From behind the keyboard...

My Arch-Nemesis. Who doesn't know he's my nemesis and probably isn't even all that arch, come to think of it. But it does bring me one step closer to Robert Downey Jr.

2012-02-26T10:33:00.000Z

People keep asking me.... oh, just people. You know, in passing and suchlike. Yes, they are real people, at least they've got names and voices and things, they could be exceptionally sophisticated robots but given that this is North Yorkshire probably not. Does it matter what their names are? Oh, all right, let's call them Bob and Doris and Destroyer of Worlds shall we? Yes, I know Bob is an unlikely name but there you go, and it's not his real name anyway.

Although it is a bit of a giveaway when they look like this

Well how should I know what his real name is? I'm hardly going to take down their personal details, am I? Especially when they are only asking me something, and if you don't shut up you're never going to find out what it is that they ask, are you?

Thank you. People, who may or may not be robots called Doris. Bob and Destroyer of Worlds, keep asking me 'why don't you write like that bloke?' Well, eventually they ask me that but, as stated above, this is North Yorkshire, so first we have to discuss the weather and the new bus shelter and the kids and the dogs and what we're doing for our holidays, so the topic of books eventually crops up somewhere around the ten minute mark when Robotic Bob (for the sake of argument) says 'you wrote that book, didn't you?'

Given that I have written several books (all of them quite delightful and available from Amazon ) it is somewhat hard to know what to say here., so I usually smile and nod, also in a delightful way. I am utterly delightful under these situations, of course, when there's a chance that someone may either ask for my autograph or want to buy another book. And Robotic Bob nods slowly and says 'I don't read those romance things. My favourite book is...' The thunderclouds gather overhead like the first intimations of doom. Lightening spears its way from the heavens as though God's RCB has tripped. 'Now Then Lad, by...' and I cover my ears,but I cannot help hear the name ...'Mike Pannett'.

And I make my excuses and leave. For Mike Pannett is my arch-nemesis. Wherever I go, whichever bookshop I visit (in professional or amateur capacity) there his books sit in stately display. When I pass through my local WH Smith, there he is, sitting signing copies of his latest book. Whenever I go to enquire about, you know, just maybe popping in to the local shops to do a book promo, there issues forth from the staff a heavy sigh, a clasping of bosoms (all right, maybe I imagined that bit) and a breathy 'We had that Mike Pannett in last week...'

I suppose I should consider myself lucky - I mean, how many people can say that they actually have an arch-nemesis? Sherlock Holmes, obviously, maybe Iron Man (and I would offer to be the downfall of Robert Downey Jr any day), Superman even has his Lex Luthor. All incredibly powerful people. And here I am, a mere romantic comedy novelist, able to boast that I too have a nemesis! And, oh, if that isn't an excuse for a gratuitous picture then nothing is...

So, who would have thought it? Here's me.. here I am, waving, over here, look... a mere slip of a romantic comedy novelist... with a deep and abiding connection to Robert Downey Jr. And all because of a man who writes books about rural policing.

Now, Robert, if you'd like to come over so that we can compare notes...?

And while I wait for that, quite frankly, unlikely scenario to come to pass, please note that next week's blog may be a little later than usual. For, you see, next weekend I shall be in London at the RoNA awards. Drinking too much champagne, wearing unsuitable underwear, clapping very loudly and hopefully watching my friends get masses of awards. Or very drunk. Or both.

Now, Robert, about this nemesis business....

Being a Centrefold, a Dalek and a Stoat - and choosing a dress that champagne won't remove.

2012-02-19T12:37:00.001Z

This week I was a centrefold! For the first time in ...well, umpty-tump years, I was a centre spread! And no carefully placed staples to preserve my somewhat random modesty! To be fair, my 'modesty' is a little large these days and therefore would need rather more than staples to preserve it - more like a wardrobe, three Ikea bookcases and a tapir (or similarly sized mammal). But I digress.

Go here. Go on, go now. I know I don't look like a centrefold on your screen, but if you kind of squint, and imagine me folded, then that's what it looked like in the paper.

Anyway. There I was. And I even got a little tiny bit on the front page, where they put a small photo of me where I had the exact same expression as someone doing a really big pooh, but I wasn't because I was sitting on a wall. And holding my book up beside my face with a quite ridiculously large grin on it. That's my face, not the book. And no, I don't think people usually grin when they're doing a big pooh but...oh, you know what I mean.

The whole thing was to do with my book being shortlisted for a RoNA. That's the Romantic Novelists' Association (a name created purely to find out whether or not we really know where the apostrophe belongs) Awards. I'm shortlisted - well, no, I'm not, obviously but my book Please Don't Stop the Music is - for the Romantic Comedy Novel of the Year. Just in case this is news to you, I shall leave a pause for you to go for a little lie down and fan yourself gently with a copy of 'To the Lighthouse' whilst muttering about what the world is coming to.

Better now? Yes, so. This Award involves myself and my Other Half, being scrubbed, washed, brushed, correctly restrained and turning up at a Reception. Where there will be champagne, apparently. And I am sure I don't need to tell you that the possibility of things going wildly askew are increased manifold when drink is put into the equation. Therefore, I must, of necessity, choose an outfit that a) cannot be easily removed after the third glass, b) I can walk in in the event that I am any kind of winner (although I don't think they are running a Stoat Impersonation contest alongside the RoNA's I can't be sure, and I do have to bear in mind that my Third Stoat From the Left has previously won prizes),

See?
and c) or iii) as I like to call it, that doesn't make me look like a refugee from some kind of shelter for poor unfortunates. I might be poor and I might be unfortunate, but I want to wear a frock that disguises this, also covers my modesty (see above). I did toy with the idea of draping a sheet over my head and poking two holes for my eyes, but finding shoes to go with it proved too difficult.

So now I have to go clothes shopping. Oh, as Doctor Sheldon Cooper would say, the horror! Bearing in mind that, in my head I am size 8, beautifully proportioned, with legs up to my neck and a bottom as pert and perfect as two conkers (nice ones, obviously, not those horrible old wrinkled things that have a hole drilled in them and are hung from a piece of string, I'm more your 'just fallen from the tree' type). Only, in reality I'm more...well... not. I'm more, okay, well, you know what shape a Dalek is... take the sink plunger off its face and give it a kind of neck, and there you have me.


Just a Sec...

...in this. See what I mean?

And then there's the shoes! Oh, please don't get me started on the shoes! Bearing in mind the alcohol, the injury potential of canapes, the presence of other people most of whom have never been on the receiving end of a really convincing stoat-impersonation and that I don't get out much... the words 'recipe for disaster' spring very firmly to mind.

I do, actually, have a recipe for disaster, it features vindaloo curry paste and two tins of prune juice. It, like revenge, is a dish best served cold and very close to medical assistance.

So. I suppose I'll just have to launch myself at the high street and see what sticks to me. Wish me luck, chaps...

So much excitement I can barely contain myself! Pass me the special underwear...

2012-02-12T13:04:00.000Z

I can sense you all hopping with barely suppressed anticipation from here, so without further ado let me introduce my willing victim...errr, I mean subject, yes, subject...Lynda Renham! Look, here she is!

Obviously this is just a picture, she moves a lot more in real life. She is sitting here with me, awaiting my questions with an only slightly nervous expression, swinging her legs and eating my HobNobs as one born to the writing life.

So, without further ado because I don't really know what 'ado' is, Lynda, let me ask you this: -

Your recent titles (Wedding Cake to Turin, Croissants and Jam) are both food based. So it seems only fair to ask - what's your favourite food?

‘Cough cough’ Will my husband, Andrew get to read this? I adore yogurt, in all shapes and sizes. Full fat, fat free, all flavours and in particular yogurt drinks. I wouldn’t like to admit to how many I get through in a week. A yogurt coupled with a meringue and honey is my dream food. I also adore Oranges. In fact when I was in Cambodia recently I craved them. I got totally ripped off in the market but it was worth it.

Well, I shan't hold the fact that you didn't say HobNobs against you, but I shall move the packet a little further away and try a more scholarly question.
How do you organise yourself to have time for writing?

I am very lucky in that I have been able to reduce my working hours and now have three full days for writing. I make sure that is all I do on those days. Everything else has to wait.

This is right and proper and as it should be, housework is an unnecessary timewaster. Cobwebs are for life, not just sprayed silver and disguised as tinsel for Christmas.
You write mostly first person - how do you make the choice which POV to choose?

My last two novels have been first person. ‘The diary of Rector Byrnes’ was third person, interspersed with first person journal entries. The food series (Wedding cake to Turin and Croissants and Jam’ I very much wanted to write from the POV of the main female character. However, this is not always easy and can be quite limiting. I love writing in the first person. It somehow feels like one big blog posting and a lovely delicious fib at that!
Are you implying that this blog may be a lie? I can assure you that every word written here is true as I stand here wearing a penguin suit and attempting to juggle pigs! All right, let us try something a little less contentious...

What is your favourite T shirt slogan?
Inside me there is a thin girl trying to get out but I usually shut the bitch up with chocolate

Cats, dogs, or other?

Cats, cats, cats. I love them. I even had Bendy, our cat, wear a bow tie for our wedding.

And most charming and elegant he looked too, I am sure. He is, after all, a cat to whom charm and elegance are fitted as standard. Now, for my readers are all agog to know (apart from those who have wandered off to use the toilet, they do that, don't hold it against them, the alternative is very unpleasant)...

What's your all time-favourite book (to read) and why?

‘The heart listens’ by Helen Van Slyke. This book is like a box of chocolates to me. I can curl up and escape into the world of Elizabeth Quigley and live her life. Wonderful.

Sounds fascinating, this is unknown to me - the book I mean, not sounding fascinating. I shall have to seek it out and give it a try. All right, what about your own books?
Of all the characters you have created, who is your favourite? And your least favourite? And why?

My least favourite is Rosemary from ‘The Diary of Rector Byrnes’ she is capable of such chaos and ruins so many lives. I hated her from the moment I created her. My favourite character is Christian from ‘Croissants and Jam’ In fact, I feel sure I have a crush on him. Don’t tell Andrew.

Where do you write (physically, I mean, in the house, not where in the country...)?
In the winter I crawl to the warmest place because our cottage is one big freezer. So, in the winter it is usually the lounge. The summer is much more exciting and I retreat to our summer house with the doors widen open and the sun streaming in. I love it. The birds singing and it is so peaceful in our village that the only sounds are the birds and the occasional drone of a lawn mower. Pure heaven.

Do you have any writing rituals?

I can’t write without music and all my novels have had theme music all of their own. I cannot even begin until the music is on.

Hmmm. This is getting all together too serious and scholarly by half. Which is all very well, but you have read my blog, haven't you? I am notorious for asking the questions people didn't even know existed (probably because the word 'arseyblankitude' hasn't yet been created..), so I feel obliged to ask the one REALLY IMPORTANT question that all writers should be forced at gunpoint to answer.
If you were a cheese, what kind of cheese would you be?

Smooth and fruity

And now, regarding the funny...

What do you like most about writing romantic comedy? And what do you find the hardest aspect?

I like that I laugh a lot while I am writing as the research is such fun. I find coming up with humour quite hard at times. If I have had a bad week it is quite difficult to get into the frame of mind to be funny. However, it does help to pull you out of the gloom.

What are you working on next?
The final novel in the food trilogy and I’m stumped for a title but I am sure it will come.

(Cough) How about something featuring HobNobs? They are one of the major food groups, you know. As are Maltesers. But, given your proclivities, maybe something yoghurt based?

What goals/projects do you have in mind for your writing future?

I have tons of ideas that are on paper so there are books in the pipeline. My goal is to write an episode of ‘Miranda’ Well, to write an episode of any situation comedy really. One can dream, right? Oh, I think that is Jo Brand on the phone, must dash…

But, Lynda, I was about to open this second packet of biscuits! Oh, she's gone, although I must confess I didn't even hear the phone ring... And, surely that can't be a safe speed at which to drive away? Oh well, nothing left for me to do but await the restraining order...and give you a glimpsette at Lynda's lovely covers.

