapter from One Man: No Plan, K’Barthan Trilogy: Part 3.

This is just to reassure you, that despite the efforts of the Real World, it is still moving. Yeh at glacial speeds but that’s not the point. The point, the big point, is that it hasn’t stopped.

So here it is, Happy Christmas. The sample is a pdf and you can download it by clicking on the link below.

One Man: No Plan, K’Barthan Trilogy: Part 3 chapter sample

Next week, I’ll post another random excerpt from later in the story.

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Filed under About My Writing, General Wittering

McMini Says

Some more gems from McMini who is currently hoovering up his supper, or at least, munching it crumb by crumb, at the same speed glaciers move.

He sighed and said, “I have so much to do… I must do driving and eating and measuring and running.“
“That sounds like a packed social agenda.” I said.
“Oh yes I am very busy.”

Then he looked at his toy aeroplane and said.

“That is made in a factory with a machine and then a man puts it in a box and it is sent to the shops for me to buy.” he said.
“Well, yes that is pretty much how everything works.” I said. “Where did you get that from?“
“I watched it on I Can Cook.”

I was quite chuffed that he’s worked out how a factory works from looking at a short segment about packing and shipping bananas.

This morning we were out for a walk and the conversation went something like this.

“Mummy. It’s been raining a lot.“
“Yes hasn’t it? I’m glad it’s stopped now.“
“Yes and the puddles have gone.“
“Yes they have.“
“Where do they go?“
“Well, some of the water soaks away into the ground and some goes up into the sky. It’s the same as the steam that comes out of the kettle when it’s boiling — that’s water too — except there’s not as much so we can’t see it.“
“Ah… I think that’s how rain gets up into the sky, then.“
“Yes, that’s exactly how rain gets up into the sky.“
“Mmm. I see.”

I think he’s probably quite sharp. I quake at the thought of his teenaged years. I will win many arguments when he’s a teenager (not).

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