At last - The Bikini Shot!

Hello!
And this time, hello from the (middle) pages of a natonal magazine! Yes, I've made it to My Weekly! See this week's edition, I'm there nestled between Fern Britton and an article on Fat Busting, Flat Tummy Tips! (is someone trying to tell me something?) And yes, it's the bikini shot that you always wanted to see.

The funny things about it are that:
a) my daughter said "is it Dad?" when I asked her who it was in the magazine.
b) as I took the photo myself on a camera timer, I have that look on my face that says, "has it clicked yet?" Because I have never seen that particular photo that large, I had never noticed that before.
c) it reminded me that the night before that photo was taken, I had slept in a deserted "camp site" (a dustbowl surrounded by stones) plagued with mice. The little swines nibbled everything in sight - my shoelaces, my dinner, my teabags and then when I went to bed - my tent, my sleeping bag and then the disrespectful little swines finished off by pooing in my cup.

So if you get chance, pop into a Newsagents this week and have a chuckle at my expense. And all for just 80p. Oh, and there's a good recipe for a cheese and ham sandwich on page 32.

Best wishes,
Lorraine

Finished!

I have now finally finished the editing of my book, Eating Blackbirds, and have sent it back to the Editor with my fingers and my eyes firmly crossed. It has been four weeks of working every spare moment to bring a fuller and more polished novel ready to hit the best seller lists. I have taken out references to cat vomit with baby rabbits in, rides in ice cream vans, major amputations and general lewdness and rude words; in fact it has been quite a shaming experience to have it in black and white as to just how foul my mouth can be.

The sad part was that the lessons that I thought I had learnt from editing Chocolate Mousse, had not actually been as well incorporated into Eating Blackbirds as I would have liked. I had been picturing a scenario whereby I got a small list of easily-made grammatical errors and a few typos that I could correct over a cuppa - instead I had the 108 different points, some quite major. It has made me realise that Novel Number Three needs far more work than I had thought, even at this stage of writing it. I am determined that should novel number 3 get accepted, it will have just a few of those neither / either, wonder / wander dilemmas - not full-scale re-writes about places on the body where moles can be found.

I would also liked to have thought that when the editing was done, I would sit back in a clean chair and relax, perhaps watch a bit of telly, maybe even read a paper. No. Instead, I have been at it with a wheelbarrow and a shovel in the lounge, a power-washer on the kitchen floor and a blow-torch in the bedrooms. It is really quite disgusting as to what can build up over just a small amount of time. My only hope is that the cat-sick scene wasn't prophetic and that I just haven't found it yet...

Still editing...

Well, evening again folks. I am still frantically editing Eating Blackbirds and there is little else to report, apart from my bottom has now gone square from all the sitting and my new glasses have worn a hole in my nose.

It is said that every cloud has a silver lining and a recent cloud is that my mum has had an operation that now requires a lot of sitting down and recouperating. The silver lining is that she is not able to do anything else except sit and read - and therefore, I might as well take full advantage of the situation knowing that if I plonk a manuscript into her hands, she can not run away.

So, I have emailed my wonderful mum the first third of the edited draft and have asked for her opinions. It is quite a horrifying thing to have to do, in that I don't think a mother should ever need to know that her daughter swears, knows about shagging and has written anything frivalous about being sick on cars. So, it is with a great deal of intrepidation that I await for her comments; God only knows what she'll think about my grammar...

More tea vicar?