For more details, and to purchase, go here

And Lynda is accessible to all at www.renham.co.uk

I strongly suggest that you all go there now and look.

Oh, and in other news, Please Don't Stop the Music is shortlisted for the RoNA Romantic Comedy Novel of the Year. You can go and look and see who else is listed here but, rest assured, I shall be updating you on the whole process of choosing the right shoes to wear to the ceremony next week.

Vampires, Buffy and HobNobs, Midsomer Murders and... where was I again?

2012-02-05T11:57:00.000Z

Right, now, before I forget. The deliciously fragrant and lovely Lynda Renham-Cook has interviewed me on her blog, so if you have any burning desires to read about my views on toilets or that dream I had about Tony Robinson and the cream bun... now is your chance. I will be returning the favour here next week, although I don't think Lynda has views on Tony Robinson, but then, HE'S MINE, ALL MINE, MWAHAHAHAAAHH. Ahem. Anyway. So. Here, next week, Lynda. All right? Don't say I never give you anything, although I would like three cases of headlice and one of syphilis to be taken into account.

Also, in breaking news. Vampire State of Mind is now rearing its head on the Choc Lit homepage! It is being described as Choc Lit's 'Buffy'! This may be a slight exaggeration, since I don't remember Buffy so much as mentioning HobNobs, or Betty's Tea Rooms, but then maybe she did and I just wasn't listening because I was too busy polishing my slippers or something.

Right, that's the links bit out of the way. I always worry about those, since I'm a bit prone to wandering off and thinking of Other Things whilst in the middle of bloggage and may therefore post random links to things that bear no relation to what I'm talking about. Or just press the wrong button and end up with something really odd and largely unidentifiable cropping up in the middle of

a sentence. I blame my inherently fidgetty nature which causes my brain to rocket off on random trains of thought whenever it is supposed to be did anyone else see that weird episode of Midsomer Murders where the men dress up as stags and try to rape women from the other village? Because one of their girls married a man who 'wasn't from their village'? Like Midsomer Murders is set in 1630 or something? That was just odd.

And I think now is the time to confess that I never understood the rules of Rounders. Or Netball, despite twice making the primary school team. I can't play Backgammon, am afraid of slippers (even unpolished), and have an uneasy relationship with jam. So, you know, go figure.

Best chocolate to fall back on, inexplicable research and Old Mills...

2012-01-29T12:53:00.001Z

When times are hard, I fall back on chocolate. In fact, I've fallen back on chocolate so many times lately that I have a permanent Walnut Whip impression on my left buttock. Despite their outwardly benign appearance, Walnut Whips can be surprisingly knobbly, don't let that fluffy marshmallow inside fool you - oh no! If you're really going to have to land on confectionary, can I recommend something a little softer, possibly a Flake, which will spread the weight nicely if you work it right. Of course, you're picking the bits out of your underwear for a week, and finding little bits of melted chocolate in your M&S knee-to-ankle gusset will cause you to believe that you are going quietly rusty, but I still recommend them over Walnut Whips. Or bars of Fruit and Nut, because a badly-placed hazelnut can leave you walking in a strange way for a week.


I'm still looking for the walnut. But, to be fair, I did land on it with some force.

I don't know why I digressed in such fashion, for times have been far from hard lately. No, in fact they've been decidedly squashy, not to say splashy in their unhardness. Flaccid, in fact. So to commemorate these decidedly unturgid times, I have been starting research for another novel. Now, bear in mind, if you would, that I still have the vampires bubbling for release this summer, a novel about amateur witches in its second (or is it third?) reworking, and the anti-social astrophysicist awaiting some kind of resolution to his septic-tank debacle... So why am I even thinking about another book?

That, my comfortably-seated dears, is a very good question. And it all revolves around a corn mill, a Co-Op, a filled in ditch and gravestones. I have become ever-so-lightly obsessed with the fate of this mill, the filling in of the ditch and erasure of the mill-site, also the epitaphs carved on some local gravestones. And the Co-Op does have some remarkably good bargains. And so, I'm doing research! See me doing research! Now go away and let me go on with it. Oh, and pass me those Walnut Whips on your way out...

Like this, only not, because it's not there now. But when it was, it might have looked like this. Or not. Er, that's the Mill, not the Co-Op, obviously.

Tired as a newt. Plus inadvisability of nailing on tin whilst....

2012-01-22T10:35:00.000Z

It occurred to me the other day that being drunk and being tired are pretty much the same thing. I’m sure you understand what I mean – particularly you, there, at the back. Both are the result of long evenings packed so full of enjoyment that there is little room left for sense or discrimination, both incline one towards slurring one’s words and sliding sideways in high heels and both tend to incline one (particularly when one is wearing high heels, where the plane of incline and the decline of morals tend to be of inverse proportions after a long evening) towards lying on the sofa eating rubbish and maintaining that Jaffa cakes should be one of your Five a Day.

Just say 'no'. When you've stopped saying 'want want want', obviously...

And why, you cry, should such a thing occur to me? Surely, Jane, you also cry, for your sympathy for my plight is only exceeded by your taste in blog post reading and your desire to throw fifty pound notes at me whenever I am in your vicinity – surely you have never experienced either of these states? Your sobriety is a watchword whenever authors are gathered together, murmuring in hushed tones about your ability to turn down at least fifteen different types of cocktail, including the ones served with umbrellas by slippity-hipped young men in waistcoats. And, with your troupe of willing helpers, only a few of whom are working under the influence of chloroform and hallucinogens and therefore believe themselves to be aiding the Empire against the evil Darth Vader, surely you know not of the travails of tiredness?

I leave you to decide whether these are cocktail mixing slippety-hipped young men, or part of my chloroformed troup. And no, he is not peeing in the corner.

Well, my tender young trooplings, let my imperviosity to such human failings remain the stuff of legend, for indeed this week I have been subject to both tiredness and, ahem... something of an overindulgence in fermented fruit substances. And I am here to tell you that there are certain tasks that one should not attempt to perform whilst under the influence of either.

Painting a ceiling

Nailing sheets of galvanised tin to any surface, particularly in a high wind

Attempting to stroke, pet or otherwise lay hands upon a feline

Writing, be it books, blog posts or merely a letter to the milkman.

So, if anyone knows suitable treatments for Artex-head, the curious banging sound that comes from the roof of the outhouse, severe wounds to face and neck (some which may require stitches) and forty seven pints of full cream milk, please let me know. But I should wait for me to sober up first, if I were you....

It may take some time.

New cover... no, really! VAMPIRE STATE OF MIND -here it is!

2012-01-19T07:18:00.001Z

This is possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I want to eat it.

Or, at least, roll naked over its glossy colours... Premise is - vampires are here. In Britain. No sparkles, just a lot of arguing... And, before you ask, of course they are gorgeous!

Book covers. Beeeeyooootiful book covers for Vampire State of Mind. And a cheese hat. And a cactus, only it was a Yucca really, and I'm not seventy three.

2012-01-15T12:17:00.000Z

Oh, the pain, the agony! Yes, it's decision time again, and you know how having to decide things makes my brain go all 'clicky clicky whirrr', don't you? And there's always a smell of hot cheese, for some reason I can't define, although it could be my Gruyere hat melting under the strain of thought. For, lovely people, once more my publishers Choc Lit and I are trying to decide on the perfect cover for the new book, Vampire State of Mind.

Hush, hush, and get back in your seats, for this cover won't be revealed unto you for a bit longer. For one thing we have to sponge my dribble off and get the teethmarks out, and for another, we haven't quite decided on one yet. There's so many beautiful things to choose from when you write about vampires... well, there's teeth, for a start, and blood and gorgeous men, and mysterious, dark nights and... yes, all right, we could use an image of Johnny Depp's dentist at midnight, but that's not quite what we're going for here. Although (she said, tantalisingly) it could be... See what I did there, I'm trying to whet your appetites! Subtle, yes? No, no, you at the back, I'm not trying to wet your appetite, I couldn't do that from all the way over here, not even after those special exercises you recommended, I'm whetting it. With a H.

I know, I know, but I reckon a cover like this would just fly, don't you? I mean, no vampires but... come on...

So, anyway. I'm looking at lots of lovely potential covers, which all have my name on (no, you never get over the thrill of seeing your own name in print, unless it's the crime pages of the local paper who always spell it wrong anyway and it was a filthy lie about that thing in the Garden Centre; it was a Yucca not a cactus because I don't even think you can do that with a cactus and besides they got my age wrong too).

Cactus asked for nine further counts to be taken into consideration....

And, oh, the agonies of decision! And the smell of cheese... So many things to take into consideration; marketability, reader-expectations, font, image, monkeys...

There aren't any monkeys in the book, it's just that I tend to take them into consideration in whatever I do. Otherwise you're just asking to have pooh thrown at you, aren't you? Although I make no judgements here about how you spend your spare time, during the book-marketing process pooh-flinging is an unnecessary impediment to the real matter in hand, which is getting a really stonking cover onto the book. And, since Choc Lit have provided me with a choice of stonk, it's time to go and crank up the hat...

Symmetrical Dates, Stoat Grins, Body Snatching and Men.

2012-01-08T12:36:00.000Z

OK, so we're a week into 2012, how's everyone finding it? I feel it's a distinct improvement on 2011, but lacks a certain something when compared to 1804, although it does have that lovely 'bookended' feel to it. I do like a symmetry in my dates, and am looking forward to 2020 like you wouldn't believe.

So, now that Christmas has slithered past like a greasy eel, 2012 has been launched down the slipway, aided by many bottles of fizzy stuff, and we're peering forwards to the promise of summer whilst grabbing handfuls of our Christmas flab and wondering whether 'hold-it-all-in' swimsuits really do hold it all in or let large amounts of it drift down the legs until a slender upper half is offset by enormously chunky knees, let us think about something else.

Here is a short list of things I am currently thinking about:

1. The horrors of having my passport photo taken. If I don't smile, I look like my dad. If I do smile, I look like a hamster about to go for your throat. Neither of these are conducive to international travel.

2. Vampires. Pondering on why on earth people should think that vampires don't have a reflection. I mean, my vampires are humans infected with a parasite demon, and, if they had a reflection before why would a parasitic infection stop them being seen in mirrors? I had roundworms once, and all they did was give me an itchy bottom - if they'd made me invisible to cameras it would have been a good thing, see above. And where would it stop? Could having a tapeworm mean that you couldn't write in anything but blue crayon? And, while I am on the subject of vampires, please don't talk to me about sparkling. Just don't.

Can we all say 'anti-evolutionary disadvantage'?

3. Chocolate. But, you know, nothing new there. Although I am here to tell you that there is such a thing as too much chocolate. Just believe me on that one, I did the research so you don't have to.

4. Graveyards. Well, churchyards, really, and mostly just the gravestones. It's research, honest. But if you should happen to be strolling through a dimly-lit graveyard one evening and startle a woman who, when she smiles looks uncannily like a rabid stoat, it will be me so pass on your way without interfering, and, no, the book I have in mind does not feature graverobbing, so if I have a shovel please stop me. For the good of us all.

5. Men. It is my turn to produce a 'Wednesday Desirable Male' for the Choc Lit blog on 15 February and this is a subject which requires much deep thought. Lots and lots of deep thought, more Googling than you would have thought possible, and a small amount of smutty sniggering. Sigh. It's a tough job but, there you go, someone has to do it.

Right. Better go and practice my passport face in the mirror until I find one which will both allow me into, and also out of, the country of my choice without sirens and full-body searches, finish off this box of chocolates and book on 'Body Snatching for Beginners' and then go and think about men a bit more.

And if anyone has any suggestions for men that I might think hot, please let me know. I've used Tony Robinson and David Mitchell already, and after that it's all a bit of a blank....

New Year's Revolutions

2012-01-01T15:53:00.000Z

Firstly - a very Happy New Year to all of you sober enough to appreciate the sentiment. I know, and profoundly hope, that is a very small number and that the majority of you are rolling around on the carpet muttering strange and bleary imprecations upon wine, or lying very still in a darkened room and swearing never, never to let another drop of alcohol pass your lips. But. For those of you that aren't - see above, the rest of them will just have to catch up later.

