Pågående Europeiska !!

I HOPE that blog title means "Going European" in Swedish, and not something that would make my mother choke on a scone.

Yes I've sold a short story to a Swedish magazine, which means it'll be translated and everything. Bizarre, but lovely. Can't wait to see a copy. Won't be able to read it, obviously, but still.

Also the novel editing's going well and it's surprising how much closer I feel to the story, spending each day with it. Like honeymooners we are, me and the novel. Hopefully we won't get sick of each other in another few days and call the whole thing off.

Ahem. Think I need a cup of tea.

**Also got a story in this week's Take a Break. Which is nice!**

Fish and chip days

We only went and picked the best blummin' week of the year for our break in the Cotswolds. How the heck did that happen?

There was proper, bright yellow sunshine and a vast, cloudless blue sky - EVERY DAY. I've got a sunburnt chest, and I'm proud of it.

"Look," I keep boasting to anyone who'll listen. "Look how tanned I'll be when the lobster-redness wears off." I can't remember the last time I was burnt to a crisp by a British sun - or any other sun for that matter.

I now know that the two essentials for happiness are a lodge by a lake and the sun. Oh and time with the family; although a couple more days and the novelty of that might have worn off.

I've eaten too many portions of fish and chips, played silly games in the evenings, watched water-skiers showing off on the lake, stopped Molly from chasing ducks, written half a story, edited some more of the novel and not done any cooking at all.

And now we're home.

The weather's glum, but I've still got a bit of a glow.

Mostly in the chest area.

Summer (ish) holiday

I'm off to the Cotswolds tomorrow for a week. We haven't had a family holiday for 3 years, for some unfathomable reason.

Oh okay, so I couldn't be bothered with the hassle of booking anything when there was the dog to consider, and my mother and work and school and ... you get the message. It was just easier not to bother, especially as I'm not keen on travelling anyway.

Still, I'm quite excited now, and have bought a suitcase 'specially. I hope the sun shines a bit.

I'll be taking the netbook in case story inspiration strikes, but as far as I know there's no Internet.

Gulp ...

See you soon.

The Good and the ... yawn

I'm lucky to have sold four more stories recently - one to TaB weekly magazine and three for the Fiction Feast - and currently have a story in the latest Woman's Weekly Fiction Special, bringing my total sales to 20. Which is nice. Hopefully that means I'm doing something right on the short story front at least.

However, mentioning this to that colleague at the library, when she asked me how the writing was going, led straight to one of those conversations. "That's lovely," she said, all twinkly. "But those stories are written very much to a format, aren't they? Surely once you know the format it's just a case of changing a few details - names, places and so on?"

??????????????

"It's really not," I said, tiredly. "Guidelines yes, but not a format."

"So you're telling me that every one of your stories is completely different, and I wouldn't guess that they were all by you?"

"Yes they are, and no I actually don't think you would."

"Really?" Look of disbelief.

"Why don't you read a couple and see?"

Frowns. "Well, no it's just ... I mean - well you understand what I'm saying?"

Oh yes. Loud and clear.

I'm getting immune to it though. Gradually ...

The Wanderer Returns

You might remember the tale of how I deleted my first ever novel, after receiving a handful of rejections - conveniently ignoring the fact that I also had two requests for the full ms at the time, as well as lots of positive feedback. I was too stupid inexperienced at the time to know that was a Good Thing and literally wrote the story off.

Well, while my Mum was staying recently she said one afternoon, "I've still got that manuscript you gave me to read. Such a shame it didn't come to anything."

WHAT?? For some reason I thought she'd thrown it away, an assumption she was quite rightly offended about. "I'd never do that," she said touchingly.

Anyway, I asked her (nicely) to send it to me and it turned up today almost as good as new.



A couple of things struck me reading bits of it. Firstly, the optimum amount of time between finishing your novel and editing it should be roughly 5 years. It really was like reading something written by someone else.

