Tidy workmen and movements on the book...

Hello!
Apologies to anyone who gives a monkeys that I haven't posted a blog this week, but have had an email from my publishers, Honno, saying, "If you have anything for us, get it in NOW!" So instead of sitting on a mountain top debating whether to use neithor and nor or either and or, I have been frantically trying to finish my tricky second novel. Reading it, re-writing it, losing it on my computer, losing my notes and nigh on starting it again. I reckon with a few more sleepless nights (no, I don't work all night, it's just those damn children going through a phase) I can get it all done by the weekend.

The trouble is, nothing else kicks in to allow me to do it. The floors still have enough stuff on them to make a fair meal, the blue bottles are still taking over (although I did find a rancid courgette in the veg rack today and am hoping that that might be the beginning of the end to their rein) and toast doesn't butter itself. Saying this, the builders have finished their work and the little beauties tidied up after themselves so well, that the house has never looked so good. I am hoping that there is a leak in their plumbing so that I can legitimately ask them to come back, perhaps after the weekend…

But the good thing is that I had an email from a magazine that I sent something to saying that it has been published. If anyone wants to see a photo of me in a floppy hat with a sack of potatoes on my back, go to:
http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/work/volunteer/articles/volunteer-wwoofing-in-argentina.shtml

Top tip – probably time to put your paddling pools away if your family are anything like mine. We perished in it at the weekend. Costumes on, sat in the damp grass. The baby went blue and my stubble stood so erect, it ripped the side of the pool.

Best wishes…

Eight hours in a car...

Hello!
Having returned from a weekend away with the family to see my cute little nephew's christening, I realise again how lucky I am. In having Huw as a partner, there is always something new to learn. This weekend it was driving. Despite having passed my test for competancy twenty years ago, I now realise that I have been doing it all wrong all this time. Luckily I had eight hours in a car to be taught the correct way.

All is steaming ahead with book number two. My brother is reading it for continuity, mistakes and glaring No No No's and is ever so gently telling me where it doesn't sound right. Sometimes I forget that this is the same brother who used to balance piles of books on the top of doors and then call me into the room...

We've got the plumbers in to finally mend our leaking radiators. So, there is lots of singing, doors slamming and general destruction. I am freezing, sat at the kitchen table with my files stuck in the room that they are destroying. Never mind - a bit of catching up on Facebook will always be a good use of my time - a better use of it than yesterday mind when I spent most of the day trying to squash a particularly annoying blue-bottle...

PS anyone walking through WHSmith - go to October's "Writing Magazine" and see if you can recognise who is featured as this month's top new author!!

The Credit Crunch Crunches

We have had a reveiw of household finances and realised that we don't actually have any. Finances that is. So it's back to where I feel most comfortable - being a right skinflint. I have got a second kettle to put on top of the fire and spend most of my days carrying boiling kettles over the top of the children, back and fore between the fire in the sitting room and the kettle or sink in the kitchen, so that I don't have to use the hot water tank or heat the kettle from cold.

However, this is of course taking its toll on the carpets, so I have to factor in their wear and tear. So, I have done a calculation and found out that it is better for me to climb over the chairs instead as their wear is longer term, and therefore I am hopeful that by the time I have worn them out, the credit crunch will be over.

I have also moved back into my 1980s chinos for days when I am not being seen in public, instead of wearing out my only pair of jeans. Yes, the crunch is biting.

However, one good aspect of the credit crunch is hearing people talking about it. We had the plumber in today to look at a pipe that is on its way out (I swung on it, whilst trying to avoid standing on a rug). He had a cup of tea with Huw and they were joined by the plumber's boss, so they all had one. They all sat there saying how terrible it was and how difficult it was to make money in this climate. By the time I was about to pop my head round the door and remind them that making money whilst sat on one's a*rse would be difficult in any climate, Huw had beaten the plumber who worked for 25 hours a day, by having to try and make money from a cardboard box lined with broken glass in the middle of a motorway...

As for yesterday, I spent most of my productive hours trying to sort out a "replace all" command in my book text - I had decided that a bloke called Ron should actually be called Brian, but forgot that computers aren't THAT clever. I must have spent two hours trying to sort out all
the "wBriang"s and "StBriang"s and "fBriant"s that started out life as Wrongs, Strongs and Fronts...

Mainly getting wet

Exciting times as the Tricky Second Novel nears its completion. I have written it and am now going through it for a fresh look and so that I can remember how it starts and what I called the characters at the beginning of the book before I changed their names to Barack and Hilary.
I have checked with the publishers that they might want to consider it and they have said that they are waiting in excitement.

I am terrified for the following reasons:
It might be rubbish.
The first one might have been OK, but this one might be rubbish.
It might appeal to no-one.
It might not make anyone laugh at all.
I've had a number of people saying that they couldn't put the first one down, one even reading it as she walked upstairs - people might read the first chapter and put it down for good.
It might have no hooks, no-one fancying the main character (quite possible), no page-turning incidents.
It might just be crude, lewd, naff and grammatically incorrect.

And if this is the case:

I will no longer be an author and will have to look for a job at County Hall and wear a blouse again.
I will have spent all the money I could possibly have earned from the first one on the launch party.
I will have had my fifteen minutes and still didn't appear in Take-a-Break.
I'll have to go on Jeremy Kyle in his "when good authors go bad" programme.

I have accepted an invite to do a live talk in front of Rhayader's WI in April 2009 (yes, a bit excessive in their forward planning, eh?), but by that time I will probably be living in my car, drinking Mr Muscle and telling everyone how I used to be in the Brecon and Radnor...

Secrets of a messy house...

One of the great sadnesses in the constant battle to tidy a messy house with no cupboards is the struggle of sorting things out into piles on the bed to be put away. Nine times out of ten, I get dragged away before the piles are completely removed and hidden out of sight. Then as we all go to bed, the piles get scraped back onto the floor. In the excitement of greeting the next new day, they then get kicked around into one big pile again.
By the time I get ten minutes to sort them out again, they've been added to, taken from, stepped on and had a nappy stuffed within them. Et, voila, back to Stage One.

It's no wonder I have a face like a smacked ar*se at times.