About June, probably. I've seen the way they can drink.

Now. Because it's a New Year, people have inexplicably taken to asking whether I've made any New Year's Revolutions. I usually stare at them in a baffled way (because that's my default expression, that and this one....look... I'm doing it now....), and then I wonder if they mean when I turned over in bed just after midnight. It wasn't really a revolution, as such, more of a half-wheelie with a double back duvet flip, but I suppose it counts, however, whenever I explain this to them they look at me in a similarly baffled way.

So I am supposing they must mean that, because this is a New Year, I must think of some major form of insurgence to perpetrate upon a small nation state. Most of the good countries are already spoken for, after all, although I know that I have the power to make some Welsh people quite cross but I really don't think I can drive them to revolution, despite my, quite inflamatory, comments earlier this year about Aberystwyth, and am therefore at a bit of a loss.

However, I've sorted the important details, such as the outfit I shall be wearing in order to revolve, my 'theme tune' ('Stay Awake' by Example - not particularly revolutionary as such, but it's good to dance to and if I'm going to be revolving, I'm going to be doing it to music), and my chant "Purple - because it's THERE!'.

So now I just have to think of somewhere to do it. I'm thinking Yorkshire, because I'm already here and travelling to a revolution seems a bit..well...counterproductive, really.

I fear I may have my work cut out though. Although I have noticed that the sheep are a little uppity at the moment and could, quite easily, be driven to acts of civil unrest. If I play my cards right, and also obtain a large supply of sheep feed and a LandRover, I could be on to a winner, and also taking over a large part of the Moors!

So, altogether now! 'Purple! Because it's THERE!'... why am I the only one shouting....?

Christmas. Now with extra gin.

2011-12-26T20:27:00.000Z

Oh. Hang on a ...you know, one of those..thingies. Moment, that's it. Moment. Hang on one of those. Just got to...thing you do with drink...

That's better. Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Christmas. Hope you all had a jolly. Er. Merry. That's it, merry. Merry Thingmas. With tinsel. And pudding. And drink. Oh dear, yes, much drink. Started drinking Christmas morning, drowning... now what was it? Thing like sparrows... Ducks? No, sorrows, yes, that was it, sorrows. Doesn't, as it turns out, take much alcohol to drown ducks...sorry, sorrows. So, once they'd gone down for third time, carried on drinking. Christmas tree looks better after several drinks. Not so lopsided, although I fell over twice. Tinsel also very very shiny after drink. Took tinsel down, ow head.

Thing. You know. Like... begins with W. Or T. Or maybe S, I forget.

So. Christmas, yes. Hope you all had one. Talking of which, I'll just pour myself another small one... 'scuse me a second... Oh. Bugger. Now see what's happened? Gone all over the place and I'll have to lick the lino again. That pattern seriously scary. Some of it not really pattern but peas that got trodden on, during Great Sprout Panic, but impossible to tell until actually swallowing.

Anyway. Where was I? No, seriously, have forgotten where was. Where am, in fact. Place looks familiar... could be home but home not smell of old gin...

Oh.

Well. Must dash now, off licence only open two more hours. Just popped by to wish you, you know, merry thing, and happy New...err...other thing.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all, my lovely, lovely blog readers... I love you all, I really dooooo... Hic.

Tips for surviving Christmas - The Bacon of Disguise... lost batteries, and hoping that no-one has to wear a bin liner this year.

2011-12-18T13:43:00.000Z

All right, now I don't want to alarm anyone here, so if you are of a nervous disposition you may wish to cover your head with a blanket for this bit.

IT IS ONLY A WEEK UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!!

Yes, that's right, a mere seven days separate us from the howling festival of panic that is Christmas day. You know, that day when the dog eats three rolls of sellotape and a metre of tinsel and spends the morning doing gift-wrapped vomits behind the sofa; the cat manages to eat a large chunk of the turkey you left in that supposedly secure cupboard to defrost and you have to perform origami with bacon to disguise the teethmarks; several children eat so much chocolate that they regard your lovingly prepared and cooked dinner with cries of revulsion (and you only have to hope that it's because of all the chocolate and not because they've seen beyond the Bacon of Disguise); all available batteries fall down between the sofa cushions into the Land that Lies Beyond and are never seen again, meaning that you sit and look at all those wonderful new (battery operated) devices you were given and make 'brrm brrmm' noises as you try to work out what they are for; it rains, and the wonderful family walk you go on to work up an appetite for Christmas dinner is blighted by the lack of wellington boots and coats and the smallest child has to go out wearing slippers and a bin liner, whilst you wear riding boots and your smart coat and are mistaken for a Cossack.

That day.

So, as you increasingly desperately wrap the presents you bought in a feverish panic last weekend whilst trying to remember whether your mother in law is the one who is almost fetishistic about almonds or the one who is so severely allergic to nuts that she can't even sniff a Snickers bar without being confined to bed, and worry about whether the Frankie Boyle DVD was the best present for that rather prissy family down the road, and why the cat is being so quiet in the kitchen - just remember to relax, enjoy yourself, and, if all else fails, drink an entire bottle of Baileys and join the dog behind the sofa.

And if you need additional things to take your mind off Christmas, then go over and read the Choc Lit Blog where, from 19th December, you will be able to find out about Choc Lit authors Christmasses. Although I don't think any of them mention the Bacon of Disguise. But I bet they all know what it is...

Covering the work of a very diligent cat. Come on, you've all done it...

Vampires. Yes, honestly, vampires. And news about my next book. And liver flukes, but you can avert your eyes for that bit.

2011-12-11T12:55:00.000Z

Now, those of you of a sensitive disposition (and there must be one of you, at least, you can't all be snorty killers and laughers at Bambi) may wish to look away now, for I want to talk to you about a subject currently close to my heart.

Vampires.

Yep, I've been very busy on the vampire front lately - and no, being busy on the vampire front does not mean licking the chest of the bloke that played that twinkly thing in those films about an oppressed schoolgirl and her really really old boyfriend. Sadly. No. My busyness had been all part of my new novel (due out this Summer, vampire fans!) which is....(drum roll. No, that wasn't a drum roll, that was my stomach rumbling, here it comes....brrrrrrdddrrrrrrr)... about vampires!

But vampires as you've probably never considered them before. Unless you have. My vampires are humans which have been infected with a demon, in a kind of parasitic way. Yes, like liver fluke. Or fleas. Only bigger. Unless it is a really BIG liver fluke.

Like this.

Which means that my vampires can go out in the daylight and all the things that a person can do, because just being infected doesn't stop all the normal human processes. Even sheep with liver flukes can still see themselves in mirrors, you know. They might not know what they were looking at, but they could still do it. If they wanted to.

But, like most parasites, the demons confer some advantages on to their hosts. So my vampires live a long time, are strong and fast and very well dressed. So, in that respect, not much like liver flukes, because being infected with liver fluke rarely causes sheep (for example) to wish to dash into Prada and buy an impeccable suit.

This is as close as they get. Sheep have no innate style, you see. Although, to be fair, this sheep probably doesn't have a liver fluke and therefore believes itself to be well dressed.

So. My vampires are stylish, good looking, strong, fast and only a little bit given to posing. And my hero is a vampire. My heroine isn't. And, because neither is she an oppressed schoolgirl given to lusting after sparkly lunatics who are going to outlive her by a factor of ten, she regards vampires with deep suspicion and rather a large helping of sneer at their desire to wear designer suits all the time. Unlike Buffy, she doesn't necessarily want to kill them, but she is prepared to punch them quite hard if they come over all fangy in her presence.

So, now I've whet your appetites, I have to go off and lick another ches...I mean, get busy on the vampire front again.

Remember. A vampire is for several lifetimes, not just for Christmas.

So are liver flukes, incidentally.

Mice. What EXACTLY are they up to?

2011-12-04T19:44:00.000Z

You know that saying, the one about the best laid plans of mice and men? Oh good, you do. Only that bothers me. Why on earth do mice need to plan? What are they planning?

I've always suspected cats of having an agenda, I mean, those whiskery faces are just designed for putting together a good plot, cover story and eventual disassociation with all those caught. But what on earth can mice have to plan? I know cheese doesn't steal itself but it's hardly a lifetime's work.

A natural-born plotter and conspiracy-theorist. Born to 'mwhahahahahhaha!'

Barely even knows own name or whereabouts of cheeseboard.

So why did Robbie Burns write about the plans of mice? What did he know? And now he's dead. Well not now, obviously, I mean it happened a long time ago, but isn't that just a way of deflecting suspicion? How, exactly, did he die and did anyone see the body?

Did the mice have a hand in his death? Did he have to die in order that their plans went undiscovered? And, given that he's been dead some two hundred and fifteen years give or take a shilling, and that is about ninety thousand mouse-generations, does no-one think that it might be about now that their plans are coming to fruition?

Yeah, you think it looks cute now, you wait until it's coming at you with an Uzi and four tonnes of plastic explosive, demanding that you open the safe. They're financing the operation somehow...

And, now you come to mention it, I've never trusted rabbits either.

Fairy Lights - just say 'No'....

2011-11-27T12:48:00.000Z

In front of me is a big black box. Well, it's not really that big, it's about...ooohh....this big. See? Not that big at all. But the contents.... I shiver and my skin grows cold. The sun fades from the sky and crows line up on my windowledge cawing and mouthing 'Nevermore'... the moon rises like a badly-baked bun over the horizon... for the contents of the box are enough to strike terror into the hearts of anyone who comes into close contact.

For the box contains...

Dah dah duuuuuummmmmm.....

Christmas Tree Lights....

Yes, those agents of peril whose very proximity can reduce an entire household to swearing Neanderthals, who trailing wires have been the downfall of many an unwarily carried pudding; whose bulb-failures cause the emptying of complete cupboards, whose random power-fluctuations can blow so many fuses that the resultant Christmas Dinner has to be cooked the following day and, in some extreme cases, next door.

Those Christmas Tree Lights.

They want you to believe that this is the effect you will achieve. That your Christmas tree will illuminate hearts and minds alike and cause a sympathetic glow on the faces of all who come into contact with it.

What you, in fact, get, is this:

With the possible addition of a few smouldering jumpers, their knitted Santa motifs gently blazing, and the cat strolling through the wreckage picking off the remaining pigs-in-blankets.

I know you want the best tree imaginable. I know you have the image of the perfect Christmas in your head and that it features a beautiful fir tree, branches inexplicably dusted with frost despite the near-Hadean temperatures reached by your central heating, sweetly twinkling lights causing murmers of delight among the children who kneel amid the parcels at its base.

Do us all a favour - just say 'no'. Hang the branches with light-catching decorations made of tinfoil (which will terrify the cat and ensure it sits on the outside of the windowledge making resentful faces at you until at least the beginning of January). Scatter the branches with glitter, generously decorate them with glass baubles that gleam in the firelight. But, if you love your family and don't want the police and Jeremy Kyle to be your close attendants in the New Year, for the love of God don't get fairy lights.

Signed: One Who Knows...

My letter to Santa. PS, not even with fur edging...

2011-11-20T11:35:00.000Z

Dear Santa

Sorry to be so formal about this, I know our communication over the years has been generally less convention-bound, (let us never, ever, mention that kiss under the mistletoe incident again), but I feel that now is the time for us to have a good heart-to-heart, get-it-all-out-in-the-open chat.

1. No more household implements. I know that sometimes I'm pressed for a wooden spoon, or dusting cloth, but - really? Not even in my stocking. Honestly. Even really quite expensive items. Truly, no woman wants to wake up to a Johnny Depp-shaped article at the foot of her bed covered in holly-sprinkled paper only to tear off the wrappings to realise that a Dyson 390 Anti-Allergy Twin Cyclone Hoover has been humorously formed into a man-shaped parcel.

Just, no.

2. No presents that you secretly want. I thought you might have got the message when last year's 'How to Handle Your Reindeer' book and 'Saucy Elves' pin-up calendar got shoved to the back of the understairs cupboard within seconds of opening.

Not even if it's top-to-floor Laura Ashley covered. I shall still know...