Secondly, it wasn't that bad. Nowhere near as awful as I'd imagined it would be. I could kind of see why there'd been some interest, looking back. There's a cheery simplicity to the writing, that keeps it flowing. I hadn't overthought the story - I didn't even edit it, I was that naive.

I knew what it was going to be about and I wrote it in about three months. It dealt with things that were close to my heart at the time - email dating (don't ask) volunteer work and photography - so I didn't have to try too hard with the research. Well they do say your first novel is the closest to being autobiographical, though I'm sure plenty of authors would dispute that. This one for instance. I hope!

We'll gloss over the fact that I committed the cardinal sin of designing (yes designing, on the computer) a cover page for my novel, with plenty of pink, and a whimsical clip-art female sitting under a tree, which I submitted along with the manuscript. Beyond embarrassing.

But still ... I wish, wish, WISH I could recapture whatever it was I was doing right then, because it occurred to me as I was flipping through it that I can either do it again, because I did it once, OR - I had one book in me, that was it and the moment has well and truly passed.

I do hope it's not the latter.

Nice idea

I've had my mum to stay for a week, which is why I've been 'off-blog.' We had a lovely time - in spite of the drizzle - and managed to squeeze loads in.

While she was here it was her birthday and I almost gave her this lovely journal I came across in a local gift shop.

Each page has a heading ...

and things like, "who were your best friends when you were at school?" "What was I like as a baby?" "What was my first word?" and so on.

I say almost. Because on second thoughts I realised my mum would be horrified with a present like this.

She's from a generation of Northern women who aren't comfortable being touchy-feely and open about their emotions. If there'd been questions like "do you remember throwing your slipper at us when you were cross?" or "why did we always have corned beef for dinner on Wednesdays?" she might have co-operated - laughed even. "Describe the wallpaper over the fireplace in the house where we grew up," would have had her rolling her eyes and reaching for her pen, but "describe how you felt the first time you saw me," would have had her dry-heaving into her handbag. I know my mum.

Also, her and my dad divorced a long time ago so THOSE questions might have made her upset or cross. All in all, a pretty rubbish present.

Instead I've decided to keep it and write in it myself. I don't mind emoting, and I can't resist a blank page. I know my daughter would love to read it one day too.

I also thought it might be fun to copy out the headings and answer them as the characters in my novel for more insight, because yes - it's time.

Time to get the manuscript out of the drawer (well, up on the screen) and start to think about editing it.

Gulp.

I'm tempted to stick with the journal for now.

Doesn't Time Fly?

Two weeks since I last posted? How did that happen? In fact where's July gone? Turn your back for two minutes etc. etc.

I'd like to be able to say I've spent the past fortnight being fascinating - entertaining hordes of people at garden parties and throwing neighbourly barbecues. Or being productive - building a conservatory, say, or reinstating the ancient art of tatting (actually, I wouldn't mind a go.) Hell, I'd like to be able to tell you I've been sunning myself on a yacht in the Mediterranean, but t'would all be a big, fat lie.

Firstly, the sun has officially buggered off - in our part of the world anyway. At any given time I can be found trudging up and down the garden with wet washing slung over my shoulder, and when I'm not dragging the washing off the line I'm drying the dog, because walking through the fields in the pouring rain makes her soggy. (Me too, actually. Not a great look. My hair swells up in the damp.)

It can't be right. It's supposed to be summer.

A highlight has been a swine flu scare. No.1 son quietly took himself to the doctor's a couple of days ago, but his temperature wasn't high enough to qualify. I think he was secretly disappointed.

Other than that I've written some stories, sold a couple, fretted over the novel, worked at the library and cleaned the house in preparation for a visit from my mother in a couple of weeks. Which is ridiculous, because everything will be dirty again by then.

Ah well, it may not be fascinating, but it could be worse. We could actually have swine flu.

Not Nice

Jane Smith over at How Publishing Really Works at has declared today Anti-Plagiarism Day. There are some interesting posts on the subject out in blogland and I thought I'd contribute in a small way.

