An Enjoyable Week

Moans over, I'm really enjoying this week. It started off well when I met an old friend I hadn't seen for over 30 years (thanks to Friends Reunited). What a lot of catching-up talking we had to do!

Last night I went to a talk/reading at Waterstones to meet another Accent Press author, Kevin Chandler. His novel 'Listening In' has just come out. He did a really good talk, followed by interesting discussion. It was lovely to meet him.

Today my Yellow Room mag arrived in the post. I can't wait to curl up in front of the fire with a G & T to read it.

I'm looking forward to going to the SOA Authors North Spring Meeting in Liverpool tomorrow. Booking my train tickets online came close to spoiling my good mood (contradictory info about times and availability), but I think it's OK now.

On Monday it's my Speaker Club meeting, and I'm (almost!) getting confident enough to start enjoying these sessions. The editor of 'The Speaker' magazine emailed me a copy of my article as it will appear in the September issue, and I'm even pleased with my photo which they want to include.

And then on Tuesday I'll be back at work but (hey, aren't I lucky?) I love my job.

An annoying week

I've had an annoying week. First, I found I'd become unable to receive emails. Senders were getting a 'Delivery Failure' message. How did we manage in pre-email days? For some reason, not being able to receive emails really got to me. I mean, I might've been missing some really important ones, like the acceptances I'm waiting for about my articles/proposals sent to magazines. And then wot about emails from people telling me how much they like my book? The advance review copies have now been printed and (I think) already sent out to a few people, so I'm on those hook things called tenters. My publishers will be taking some (my books, not my tenterhooks) to the London Book Fair.

Anyway, back to my moans. I suddenly got a 'thing' in my eye that looked like a spider dangling from my eyelash, but no spider was to be seen. Now I am left with a big black floater prancing about in front of everything I look at. The optometrist who did various eye health checks can't find anything serious, and he explained that I will just have to put up with the floater. Yes, but it's driving me mad flitting back and forth across the page when I'm reading or writing. I've had floaters before but not a nasty big black one like this thing. I'm told that after a few months my brain will stop registering it and then it won't keep annoying me. Well, what do you know? Clever thing, your brain, isn't it? But a few months?

I'd better stop writing this blog post while I'm in such a crabby mood, or I'll be churning out a long list of my recent annoyances. Maybe I'll feel better when it stops raining.

Friends Reunited

It's weird, isn't it? Old friends suddenly poke out at you from the internet. People you haven't seen since when you 'were young, oh, so much younger than today.' (Is that plagiarism?). We were best friends (on and off, that is. We squabbled a lot) at junior school. She's back in this area for a while, and we're going to meet next week.

I'm looking forward to our meeting with interest, and (I don't know why) a kinda scared feeling. Ah, the joys of technology, and that Friends Reunited site.

Her email began, 'Do you remember me?' Yes, I do. (Oh God, she doesn't appear in my memoir, does she?).

Threads

I looked up 'The Dark Threads' on Amazon.co.uk and had to smile to note the list of other items which Amazon tells us that purchasers of my book might be interested in. These were about sewing machines and sewing threads! Just out of interest I looked up 'Of Human Bondage'. But, no, they haven't linked Somerset Maughan's novel with erotica books.

Well, I'm going to set to work today and write some more magazine articles that might help (at least indirectly) in publicising my memoir. The editor of the 'Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal' phoned me to say they are going to publish my article. I'm now going to write a piece for 'The Speaker', the national magazine of the Association of Speakers Clubs, about my experiences of joining my local club. Meanwhile, I'm waiting to hear if Mslexia have accepted my 'How I did it' piece, and I'm wondering which other magazines to try.

I've had more success at getting non-fiction published than fiction. This worries me slightly as I wannabe a fiction writer and maybe I'm not good enough at that. Oh well, I can but try. Once I've finished the magazine articles I'm going to retrieve my novel-in-progress (what progress?) from the junk cupboard and see if I can get back into it (the novel I mean, not the junk cupboard).