3. No clothing that makes me look like your mother. I know that Mrs Claus is a fashion-conscious lady of impeccable taste and good looks, but that doesn't change the fact that she is four hundred and three. Please, also, do not ask her for recommendations, you already know my views on slippers and cardigans.

Really, no.

4. No clothes that you think I ought to wear. Honestly, if it mentions 'peephole', 'split crotch,' 'easy access' or 'PVC', you can almost guarantee that I don't want it. 'Saucy' is open to debate, and 'tassels' we can talk about, but if it's anything that you think the girls at Peppermint Hippo might wear, then it's not for me. Also, no underwear that makes it feel as though I am being slowly sawn in half by a piece of damp string.

Possibly acceptable.

Unacceptable.

You are getting the point here, aren't you?

I shall await Christmas morning with interest.

Yours expectantly,
Jane.

PS I know where you live....

I went to the Fortean Times UnConvention and all I got was a cursed head...

2011-11-14T14:04:00.000Z

Ah, there you are. You might have been wondering where I was, of course,since I was absent without leave yesterday, well, I shall tell you.

I was in London. Actually, I was in a large hall in Camden. This time I wasn't taking all my clothes off to a dubious cover version of Kylie Minogue... oh. You didn't know about that? Well, I think it's a story for another time, actually, although I have to say that I am still finding sequins, and I can't look a tangerine in the face without coming over all peculiar. No. I was at Uncon, which is the Convention for those of us fortunate enough to read the Fortean Times.

It looked like this. Only less green, and there definitely wasn't a vampire behind me on the Tube. Anyway. Whilst at UnCon, I listened to a talk about a supposedly cursed head. It turned out not to be mine! I've always put my hair down to a particularly virulent curse applied liberally by some Spellmaster of the first order, but the cursed head of the talk didn't even have any hair. It was carved of stone and had the somewhat bemused but benevolent expression of a headmaster who has taken early retirement and suddenly finds himself in Sainsbury's with no idea what a flagolet bean is.

Reader, I patted him. I tried to find a picture to show you, but this is the best I could locate.

It's near enough, although looks to me to be more baffled than bemused. Like he's just sat down and then realised that there's no toilet paper. Anyway. I patted the cursed head. Will report on results, although I have to say that I have no need to buy flagolet beans. But if I find myself in Sainsbury's wondering what I came in for, I will attribute it to the curse, although my nearest Sainsbury's is 20 miles away, which is a long way to go and not remember why, so there may be no noteworthy results for some time.

I also heard about talking dogs, mummies (the shuffling, bandaged kind, not the procreative female kind, although both descriptions fit my own mother fairly well. She has a great range of curses as well, you should hear her if she runs out of flagolet beans...), mongooses on the Isle of Man, Sasquatches... and I met a great hero of mine, Jon Downes, who signed a book for me and made my weekend complete.

Right, I'd better go - I've been seized with the urge to go to Sainsbury's, for some reason....

Why Bruce Forsyth = bonfires and Orlando Bloom is like a toffee apple.

2011-11-06T11:59:00.000Z

Bonfires are like television. No, not that they all seem to have Bruce Forsyth on them all the time, or that they are, basically, rubbish, but in the way that people have to watch them. Last night I saw an enormous crowd of people (OK, probably not that enormous, a few hundred or something, but you have to remember that I don't get out much, and any collection of people that isn't my immediate family looks enormous to me) all staring at a bonfire. Well, their faces were all pointing in that direction, I have to take it on trust that they were all actually staring at it and not standing with their eyes closed because that would just be a terrible waste.

Which is like television. When did you last walk into a room where a television was on and not immediately stop to see what it was that was on the screen? (I'll give you a clue, it had Bruce Forsyth in it).

Somewhere, Bruce is smouldering...

And I got to wondering... which was nice because basically my brain has been an operational black hole for quite a while, so a bit of wondering was good, I'm really hoping to move up to actual thinking by next week, but not to be too ambitious about it... after all, you can't be too careful with brains, at least you can't with mine, so I'm going to take it slowly. Anyway. There I am, wondering... no, not there, you can't see me in the picture. It's all to do with my natural radiance, which would eclipse the bonfire and prevent the camera from focussing properly. At least, that's what I was told.... Now I come to think of it, it sounds a bit suspicious, doesn't it? Hmmm....

So. Why is it that humans feel the need to stare at fire (and Bruce Forsyth)? Do we have this primitive urge to watch things burn? Is it the miracle of primitive power (no, not in Brucie's case...) that makes us cluster around huge piles of flaming objects?

In my case it's just that I feel the cold really easily. And there's quite often toffee apples. These are the Orlando Bloom in the Bruce Forsyth experience, the little piles of yummyness amid the inexplicably eye-catching.

We are not playing the comparison game. We are NOT.

Hosting a small, intimate party for immediate friends. Bring your own bucket.

2011-10-30T18:11:00.000Z

I'm sure that was a knock at the door.... ah, hello, there you are. As the nights darken and the winter edges ever closer (making a weird 'meep meep' noise, for some bizarre and inexplicable reason), I have invited you in to glance over my holiday snaps, drink my home-brewed rhubarb-and-stoat ale and generally rummage through my smalls drawer, making rude remarks about my collection of obsolete pants, carefully embroidered with 'Road Signs through the Ages' by my dear widowed mother.

Come in, come in, close the door behind you otherwise the badgers get in. Now, who's for a rhubarb-and-stoat? You at the back? Ice and a slice? Fine, I'll pour, you put the protective gloves on. And, if you'd all like to prop your eyelids open and pretend to be interested, I'll give you a glimpse at my snaps.

No, not like that. You can get up off the floor. And you, you can stop rolling around and pretending to be in pain. Look.

Here I am, pointing at a waterfall. I don't know why, I think I was giving it guidance or something. All I know was that my trousers got wet and I had to pass the remainder of the day with a damp buttock, thereby leaving oddly moist semi-imprints in every chair I sat in.

This is an island. It attempted to follow us home and had to be shooed away in no uncertain manner. Our own fault for feeding it, I suppose.

Someone pass around the snacks, would you? I find keeping the blood circulating at times like these is invaluable. Be careful with those cheesy fingers, they're the cat's favourite and he doesn't like ....oh. You seem to have found out for yourself. Never mind, the bleeding will stop eventually. Have another ale, it numbs the pain. Actually it numbs all essential functions and I usually find it's best to drink it whilst sitting on a bucket, but help yourself. Now, where was I? Ah yes, some of you still seem to be awake...

Here's a picture of me, grinning at a river. I think I was grinning, anyway. Maybe I just wanted the toilet really, really badly, after all, that water was rushing really fast, whoooshh whoooooshhhh....oh, excuse me a moment.....

Where did they all go? Someone even seems to have climbed out of the window, look, they even left their half-finished pint of ale... oh well, seems a shame to waste it. So then, now it's just you and me, another twenty seven pints of rhubarb-and-stoat and a hundred and fifty seven pictures still to get through...

Oh, really? Must you go? No, of course I understand, armpits can be such tricky things, can't they? Ah well, I shall just have to save the rest of the pictures for next time I invite you round.

I can wait.

What's in a name? Apart from a lot of letters.... (plus a picture of Jared Leto...)

2011-10-22T12:56:00.000+01:00

I've been doing it again. No, shut up, not that, anyway the restraining order is still in place, so I can't, not until September 2014 anyway. No, what I have been doing is pondering. Which explains why I'm covered in ducks. I have also been thinking about names.

My heroes tend towards single syllable names, but this is not through any Male Conventional Naming System (Trademark) it is simply that these are easier on the fingers. I mean, yes, Amadeus is a very nice name (so long as you happen to be an eighteenth century German, and I'm not saying that you aren't, I'm just passing comment here), but typing it out on average, say, three hundred times over the length of a manuscript - well, your A key is going to take a fair bit of wear, isn't it? And it's not a name that easily shortens - by the time the heroine has gasped his name during a passionate encounter...well, just picture it... "Am....Am....Am..." she's just going to sound like a woman with some kind of dissociative disorder. And then there's Alistair. No, over there, look. A name which I particularly like, but persist in shortening to Alice...

Because certain names just sound more...well, sexy. I am currently working on a Phinn, a Kai and a Zan. And,. I have to say, I am exhausted... but that is by the by. Others heroes I have used until their bones creaked, have been called Cal, Ben and, in Star Struck (published by Choc Lit, available at all good bookshops), the hero's name is Jack. I could never, of course, use the names Tom or Will (because those are my sons' names and it would just be nasty), Bill is a grandfather and Zack is too manly. Any male names ending in the 'ee' sound are a little bit too far on the girly side (Mr Depp, I am making an absolutely enormous exception on your part here) and if I ever use Butch or Randy you have my permission to shoot me.

His real name is Amelia, you know....

Now, I know the theories, that names ending in 'hard' sounds are intrinsically 'male' and soft sounds are 'female' and you never call a hero 'Izziwizzimuss' unless you are writing a story about cats or are deranged, and that the best way to make sure your hero's name is age-appropriate is to check out the Top Ten list of names for the year he was born, but why is it that some names are just more... appealing?

Oh, and Zan's a vampire. So, you know, different rules...

At a titular disadvantage - and no, a new bra won't help...

2011-10-16T11:50:00.000+01:00

Why is naming something so hard?

Well, apart from the obvious point, that my brain is, in fact, made of liquid cheese, and remembering what something is called is a matter of genuflecting in its direction whilst making grunting 'effort' noises... I can generally, eventually, remember what the name is of the thing I am looking for by doing a generalised mime of the object in question although I do remember on one occasion where my wandering around doing 'scissors' mime was interpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated shadow puppet of Acherontisuchus. And when I'm looking for...errr...that thing you use, you know, for cooking...full of holes... that thing, it's like a round of Give Us a Clue in my house. And no, it's not a film. Or a book.

It's a TV programme actually. Wallander, or something...

And anyway, not that sort of naming. No, it is of book titles I wish to virtually talk to you. You see, my works in progress (or WIPs as they tend to be known in the trade - stick with me, kid, you'll soon be talking the lingo like a native..) get labelled as I work, rather like Friends episodes. There's 'The one with that man, you know, the one with the bloke whose wife leaves him who goes to work on a trawler but discovers that he's allergic to seagulls and has to take a job squeezing teabags in a cafe' or 'The one where the cat nearly dies, and they think the cat has died but then it turns out that it was only asleep in the wardrobe and then the daughter...no, not that daughter, the other one, the one with the hair, she runs away from home and it's all something to do with an anonymous letter'. But these lack a certain something as actual book titles. Besides which, there wouldn't be room on the cover and the title would have to be continued on the inside pages, which rather defeats the object.

So, I must choose concise, gripping titles, which encapsulate the spirit and mood of the book whilst taking into account my own, slightly peculiar, style of writing. And, as any of you lovely people who believe that you truly know me will testify, concise is not really me. Oh, I can grip, certainly, I can grip like a manical woman who has recently purchased the last Whippy ice-cream in the van only to be faced with a frenzied Whippy ice-cream thief, oh yes. I can grip like nobody's business. But concisity is just not in my nature. Why use one word when there are thousands of unemployed syllables just floating around doing nothing and causing trouble on the streets, waving their suffixes and generally being underused? No, I believe in getting language off benefits and into the workplace.

This is the sort of thing words get up to when not fully employed, you know. They go all primary coloured and start getting together and whispering. Yes, about you...

And so I am faced with a problem. Well, several problems actually, but only one that need concern you. The thing with the duck will resolve itself in time and I am sure that the police will understand about the whole 'underpants on the head' thing if I go and explain in person instead of waiting for the court date to come up... anyway. My problem. I need titles. Only problem is, being of a suspicious nature I can't tell you what the books are actually about in case you rush out and steal my ideas and I'm left having to rewrite the one about the man, the trawler and the teabags over and over again. So, if, without actually having anything to go on, like plot or character or anything, you can come up with some titles for my forthcoming novels, I shall be forever grateful.

Also slightly impressed. And probably suspicious.

And before you suggest this, obvious, title, it's been done - look.

Sunday. Now brought to you by Rowntrees and known as Fruit Gum Day.