I noticed this month that once again my book review in the local paper has been attributed to someone else. A man this time. Greg Burns. (It was Polly something last time.) I'm sure he's a very nice man. He might even be a very good writer - better than me. But he didn't write that 300 word book review. I did. I don't get paid, but still. I like doing them, and before the paper was taken over recently there was even a little photo of me to accompany the review and a bit about me and my services to humanity job in the library. Now, I don't even get a mention.

It sucks actually, so I can sort of imagine how people must feel to have whole swathes of text that they've sweated over passed off as someone else's work. Not nice.

Anyway, I've fired off a creative email informing the paper that I won't be contributing anymore.

So there.

Done and dusted - for now

Well the first draft of the "rather silly" novel is finished. That is, I've typed The End. What happens now is anyone's guess. Accidental deletion knowing me.

No, the plan is to leave it to settle for a while (half an hour at least) before starting the real work of making it better. Hopefully I won't read it back and think, oh dear. Maybe I'd better leave it longer than half an hour for some proper perspective.

I shall rest my eyes for a bit and try and forget all about the characters, who have become like imaginary friends, and then crack on with some short stories. I've also had an idea for another novel so I may start that too - otherwise I won't know what to do with my hands.

Elsewhere: A random study somewhere has revealed that library staff are the least bitchy people to work with. They obviously haven't worked in our branch ...

(for obvious reasons I'd better add just kidding.)

The End?

I promise I won't do any more of these. Until the next time ...

Look into my eyes ...

This is silly but quite clever. Then again I'm rather simple about these things - you'll undoubtedly work it out much faster than I did. Sorry it's a bit blurry, but that's the best way to view David Copperfield in my opinion.

**Warning - Don't look into his eyes for too long, or you'll fall in love with him.

Admission of gross stupidity

How many times have I been told to back-up work on the PC? Only a squillion and two. The words are instilled in me, as they should be in anyone who uses a computer every day. Do I take heed? Well most of the time I do, actually. After all I'd hate to lose 13000 precious words wouldn't I? Precious to me. To anyone else it might seem a blessing.

So why oh why oh why in the name of Maltesers, did I not do that very simple thing on my last few writing sessions??? I know why. I'm a fool. I copy my work onto a memory stick, which I'm forever jabbing into my Netbook then transferring to the computer at home or even at the library sometimes, and I started getting lackadaisical about saving to the hard drive. Naturally the unthinkable happened.

Yesterday I saved my work to the USB pen as usual, stuck it in the PC later on, tried to open the document (with the whole novel on it - 77000 words worth) and...nothing. Worse than nothing. A nasty little message saying "this file is corrupt and unreadable." I knew how it felt. Except my face was pretty easy to read.

Bashing myself over the head with a dustbin lid was the least of it. Frantically opening the document I last saved to the PC I don't know how long ago, I realised I'd lost 13000 words. I tried to distance myself from the fact (oh okay, I cried) and spent the rest of the evening fiddling about trying to recover/repair the USB file (ahem, this has happened before) to no avail. I even bought and downloaded some online software that promised the earth and didn't deliver.

Then...

Up at 6.30 this morning, wearily determined to either have another go at repairing the file, or simply start writing all those words again (no chance of meeting my deadline now I thought - and who would believe me when it sounds like the worst sort of excuse? - I blinked at the screen.

What was that? A recovered temporary file in Notepad??

I opened it tentatively, holding my breath, and almost cried again. It was nearly all there. 1000 words and some bits of editing I did yesterday morning had gone; hadn't saved for some reason - must be when the corruption or whatever it was happened - but the rest was intact. In a strange font with no formatting, but what the hell. A victory dance was performed. It wasn't very elegant but the dog didn't mind.

Oh my days. Relieved? I've had a bar of Fruit n' Nut for breakfast to celebrate.

Will I be backing up in future? I already have, in about five different places and now I need a lie-down.

Reality Byte

After seeing Lane's fabulous mini-movie Surgery (if you haven't already do go and check it out, it's brilliant) I was inspired - or should I say distracted - to try it for myself.



If you're tempted to give it a go - don't. It's addictive.