Catching Up

I seem to have got behind with everything, including my blog, but in a recent spurt of busyness I'm almost back on track.

On the writing front, not much has been happening, at least not with the stories I intended to write and the novel I intended to get back to working on. I've written an article for the 'Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal' which is being 'considered'. I've now got to get on with the 'monthly' newsletter I write for the charity where I work, which didn't appear in February and it looks like the March issue is going to be a March/April one.

On the reading front, (erm, does reading other people's lovely blogs count? Yes, why not?). I've followed with interest the discussion about criticism from Sally Zigmond and Jo Derrick. Yes, criticism may not always be quite what we're wanting to hear about our darling babies, but I agree that we can learn such a lot from honest and constructive criticism. It can be confusing though, with one person seeing things one way and another seeing it quite the opposite. I suppose what we've got to do is try hard to stand back and decide if a particular piece of criticism makes us feel we should do some re-writing taking it into account.

Still on the subject of criticism, I once got an appraisal from a (well-known and highly respected) literary consultancy which did absolutely nothing but praise my writing! I was mad as hell. Why? Because I was not naive enough to think that my 100 pages of writing was so good that there was nothing wrong with it, and I had paid for the critique so that I could work on improving it. I complained to the consultancy and they said in all their years of business they'd had lots of complaints from people who weren't happy about the person doing the critique not seeing the writing as being as good as the writer felt it was. But never before, not once, had anyone ever complained about too much praise for their writing. (Yes, but...). I have since mellowed towards the person who did the critique as it later seemed to prove very helpful in getting me a foot in the door with publishers and persuading them to at least ask for the full manuscript. But I still feel sure that another person would have given me a much more critical critique that could have helped me focus on the (many) areas where there was a lot of room for improvement.

On the public speaking front, I'm still 'getting there'. I was invited to give a talk to The Mind Matters Society, which has been set up at Uni to raise mental health awareness. We went first to see the play 'The Hounding of David Oluwale', the true story about a Nigerian immigrant who spent time in the sixties in High Royds mental institution, where apparently he was treated horrendously. Eventually, as a homeless person, he was hounded to death by two local police officers. After the play we went to a room that Dom, the president of the Society, had hired, and I was Guest Speaker. Who, me? It was probably thanks to my gut-churning, teeth-pulling practising at the speakers club that this went really well. Afterwards we had interesting discussion. At the end of the evening Dom presented me with a big bouquet on behalf of the group. Oooh, wasn't that lovely of them?

On the publishing front, things are moving now. The advance review copies are in the process of being printed. I've been contacting editors of mental health magazines, and a few others, to see who might do a review of my book or give comments that can be used for quotes. I'm putting together a list of those who request a copy, which I'll give to my publisher for them to add to their list and send out. This seems to be going well so far.

As you might have guessed, some of this blog posting is rather self-indulgent as maybe what I'm trying to do is convince myself that I haven't been as lazy of late as what I think (know) I have been. And now I've written a long one to make up for missing postings, so I'll give myself another pat on the back. Time now to get out of my dressing gown and put some clothes on before the rest of the (ahem) afternoon disappears.

Got a virus (me, not computer)

Yesterday would have been my Book Publication Date. Perhaps it's a good job it wasn't, as I've been ill for the past few days with a flu-type virus. I wouldn't have felt a bit like celebrating.

I'm having a short break from blogging until I feel better.

NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESUMED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Speaking of which, does anyone remember when telly programmes used to keep being interrupted with those words? (Now I'm really showing my age).

Snow fun anymore

I must be getting old. Snow is no fun anymore. As a child I always looked forward to the snow coming. It meant great fun sledging, snowballing, making slides and building snowmen. But now it means feeling cold, trying to buy boots and shoes with good grips on the soles (sod fashion) and inching my way along icy pavements.

Last week I slid down part of our steep street on my backside (not intentionally). A dog barking and children laughing at me added to my humiliation. I don't want to wish my life away, but, oh, how I'm looking forward to summer.

So now it's official. I've said it. Grumpy old woman I may fast be becoming, but I DON'T LIKE SNOW!