2011-10-09T15:50:00.000+01:00

All rightie, people, listen up! Except for you at the back, you just keep on listening sideways, I know you can't help it.

I have Pieces of News for you. Firstly. Or thirdly, if you're listening sideways. Next week is Chocolate Week. No, I'm not sure what it involves either, I am presuming that it doesn't mean that Tuesday is brought to us courtesy of Cadburys, although I think it would be a great idea to have days of the week sponsored by major manufacturers. I am going to apply now to Slumberland to have them sponsor Fridays. Imagine no longer having to ring in to work *sick* on Fridays, but to be able to legitimately be taking a 'Sponsored by Slumberland' day... Ahem. Where was I? Oh yes, next week, chocolate...

Anyway. Because of said Chocolate Week, my delightful and only occasionally baffled and confused publishers Choc Lit are hosting a short story competition - which may be accessed directly by pressing the little purple button that links to the site from here (where it says Choc Lit, in case yours doesn't look purple. Mine does, but it's all right, I've got an ointment...) and they are also, in honour of the chocolate, reducing one e-title from each of us to the measly price of under £1! Yes! For less than the price of a bar of Fruit and Nut, you could be the proud owner of a copy of Please Don't Stop the Music (other titles are available). This is presupposing that you are not already the bustingly proud owner of a copy - and if not, why not? HOW long have I been drumming it in to you that you are supposed to rush to the bookshop and buy copies of my latest releases even before they are released? Hmmm? But if you aren't, you can now remedy the situation for small change. But bear in mind that I don't want to see you here again until you have, all right?

This....

... and this. How much better can life be?

Well, yes, it could also have Tony in it. Good point.

And also in other news. Those of you who have hankered for a sighting of me in real life (and there are those of you, come on, don't be coy, I've seen the e-mails...) may have their chance. If you are quick, have really good eyesight and an empty stomach, then I may be seen at Malton Literary Festival on 23rd of this very month! I shall be performing there - not certain as to the nature of this performance yet, I've taken delivery of a set of multi-coloured juggling balls, a fire-eating set and some stilts, to the bemusement of my postman, but suspect that I shall probably be doing something along the lines of reading from my latest novel, Star Struck, and maybe giving a teensy little inside peek into my newest, yet-to-be-released (hell, it's yet to be titled) novel from Choc Lit. Which doesn't have Tony in it.

Right. Off now to perfect my stilt-walking, juggling, fire-eating act, just in case. If you see a really tall, slightly singed woman with RSI in both wrists, you'll know it's me.

Wot aye dyd ohn mi hollidaes

2011-10-03T14:19:00.000+01:00

At the risk of boring you (oh, must you go so soon? But I'd only just got started!) I'm going to tell you about my recent weekend.

I spent it stalking Hadrian's Wall. I had a quick squint at Hadrian's Ceiling and a bit of a quick tour of Hadrian's Shed, but it is with his Wall that I am chiefly concerned here. Now, I am sure that most of you have had experience of trying to find walls and realise that you must move quickly and quietly in order to see these elusive creatures which can, in extreme cases either a) follow you around an entire county, or b) shuffle away from the places you expect to find them and relocate to entirely different places.

Here, in fact is a stretch of said wall. Looking utterly immobile, all innocent and standing around, la la la, been here for centuries, not going anywhere, dah de dah. It even hums to itself, it's that good at seeming to be a permanent fixture. Note the grass growing on the top and its apparent firm location in the landscape. This is a part of the wall which has been brought into domestication and may even be described as 'tame'.

Wild walls are harder to find. I was accompanied on my trip by an experienced wall-locator, someone with a past history of being able to find rocks piled up one on top of another and also well-versed in the identification of said edifices. "That's a wall," he can say, without fear of contradiction. We donned the appropriate wall-stalking gear (pictures of me dressed as a breeze-block are currently unavailable) and crept through the landscape, making occasional wall-luring sounds (chisel on rock, the sound of mortar being thickly applied and, unaccountably, in my case a sad sort of 'honking' sound). But the wall was too clever for us.

We were told there had been a wall here only the day before. Now there was nothing but rock-droppings. Some of them dropped quite a long way...

Eventually we started to hallucinate walls. At one point I went completely mad and jumped up onto a pile of bricks declaring that I had found it, and that Hadrian should have used better glue. Sad, I know. But, at last we got word of a sighting, whispered between those who know their walls and we rushed to the aforementioned location (which I dare not divulge here, because now is the wall breeding season and to disturb a rutting wall is to invite death).

Here, eventually, we found one, and it had young with it! How lucky is that! Of course, having seen it and photographed it, we left quietly so as not to disturb it. But don't bother going here to look, it will be miles away by now.

Blog Special - Mrs Darcy Versus the Aliens, now with added Pinnock!

2011-09-24T10:53:00.001+01:00

I promised you a special little something today, didn't I? Yes. Well, it wasn't that, so you can take that look off your face.

For today I wish to draw your attention to a book. Yes, yes, I know, nothing new there, I'm so perpetually drawing your attention to my books that you buy them merely as a form of self defence - but today I'm beckoning you hither in my comely fashion in order to appreciate another book.

Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens. Yes, this one. You can buy it here.

It's a sequel to Pride and Prejudice. With tentacles. And it is most amusing (particularly liked the Lieutenant Pigeon gag), filled with puns, gags, plays on words, jokes, humorous interplays and general waggishness of all kinds, plus what is actually rather a good story. The Darcys are married (albeit as yet without an heir, the getting of which is becoming a sore point..err..no, not like that...), family members are a cause for concern, and there are lights in the sky over Rosings. I can say no more without revealing that mpmmpph mpmmmphhh mmmphhh.... oh, thank you Mr Pinnock for your timely intervention of a hand over my mouth. You can let go now.

Thank you.

And, in honour of this publication, I have been allowed to ask the fragrant Jonathan Pinnock a few searching questions. Here are the results...

If you were a cheese, what kind would you be?

Pont l'Eveque. Bit alien, crustier than Camembert and more than a little smelly.

What is your favourite T shirt slogan?

"I am a bomb disposal technician. If you see me running, try to keep up." Although the effect is usually ruined by having this printed on the front rather than the back.

Dalek or Cyberman, and why?

Dalek every time. The Cybermen always remind me of Wallace in the Wrong Trousers.

What would Mrs Darcy put in a time capsule to be discovered in a hundred years?

Funnily enough, she did precisely this and I've found it. But I've been sworn to secrecy. All I can say is that when it is finally revealed, it will change everything. Forget faster than light travel. This is the real deal.

Mr Darcy versus Wickham – who would win in a fist fight?

I ... hold on, I thought you said something else there. Phew. So, Darcy vs Wickham? Don't know really but it would be worth staging, if only to hear Lizzy crying out "Leave 'im, Fitzy, 'e's not worth it!"

If you could abolish one piece of beaurocracy, what would it be?

I think it might be fun to abolish the law of gravity. We once had to write about life without gravity at school and one of my mates said that everyone would have to wear heavy boots to weigh them down. He's a top banker now. True story.

And if you want to chat about anything else...inflatable Daleks, top five Carry On film moments... anything...(only not the one where Barbara Windsor's top flies off. Everyone says that.)

Actually I have a question about inflatable daleks. The plunger arm thing on ours is always a bit limp, however often we blow it up. Does anyone out there have any cures for plunger dysfunction?

So now you know a little more about the insurpassably lovely Mr Pinnock, perhaps you'd like to take a little potter on over to his blog at http://networkedblogs.com/nwBEa and see what he has to say about me?

You can go armed, if you must...

Psyche-curtain critique and why monks don't know a Jag from a Merc

2011-09-18T17:02:00.000+01:00

This weekend I paid a visit to Mount Grace Priory. Oh, it's all right, it's open to the public - I'm not about to take holy orders or anything, for one thing I don't think they'd have me, and another...well, I can't do the costumes. My legs are too short, I look like a Dalek in a whimple. Anyway. I went. Look.

This is it. But you can't see me...

And so. I asked lots of what I considered pertinent and well-thought-out questions about the monks who used to live there - Jaguar versus Mercedes -their preferred manufacturer, what they considered to be good mileage to the gallon, whether performance should triumph over appearance. Turns out they were Carthusians. Not Car Enthusiasts. I probably can't go back.

And in other news. Don't forget - in fact, pencil it into your diaries RIGHT NOW - next weekend I shall be giving you the one-time-only (injunction pending) opportunity to read all about Mr Jonathan Pinnock, author of the wonderful 'Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens' novel (out now, all good bookshops, reasonable price etc). I have exerted influence, threatened blackmail and taken posession of the negatives in order to bring you this exclusive(ish) insight into the world of a self-confessed Inflatable Dalek owner and writer. I've even asked him some questions which may or may not allow you a peek into his psyche! All right, so the question I asked was 'please may I have the key to your psyche, so I can show some people round?', and he has promised that we might be able to have a poke around, as long as we don't criticise the curtains.

It looks like this. The book, obviously, not his psyche. Although that might be an assumption...

And finally. Or finially, if you are of a staircase turn of mind. You may have noted that I revealed that I have signed a contract with those patient people at Choc Lit for my latest novel, entitled 'Vampire State of Mind'. It's about vampires. And, tangentially, minds. You are going to hear a lot more about this book... In fact, in preparation for it, I went into a branch of Waterstones at the weekend (not at Mount Grace Priory, they aren't that enlightened, it was in Northallerton, actually) and perused the shelves. I know, I know, I should never peruse in public after that last time, what with all the fuss and the straitjacket and that nasty court case, but the place wasn't busy and I think I got away with it.

And what should my perusal reveal? Well, I'll tell you. Every single vampire book on the shelf was American. Yes! Set in America, with American people (and, presumably, vampires)! This may not come as a shock, indeed, may seem perfectly just and proper if you are one of my American friends, but to me it was appalling! Britain has vampires too, you know! Well-dressed and well-mannered (unless they go off the rails), a liking for technology and filing and an almost insurmountable obsession with really fast cars. Well, mine do, anyway.

And with that appetite-whetting teaser I shall take my leave. Don't forget next week is Jonathan Pinnock week - play nicely and, whatever you do, don't criticise the curtains...

Although, you know, if they're like this I think we might have to. It's for his own good, after all.

A moving story. With an inflatable giraffe, and promises of duffel coats.

2011-09-11T17:30:00.000+01:00

Today we drove to Sheffield to drop off a daughter. Oh, it's all right, it was one of my daughters, I didn't just fancy a long drive in order to lose someone else's daughter - it's much too far to go to miscellaneously dispose of any girl children that happen to be lounging about on the sofa. Anyway. Off we set in the big car, which is large enough to contain (variously), two teddy bears, an inflatable giraffe, a hot water bottle, two life-sized bags of dried pasta and a knife-fork-and-spoon set. Without which, apparently, life at University wouldn't be worth living. So, it appears that said daughter is expecting a flood, from which she will be saved by inflating the giraffe, float to safety whilst surviving on pasta and teddy-bear stuffing, protected from the chill only by her fleecy-covered hot water bottle.

Quite how this fits in with Accountancy I have yet to have revealed to me. Perhaps all accountants are secretly sitting on cushions like this whilst auditing your accounts. The thought makes me smile, anyway.

So. At the crack of lunch-time we set out for Sheffield, which on paper is only...ooooh...about....this far away. However, given the general lack of roads around here it took three ice ages before we arrived, and almost an entire packet of chocolate eclairs (not me, not me, the driver ate them...) even whilst travelling at speeds approaching warp (at one point I think light actually bent around the car, and I swear I am now three years younger than I was when we left). But we got there. And then the doors wouldn't open, even when we waved the Magic Key of Doom at the transmitter and uttered Harry-Potteresque sayings at it ('Openupimus' and similar).

The knob turned the other way, apparently. Who knew?

And then, to add insult to an already quite injurious day, she insisted on coming back home with us! More stuff to transport later, apparently! So it's not even as though I can sit down with a nice hot cup of tea and the knowledge of a job well done - no, I can perch on the edge of a sofa on which said daughter is now sprawled (tired out after all that door-opening, you know), and look forward to doing the whole thing again!

