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Dropped Balls
As I always tell friends who are thinking of blogging, if you’re going to do it you have to post regularly. There’s no faster way to lose readers than leaving them dangling for weeks. So, Laurie Graham, what’s your excuse? Well, m’Lud, I plead extraordinary pressure of work. Plus a hole in the roof, directly over…
Read MoreSecrets of Career Success
According to my Sunday paper (and yes, I did swear I was going to stop reading them) for a woman to enjoy career success these days she needs to commit to Extreme Grooming. I’ve heard of extreme sports – Downhill Hoovering for example – but this grooming thing is a new one on me. In…
Read MoreDear Santa
No need for Santa to swing by for this year because I’ve already taken things in hand. My husband is a wonderful and multi-talented person who sadly is afflicted with the Incompetent Shopper gene so I’ve just treated myself to three books I could not possibly justify to my accountant. Writers don’t necessarily desire books for Christmas. On this…
Read MoreBook Ends
Today has been Book End Day. I don’t know if other writers have this tic but when I get to a certain point in the, ahem, creative process, I feel the book starting to lean and creak towards the as yet unwritten end. So I write the end. Then, feeling better shored up,…
Read MoreMother of All Professions
Reading the tributes to and anecdotes about Doris Lessing last week one of her famous remarks about motherhood stuck with me more than anything else. ‘No-one can write with a child around.’ Motherhood was understandably a touchy subject for Doris Lessing. I have no intention of judging her because I don’t know the truth of her circumstances when…
Read MoreA Reader is Born
You’ll excuse, I hope, a granny’s moment of self-indulgence. My grandson Max started school a few weeks ago. He won’t be five till the spring but they had room for him and he was ready. This week I had the pleasure of witnessing that ‘Aha’ moment when a child gets the hang of reading. I…
Read MoreCustomise This…
Well it’s 11.49 and I’ve so far piddled away the morning trying to fix a glitch on my computer. I figured I might as well carry on piddling till lunch time (we eat early in this house.) and do a blog post. On days like today I actually feel nostalgic for my old manual typewriter and the…
Read MoreCareer Moves
Many people dream of giving up the day job to become a writer. I remember clearly the day I decided to take the leap. The backed-up traffic on the North Circular might have swung it. The knowledge that come six o’clock I’d be in the same gridlock of exhausted commuters definitely made the risk seem more palatable.…
Read MoreBack in my Box
Well here I am, back in my writing shoes after a two week absence and in particular the Guildford Book Festival via Venice and Walthamstow. Book Festivals are a thorny issue for writers. They take up time and energy and most of them don’t pay. Why do we do them? It’s the most aired topic…
Read MoreComfort Reading
An interesting challenge to think about this weekend. The Guildford Literary Festival – hurry, hurry, tickets available here – have asked me to talk, amongst other things, about comfort reading. It’s a pity they didn’t tap me for a lecture on Comfort Eating. I’m quite the expert on that subject. But anyway, without giving too much away,…
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