Well, after all, we haven't moved the stuffed sloth, the fourteen odd socks, three hundredweight of coal and the thirty-year-old duffel coat yet.

Try to imagine my joy at being able to get rid of this. Wouldn't be so bad, but it's ninety feet long...

Some duck tape and the promise of future inflatable Daleks. And Cyber-Stomp Boots. And Jonathan Pinnock gets a mention...

2011-09-04T14:23:00.001+01:00

Okay, there was a little bit of duck tape. An an inflatable Dalek, but I'm not responsible for that. Also lots of chocolate, some swearing, biscuits (but not HobNobs)... and I think I may have mentioned cheese. Probably.

Yes, the blog tour is over.

If you missed it...well, you missed it, but I'm sure we'll all be very understanding and only make in-jokes when we think you're not listening. But it does mean that Starstruck has been launched upon you all like a missile. A soft one. Full of words. So, rather like a book being thrown at you. Sorry, but I'm going to have to do this...

Yep, that one. Out now, as if you didn't know...

And, if you find yourself at a loose end and you happen to be in the vicinity of Kirkbymoorside (hey, it happens, all right, people find themselves all over the place at times... and it's really not inconceivable that you might just be wandering around and be passing Kirkbymoorside, should you happen to know where that is and if you don't...well, just follow the trail of biscuit crumbs. I'll be at the end) on Wednesday... all right, it's a run-on sentence, but I adjudge you to be more than capable of following a sentence that has more than five words in it, so look on this whole thing as a form of flattery... What? Where was I? Oh, yes, if you happen to be in the environs of Kirkbmoorside around 6pm on Wednesday the 7th of September, I shall be in Summit Bookshop doing a kind of launchie thing. Sort of. Although the only way I can think of to properly launch a book is to hold it in my hand, wind my arm back and lob it skywards... So you might want to wear some form of protective clothing too. And a hat. A hard one.

I'm thinking this sort of thing. Although my colour scheme is probably going to be maroon and ochre, so you may stand out a bit...

So. Yes. In the bookshop, in protective clothing, armed with biscuits in order to distract me from my lobular activities for long enough to enable you to gain a glass of wine and possibly a chocolate truffle or two without being in danger of losing any of your extremities to a well-aimed copy of Starstruck. Be there.

It's a sort of threat, you see. Never been terribly good at them.

And now, in further news...

On 24th of September of this very year...I shall be posting a rather different sort of thing. You see...oh, it's a long story and possibly rather boring to anyone who doesn't possess an inflatable Dalek and the potential of Cyber-Stomp boots, but anyway...I shall be talking about (and possibly to, but he might be shy and hiding inside the aforementioned Dalek), the very lovely and fragrant...all right, he's only fairly lovely and fragrant but I'm using artistic licence here...Mr Jonathan Pinnock! Yes, you heard right, Jonathan Pinnock - author of the slightly less lovely and possibly not at all fragrant 'Mrs Darcy Versus the Aliens'. I have a copy right here, in fact. No, not there, slightly higher and to the left...yes. Just there.

That's the one.

So consider yourselves forwarned, dear reader. For Forwarned is Forearmed, apparently, although why you'd want four arms I cannot imagine, possibly to ward off those frantically slung copies of Starstruck.

Starstruck is released - rush out and buy it - now with added Dalek!

2011-08-28T11:34:00.000+01:00

Today I have to focus. I've twiddled the special little knob at the back of my head which enables me to bring everything into sharp relief and...ooh, did I tell you about my walk along the beach at Bamburgh? Oh. I did. Right. Even that bit about the...oh. That too, eh? Okay. Right. In that case there's nothing else for it.
I am going to have to talk about my book.

Yep, this one.

On Thursday this week, being the first of the month and the month of its being, Starstruck is released upon the public like ...umm...like a big shiny thing being launched. No, not the Titanic, you at the back. It is, even now, poised upon the slipway, straining at the taut ropes with an expression of eager arousal...hang on, is this still the book? Oh, it is. All right then. Some very kind people have already read it and they appear to like it quite a lot, using such words as 'pink', 'Nevada', 'laughed', and 'effulgent'. All right, I made that last one up, no-one said it was effulgent, although it might well be, who am I to comment?

Are you sure I told you about the beach at Bamburgh? Oh.

It looks like this. The beach at Bamburgh, not the book.

So. In honour of its being allowed out into the public domain with its big-boy pants on, I want you all (yes, even you at the back who made the 'Titanic' remark) to rush out and buy it. It is an excellent read, with only one Dalek in - and that's inflatable - which will make you both laugh and hurry to the biscuit tin. That's the book, not the Dalek. I don't think Daleks have ever made anyone hurry to the biscuit tin, if you don't count that bit with the Jammy Dodger. Daleks have no HobNob appreciation skills, and for that reason alone they should be wiped from the Universe.

I bet they pick out all the chocolate ones. You can tell from their faces that's the sort of thing they'd do.

Anyway. You will like it, I promise. Or your money back. Oh, no, hang on a minute, I've just got the electricity bill so I need the money, so you can't have it back, but if you don't like it I will...ummm... be quite sorry. I might even do 'sad face'. And you don't want that on your conscience, do you, and anyway I am quite convinced that you will like the book, which has some very funny bits in. So buy it.

Are you absolutely positive that I didn't tell you about the beach at Bamburgh?

If they let me sing, you might have to bring your tomatoes indoors.

2011-08-21T16:18:00.001+01:00

This week, purely in the interests of research you understand, I had a bit of an outbreak of castles - everywhere I went, there they were, looming on the horizon in much the same way as a sore throat looms when you have a singing engagement. Not that I ever do, of course, on account of singing like the sound of a nail file being slowly drawn over the edge of a piece of paper, but you know what I mean. This is not to say that I don't sing, I sing a lot. All the time. But only under very strictly controlled conditions, ie, soundproof ones. My rendition of 'Sugar, We're Going Down' can bring tears to the eyes of a budgie and can cause unrestrained vomiting in the susceptible, so I tend not to do it when there are humans (or budgies) present. Which is causing me a small problem because, for my interview on Radio York tomorrow (2pm Russell Walker's show, just thought you might like to know...) I had to choose two pieces of music to go along with the interview and I've chosen two that I can't help but sing along to. They might have to pull the plug. Or adopt some kind of 'scorched earth' policy, sowing the ground with salt when I've left, burning anything I've touched, spraying the city with hydrochloric acid, that sort of thing. If you live in York and your tomatoes are outside, I'd bring them in around lunchtime on Monday, just in case. Oh, and cover the budgie, it's for the best.

And this is only one chorus in. Imagine if they'd let me get to the end of the song! The horror!

Hang on. Where was I? Oh, castles, yes. Well, what can I tell you about castles that you don't already know? They're big, built of stone, full of ornamentation, are absolute buggers to dust (oh. That applies to all mantelpieces as well), have staircases full of Americans (probably not original features, but you can never be sure with castles) and are designed with maximum loomage in mind.

There is a castle here. It's creeping off the side of the picture to hide. They do that, castles. Hide and then creep around behind you just when you least expect it, wait until you're watching TV, innocently drinking a cup of tea and then WHAM! Out they leap and run over your foot and all you can do is jump into the air spilling your tea and hope that it gets eaten by the cat.

Or that might be spiders. I forget.

Anyway. That one is Bamburgh, on the Northumberland coast. The beach is also lovely, as am I.

Alnwick, caught in the act of creeping closer, every time I turned around, it was a little bit bigger. Like Grandmother's Footsteps only with crenellations.

Also, in a moment of total surrealism, I found myself tiptoeing around the moat of Warkworth castle in the dark and a small rainstorm. It's probably best if we keep that between ourselves though, since I'm not convinced I should have been there and besides, I have no idea how to pronounce it. Is it 'Waaaark worth' like the sound of a duck being trodden on? Or 'Walk worth' like the sound of a duck with a speech impediment being trodden on? It could be important if I have to make a statement to the police.

Right. I'm off now to brush up my scales, polish my fur and try to make myself presentable for my radio appearance, since I know you'll all be peering at me through the little grill effort at the front.

The Apocalypse Never Waits ...

2011-08-14T14:13:00.000+01:00

I’m doing something I’ve never done before here. Look. Good, isn’t it? Who would have thought a hang glider would dunk so satisfactorily... But. Apart from that, I’m doing something else for the first time – I am preparing this post in advance.

Don’t think I didn’t hear your indrawn breath of shock and horror, you thought all my posts were carefully handcrafted, erased, rewritten, corrected, edited and finally, when the polish was almost worn away with the constant buffing, placed with the utmost care upon this humble website of mine. Ho, as they say, ho. My posts are usually hastily scribbled down, most often as I scrunch myself further under the duvet in the attempt to deny that another day has dawned. Yep, there I lie in my Enid Blytonesque pyjamas (they look, apparently, like something one of Enid Blyton’s characters would wear, they aren’t Blytonesque because they are covered in rabbits in clothes, or cats doing needlework or anything, because that would be odd),

(yep, I look exactly like this...)

my eyes half closed and my hands clenched into fists like a couple of legs of lamb, punching away at the keyboard in much the same fashion as an infinite number of monkeys. And sometimes words appear in an order which manages to convince readers that I have some idea of what I am writing.

But today... ah, today, gentle reader (I am making huge assumptions about your gentleness here, you realise, you might have all the digital finesse of a troll attempting to eat beans from a can), yes, today I am approaching forethought from the right direction! Although, now I come to think of it, there might be some huge, world changing event between now (Thursday), and my posting of this blog (Sunday). If the world is annihilated by a meteor strike which turns those surviving members of the human race into flesh-devouring zombies, hunted to eventual extinction by the aliens that rode the meteor into our atmosphere for the purposes of using our planet as a breeding zone – well, then I’m going to be wasting my time, aren’t I? Always assuming that any zombies with internet access can be bothered to access my blog for purposes other than trying to locate me in order to eat my brains, are they really going to pay close attention to my words of wisdomish? Or are they simply going to try to eat the keyboard?

This is how I'm thinking of you right now. In my Enid Blyton pyjamas. Makes you weep, doesn't it?

So, on second thoughts, I don’t think I’ll bother. By the time I post this you’ll be too busy being hunted by aliens to read it.

Oh, and.. RUN!

Blog Pelmets - why I don't have one - and my Last Words. Or not.

2011-08-07T14:35:00.000+01:00

Dear Interested Party

Hello. Can I call you Interested? Or do you prefer Mr Party? No, I suppose that does make you sound a bit like the local drug supplier, all right, I shall call you Interested. Or Inter? How about that? Or, since we know each other (or it feels as if I know you, we've spent so long together - well, I suppose together is stretching things a bit, you've been reading my blog whilst I've been lounging around eating Walnut Whips and painting my toenails) I could call you Int.

Anyway. Dear Int.

You might have noticed that my blog post last week was... well, absent. Missing. Lost in Action.

Oh. You didn't notice. All right then, ignore all of the above. Honestly, I only came by here to explain why I wasn't around last week, and you don't even seem to have registered my absence! Here I am, slaving, typing my fingers to the bone, and you can't even be bothered to notice that I wasn't here! Okay, noticing that I wasn't here is hard, I'll admit that, it's a bit tricky to see something that's missing. Perhaps I should have informed you that I'd be 'not there' instead of expecting you to find me gone; a bit like a form of Blog Pelmanism ( "what's the missing item?" Er, is it a plastic pig?). Oh come on, Pelmanism? That game where you cover the tray and take one item away? No, it's nothing to do with curtains, that's pelmets. Why would I have a blog pelmet? That would be like having a Facebook valence. Or Twitter trim.

Well anyway. I wasn't here. But I am now, not that you care. I could have been lying dead in a ditch, my last words going unregistered and unheard apart from half a dozen water beetles and a passing hedgehog (weak cough Tell them I did it all for them cough cough And don't forget it's recycling day on Wednesday... cough choke splutter expire). What? I never said my last words would be interesting, I just said that you wouldn't have heard them because you didn't even notice that I wasn't here to say them. In fact I'm thinking about saying my last words right now, even though I don't intend on going anywhere - I've heard that you can't take it with you when you go, so in that case I'm not going - just so that you can be forced to hear them.

I just need some good Last Words now. 'I told you I was ill'? 'The winning lottery ticket is hidden in the...'?
'Luke, I am your father'? (probably can't carry that one off, since I only know one person called Luke and we're both pretty sure that I'm not his father, for various reasons, me being female being only one of them.)

Any suggestions? No, Int, I'm not talking to you. Ever Again. You didn't even notice I wasn't here... Next time I'll give you a hint...

Holiday 'fun'.

2011-07-24T10:32:00.000+01:00

Whoopee. The school holidays are here. Bunt out the hangings...

Do I sound a little underwhelmed? There is a very good reason for this - in fact, there are several.

1. Simply getting into town to do my shopping now takes at least 60% longer. Some may say that this is my own fault for living in the kind of picturesque place that other people come to take their holidays - which it is - but it is still incredibly annoying when you've only popped out for a packet of Giant Chocolate Buttons and a tin of catfood and find yourself in a queue of slow moving traffic as the tourists stop every twenty yards to take pictures.

Yeah, cute. But they eat tourists you know.

2. The children are on holiday. I know, the clue is in the title, School Holidays. And being that I work in a school and everything, this should be a time of high rejoicing, of long leisurely mornings and late nights over bottles of wine. What it actually is, is a series of linked cries of 'can we go to...(insert name of expensive entertainment here)' 'have we got any ...(insert name of chocolate biscuit here)', or intricate arrangements with friends which involve careful dove-tailing of diaries to ensure that I am not expected to appear in several places simultaneously, like a kind of rule-breaking Doctor Who figure with less bouffy hair. Seriously though, his hair is really bouffy...

No. We haven't.

3. Or iii) as anyone with a classical education prefers to think of it. There are children everywhere. Okay, so I am responsible for some of them, but there are far more of them on the streets than I can possibly be called to account for. Honestly, you even see them coming out of DIY shops. What on earth can children be doing in a DIY shop? Are they stocking up on plasterboard and rawl plugs for a little wacky mayhem, a la Enid Blyton's epic 'Five Go to Reality TV'? Once I have gained the High Street of my aforementioned choosing, still in search of those Giant Chocolate Buttons and catfood, I now find myself having to weave through crowds of youthful cacklers, grubby faced and baggy of trouser, all sharing one IPhone to listen via multi-way headphones to a tinny rendition of Last Night of the Proms. Shocking.

Tears before bedtime, I tell you.

4. It's not fair. Whinge whinge. Moan. Complain. Yes, I really do sound like this. For, although it is the holidays, although the sun is shin... although the weather is ho... although it isn't actually hailing and the rain is only coming down in sheets occasionally, I still have to work. For the Blog Tour continues apace, I am about to visit the Love Romance Passion blog in my latest bid for world domination (check in there if you are following my competition to win one of three copies of Star Struck!), I have a new WIP which must be hosed down, scrubbed up and buffed if it is to be ready for your delectation, and, let's face it, someone has to do the washing up.

And now you must excuse me. I have to pack my all-weather supplies, my shotgun and my endurance pants and head to town, we've run out of catfood again. Maybe I'll get some chocolate biscuits this time...

The 'No Duck Tape, Honestly' Blog Tour

2011-07-17T11:18:00.000+01:00

Okay people, listen up.

Oh, all right, in your case you can listen down, but just this once. And no other exceptions, right? No, you at the back, you are not allowed to listen diagonally. No, I don't care about your leaning disorder. Just prop yourself the other way, this is important. Particularly if you wish to win one of three copies of the Document known hereafter as 'Starstruck' (or, to keep this from prying eyes, simply The Book).

This is about my Blog Tour. Here's a map.

Now, in order to advance here , firstly we need to make sure all positions here and here are secured. Are you following? Because there will be chocolate... So, to that end, firstly we have annexed the blog run by those squirrels at The Nut Press. This could be a tricky manoeuvre on account of the acorns, but we've managed to secure our position on Monday 18 July. This is particularly important to anyone wishing to win a copy of the said Book. For there will be clues implanted in all Blog Tour posts (in the form of CAPITALISED WORDS), which must be followed in order to capture...I mean, to win, yes, win, there will be no capturing, no tying to chairs and absolutely NO, and I repeat, NO Duck Tape... Look upon it as a sort of Enigma Device, dreamed up by someone with a serious cheese habit, veins running with liquid chocolate and after three bottles of Chateau Horse, all right.

Clues. Yes. There will be words. Words which must be collected, carefully excised from the script, decanted into matchboxes and gently preserved; fingers lovingly dwelling upon each and every syllable, until the final blog tour post, upon which date all these words may be once more revealed unto daylight, rearranged into an order that makes sense to yourself, dear reader, and the question thus posed answered. When you have found your military solution, then it must be mailed forthwith to the lovely people at Choc Lit, who will enter you to win one of the copies of the Secure Document, and then there's nothing else to do but sit back, invade any small countries of your choosing, and wait around your letterbox for a large plop.

If your letterbox looks like this then you are not expecting a book, you are expecting Blue Tits.

Right. So. Do we have our strategy straight? Blog tour, posts, capitalised words, anagram, answer, suspicious egg stains, funny smell, moist... yep, I think that's everything covered. So now it only remains for me to allow you access to the secret document that is the Blog Tour itinerary. Take care and cover your ears, for some of these are slightly explosive...

18 July The Nut Press (watch out for walnuts, those squirrels are demons)
25 July LoveRomancePassion (good for a quick snog)
01 August Dizzy C's Little Book Blog (who has given me a Birthday Honour..I'm so touched...)
08 August Katy Little Lady's blog (which has gone blue. No idea why. No reflection, I'm sure)
An interview with Novelicious on 11 August (that one's purple again. Odd...)
15 August DebsDayDreams (brought to you from a shed. Yep. Shed. But the biscuits are nice.)
22 August Lucie Wheeler's blog (she makes me laugh. Must take my reinforced pants)
29 August I breathe a huge sigh of relief (as do you all) and finish my blog tour at Choc Lit.

Now, places people please. I want you over here, pushing these model planes around on this board that I've painted to look just like Middle Earth, you can talk into these headphones using words like 'Alpha Bravo Charlie Tango' (no, I don't know what they mean either, but it's apparently essential), and you... well, looking at you I'm not sure what to do with you. You can be in charge of uniforms or something.

This is it, folks. This is what we're all fighting for... Now, be careful out there!

And remember what I said about the Duck Tape.

RNA Conference - the most fun you can have with your clothes

2011-07-11T13:50:00.000+01:00

Well. That was exciting, wasn't it? Or at least it was for those of us who were there, the rest of you will just have to use your imaginations... Never, in the field of socialisation, have so many surrendered their normally solitary lives for the greater good - when daily life is normally spent talking to the same few people (who already know that amusing story you tell about the milk bottle and the mouse) or to completely imaginary people (who rarely talk back, unless the medication needs updating), suddenly being released into a room full of new ears is heady stuff indeed! There are now nearly no members of the esteemed RNA who do not know the story of the milk bottle and the mouse, due to the many, many bottles of what I was assured was nearly non-alcoholic wine. Some of them may have heard it several times. At volume.

Anyway. I promised to give a photographic run down of our weekend and it started like this:

Newport railway station. Actually it started some eight hours before when I arose like the dead from my bed and drove to York to catch the train that ended up in Newport. But you really don't want to see pictures of that. Honestly. Imagine The Corpse of Dracula crossed with the Hair Bear Bunch, it was like that. So. Newport. And then...

... this happened. And it kept on happening. I blame Kate Johnson. Because it was all her fault.

Oh, there were other things too, wonderful talks, terrific food, fabulous frocks, and the rest of the Choc Lit girls.

Here we are, 'enjoying a joke' as they used to say about the debutantes in Country Life. Actually I think we might have been contemplating the joys of wine-yet-to-come, but we were happy about it, whatever it was.
In the picture are: Me (who needs no introduction, because half way through the 'this is Ja...' I'm usually bounding up to the introducee like a Labrador whose lead has come off and demanding to know what is their favourite kind of biscuit), the previously mentioned Kate Johnson, Christina Courtney, Sue Moorcroft,
Evonne Wareham, and Margaret James.

Also present, but not pictured, was Chris Stovell. She was definitely there, though. I mean, I know you can have wine-induced hallucinations, but surely not that vividly.

And then there was more of this -

Sometimes en masse, like this -

And then it all got a bit.... well...

And the next thing I knew, some kind people had bundled me up and rolled me down a hill, and when I managed to open my eyes, I saw

and then my house.

So, to all the lovely, lovely people at the RNA (some of whom are pictured here, including the delectable Talli Roland) - let's do it all again next year! (Only, maybe a bit less wine? Maybe just the ten bottles...?)

Disenbumulated author captured in monochrome!

2011-07-03T10:05:00.000+01:00

Lately I have had much cause to ponder the saying 'can't be arsed'.

Think about it. Dwell, if you will, on the many levels of meaning of this simple saying. Superficially it appears to mean that one (meaning me, in this instance) is unable to be fitted with nether regions, somewhat along the line of 'pin the tail on the donkey'. Yes, imagine me under hot pursuit, racing around a field, followed doggedly by a personage who is determined to re-enarsulate me; carrying, if you will, a complete set of buttocks in one hand and a small net, or possibly a tranquiliser dart, in the other. I am shrieking and waving my hands in the air (because this is my normal activity when chased, I am the campest runner-away you have ever seen, unless you have ever tried to capture Graham Norton using only a set of balloon animals and a large bag of Haribo) and shouting 'no, no! You cannot arse me!'

Approximately the sight you will see accelerating away from you...

However, in this instance, when I say I can't be arsed, I simply mean that I cannot be bothered. So, why do I not come right out and admit this? Why does telling the world that I'm not arsed feel so much more 'go-getting' than the lack-lustre 'pfffftt'? Hmmmm?

However. I have, and completely without bottom, managed to drag my carcass out to have its photograph taken. This involved much moaning and complaining, whining, whingeing and bribery, but eventually I got the photographer to stop and to point his camera at me. Now, I am not a natural photographic subject. I write books for a reason - it enables me to stay indoors, eat chocolate at will, Google all kinds of things under the heading of 'research' (and yes, honestly, one day I am going to write a book about all those things I've Googled - I'm just going to have to be careful with the title, that's all) and not appear in public. I try to avoid having my photograph taken, mostly because how I look when I'm on paper is not how I look from this side of my face , ie the inside. However. During this photographic session, certain images were captured which approximately matched the way that I think I look, although some of these were so soft focus that they did appear to be photographs of a piece of runny Brie, and now I can unveil these results!

Stare carefully, for tomorrow you may well be blind.

So, for services to photography above and beyond the call of duty, I recommend Phil at Fresh Photography for some kind of Sainthood. Look carefully upon this visage, for next week it may well be bothering you at Caerleon, for next week is RNA Conference 2011! I shall be roaming the Welsh countryside with complete disregard for my lack of backsidedness, grinning at passers-by!

You'll be able to recognise me, I'll be the only author there in black and white.

Henny Penny - not only is the sky falling in, but your release date has been put back five months.

2011-06-26T10:38:00.000+01:00

I have acquired a Hen Borstal.

This is a temporary state of affairs, these hens have been found guilty of nothing more than minor traffic offences, plus one count of aggravated assault being taken into account. They will be released into the community in due course, with admonishments to behave themselves and certainly not to do that bank job that they have been secretly planning in that hut of theirs, and until that time they are in secure accommodation in the middle of my lawn.

There are five of them. We chose five because there are five of us, and that means that, while neither group has superiority of numbers, we reckon we could probably take them, should there be an avian uprising, particularly since hen-response to surprise attack seems to be less organised and a lot noisier than ours. We haven't named them yet, they are just Prisoner One, Prisoner Two, Prisoner Three, etc, but these designations remain fluid as we can't tell them apart yet either. I tried putting them into little uniforms covered in prison arrows and with numbers on the breast pockets, but chickens don't wear clothes. Apparently. So they are just know as The Chickens, in a rather Godfather like way.

They are, most definitely, planning something. Look at the way they are all staring in different directions. They're going to demand one of those vaulting-horse things next, you mark my words.

Of course the dogs and cats regard this new establishment as the animal version of the Big Brother house and watch every new development with keen eyes, albeit with a lack of Geordie voice-over. There has been much communal pressing of noses to the house windows and extreme excitement every time one of the hens appears, or lies down, or scratches... it's like living with the paparazzi trying to get a shot of Kate and Wills.

I shall be sure to let you know as release date approaches. You may want to throw a net over your strawberries, and also be prepared to buy back all your valuables from the local car boot sale. I am trying to rehabilitate them, but there is just no helping some chickens...

Unconventional behaviour

2011-06-19T14:47:00.000+01:00

All right, I've done it. It wasn't easy, and I'm quite nervous about it, after all you hear some funny stories about these things - and then there's all the drinking and carousing and I don't even know how to carouse because I haven't got a reindeer and my roller skating ability is suspect, and...

Oh. Sorry. Did I not mention? I've just booked tickets to my first Unconvention. This is run by Fortean Times and it's a collection of the weird and the wonderful (which is me), mad stuff and peculiarities (still me, I'm afraid) and a lot of intelligent discussion about the esoteric and inexplicable (definitely me).

Like this, but with 2011 on it instead of 2010. Unless it's being run in a time warp, which wouldn't surprise me.

So, I hear you ask, in your cute, yet shrill voices, what has any of this to do with writing and books and stuff? Well, I shall tell you, if you let me get a word in edgeways... it is research. Yes, indeedy. Far be it from me to attend such a gathering purely for my own interest, no. We writers (or should that be wee writers, for I am not very tall...) collect experiences like we collect...um... what are those things called that crawl all over you? Children? Lice? No, writers collect experiences like picnics collect ants. I am collecting convention experiences for my novel Starstruck, which comes out in September. And Uncon is in November.

For, in the spirit of weird and intrigue, I am conducting retro-research. 'Aha!' I shall be able to say, for there will be no-one there to stop me, 'Aha! This is precisely how it happened in my book (Starstruck, £7.99 from all good bookshops)!' I may have to force some of these occasions, because Starstruck is set in Nevada and Uncon is set in Camden and there are likely to be very few other similarities between them, but I am prepared for this. In fact, to this end, I shall be taking a pink convertible cadillac, some Valium, two bottles of Jack Daniels and a cylinder of oxy-acetyline gas with me. 'Aha! An explosion! This is precisely how it happened in my book (.....)'

Or maybe not...

It has just been pointed out to me that my voyage of discovery to Uncon is actually fact verification. But I prefer the term 'retro-research'. Sounds more 'sciencey'. So, if anyone fancies a couple of days of weirdness and the highly strange...e mail me your address and I shall come and stay with you for the weekend. That should put you off.

Not-very-near death experiences

2011-06-12T11:41:00.000+01:00

Last night I needed company. No, this isn't going to be a series of salacious confessions (for that you have to read my other blog, the details of which are known to only a few special people. What, you don't know about it? Well, sorry....) so I went to bed with the radio on. This is a habit only recently acquired, previously the radio to me was a series of loud notes and a Chris Moyles jingle, and that was all. But, nowadays, my station of companionship is Radio 4. There's something very soothing about John Humphries telling me all about the state of the National Health service, I don't even need to listen to the words, I'm just tuned in for the gentle wash-cloth of the accent, the bed-bath of consistency, the warm towel of intellectualism.

This man is the equivalent of being fed nursery puddings whilst lying under a snuggie blanket.

But. Last night I went to bed very late, for 'twas after midnight. And I was subjected to the strangeness which is the World Service. Not that it was very strange really, because I went to sleep to the news, woke up occasionally to more news and, so far as I could tell, the World Service consists totally of news. Which is fine, I had it on for the company, not for the 'being stroked by velvet' things... But then I woke up in the morning, having forgotten that I'd left the radio on.

I opened my eyes to bright light and a gentle chanting. Then a choir started singing. "Bloody hell," thinks I, for it came as a shock and I don't usually use profanities such as these, "bloody hell, I've died in the night!" There followed a brief, but illuminating service, at which I was slightly shocked not to have my good qualities praised, nor any audible outpourings of grief. I was just pondering whether or not I should move towards the light, which was quite realistic, down to the background sound of starlings fighting on the guttering and a small motorbike starting up, when I gradually came to to realise that I was listening to the Morning Service, and had not, in fact, died. I didn't know whether to be grateful or feel really really stupid, but since no-one else was there, I don't suppose it mattered.

So I settled for moving towards the kitchen instead. It might not bring me eternal peace and happiness, but it did bring me toast and tea. Which, sometimes, is good enough, quite frankly.

It was this or the salvation of my soul. I think I might have made the right decision....

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Zumba, and you do it behind protective screens in a full body suit.

2011-06-05T09:51:00.000+01:00

Now everyone, try not to fall over with shock but...I have signed myself up to a course of Zumba! Of course I did this on the understanding that everyone should learn a foreign language, and by the time I found out that it's actually a form of dance/exercise, it was too late. I wondered why the teacher looked at me oddly, she asked if I thought I'd find Zumba difficult and I replied 'I already speak French and German'.

I haven't actually done any zumba-ing yet, of course. Possibly after the first two lessons I may be rendered unable to type due to sprained knuckle joints - but, as yet I am blase and full of hope that doing the zumba (I have still to attain the correct terminology - is it a verb? Do I zumba, or do I do zumba? Does it have a past participle? Do I need a past participle to be able to do it? I've got double-jointed elbows if that's any use...)

I understand that I get to look like this after a fortnight, or my money back. Or she might have been pointing at the picture of the walrus on the other noticeboard, I wasn't really paying attention.

And here I find my true dilemma - what does one wear to Zumba? In the picture they're all wearing little vesty-top things, well, I can tell you here and now, they're not getting me in one of those, not if I'm going to be ...doing whatever it is one does when one zumbas. And particularly not if there are going to be other people present - I can just picture the scene; there I am strutting my funky thing, when the whole class comes to a standstill muttering 'is the human body supposed to move like that?' whilst watching my torso perform its own version of a Mexican Wave. No. I shall search out shops which sell Zumba-Armour, chin to groin protection wear in some kind of non-mobile fabric. Possibly some kind of plastic body-cast. They'll thank me for it in the end.

And then the lower half. Pert as my bottom might be (and it is, trust me on that), it still has the capability to look like a waterbed being delivered if forced to move at more than natural speed. Perhaps the Zumba-Armour (I'm still not one hundred per cent convinced that zumba isn't going to turn out to be some kind of martial art) could have some kind of extension put on round the back? Like an Everest conservatory for the bum? Purely for the protection of the other zumbaists (zumba-istas? Zumba-doers?), because in those tiny trousers the girls are wearing in the picture I would appear to be one constant column of movement, and I fear for the flooring...

There are other concerns too. Like my congenital inability to tell my left from my right, my innate clumsiness, the fact that my hair leads an independant life and only makes occasional contact with my scalp and my elbows, which are like two pre-sharpened pencil points. Perhaps I will be doomed to zumba solo, whilst my instructor hides behind protective screens, watching me on a video monitor and shouting instructions through a radio-mike. I think a lead apron might help too.

Either my instructor wears this or I do. Not sure which. Although I think I look fabulous in silver... I don't know about the shoes though.

So I shall keep you posted. Although it may be from a hospital bed, imbibing liquids only. Or it may be from a sea-lion colony on the Falkland Islands...

Chirpy little birds of doom (my hatred thereof)

2011-05-31T06:07:00.000+01:00

Well. It's (hang on, let me check) 5.39 a.m. Yes, a mere twenty to six in the morning, the skies have barely pushed back the duvet of night, and already the alarm clock of birdy tweeting is in the air.

It started (I am in the nearly unique position to tell you), with the first twit at twenty past four. Twenty past four! What are they doing out there that is so important that they have to tell the world about it at twenty past four! Even I wait until a reasonable hour to go on and on about Doctor Who... Anyhow, whatever it was they were doing it big time by half past four. There I lay with the duvet pulled up to my forehead (not that I listen through my forehead, you understand, I was just trying to pretend it was still the middle of the night, mmm...dark, warm...smelling slightly of onions...) when outside in the hedge it sounded as though the bird equivalent of Britain's Got Talent was going through the audition phase.

Yes, this is the girl whose been told by her whole family that she sings just like Adele.

I tried to poke the duvet into my ears to prevent the noise-leakage, but my ears aren't big enough. I wrapped my head in the pillows but the need to breathe drove me out again, and still, outside the window it's all 'lalalalallala - look how feathery and happy we are....I just ate a worm, you know...did you?...oooh,yes, big, fat, juicy one it was...'; full on avian water-cooler gossip being conducted outside my window. I considered throwing something at them (chiefly I considered throwing a cat, having one conveniently to hand), but reasoned that even the largest feline-impact ( and he's a pretty large cat) would only take out a very few of the culprits. Mostly by squashing, since he's not one for chasing, although he does try to convince me that He Is Hunter by leaving conspicuous piles of feathers around the place and sitting next to them with a complacent smile. I think he buys them in.

So. There I lie while something that sounds like a snoring machine is giving it its all somewhere round the window ledge. Whatever bird it is that has a song that sounds like 'tweeeet...tweettweettweet....tweeeet...tweettweettweeet' is the first on my list for extinction when I'm put in charge of the next Ice Age, I can tell you that. Then there's something that sounds way too perky and over-excited, like a twelve year old girl let loose in Boots the Chemist's make up department with a twenty pound note. That one particularly gets up my nose. Then we have the standard-level 'chirp chirp' (those ones are small and brown, like little fluffy lumps of pooh, I've seen them at their chirpy chirpy thing, perched on the fence - if big fat cat ever builds a ladder they are in such trouble...). None of it too offensive, taken singly, in reasonable doses at a civilised time in the morning. But when you're lying there in that warm, dozy half-sleep state wondering whether you can turn over and catch a few more hours, smelling the night-onions wafting up and knowing that no-one can see your morning-hair, then the last thing you need to hear is that first, ominous, twit.

Bits and bobs and interesting things (mostly about me, but this IS my blog...)

2011-05-23T14:01:00.000+01:00

Right. First things firstly. My short story 'Just like a cat' is printed in this month's copy of 'Your Cat' magazine. You should dash out and buy it immediately, you can't miss it, it has a picture of a cat on the front. And inside. Lots of pictures of cats, and my story. And other things too, of course, all cat-related, plus a really lovely picture of me and my cat. I tried to send them a picture of me with an elephant, but apparently Your Cat is a bit of a giveaway, cats are de rigueur. So there.

Next up. I have been awarded a Versatile Blogger Award by the lovely and fragrant Janice Horton. It looks like this -

Now, apparently this means I have to tell you seven things you don't already know about me. And, given the near-constant stream of drivel that pours out of my mouth at all hours of the day and night, there surely can't be many things left to tell you. So I shall rake around and try to come up with some little titbits of information that may surprise, delight and enthrall you. Hmmm. Let me see. I don't suppose telling you about my Cat story counts, does it? No? Bugger.
Oh, hang on, I've got one.

1. I can eat Marshmallows. I don't just mean physically, anyone with a mouth and the ability to breathe whilst attempting to swallow something the size of a small bolster can do this, I can eat Marshmallows by the packetful, and not suffer any toxic sugar reactions at all. I don't even feel slightly sick. Nope. Can't do Mars Bars, yuk, but Marshmallows - no probs.

Hmmm. Something else. Interesting and personal. Oooh. Here's one.

2. I cannot stand lupins. They are creepy. Hollyhocks and delphiniums are nearly as bad, but not quite as terrifying as lupins.

Oh, come on, don't tell me they don't make you shudder, just a little...

3. I once raised a Pipistrelle bat by keeping it down my bra. It didn't want to be raised there, it was hoping for fresh air, open spaces and the ability for a little recreational old-lady-scaring, but it didn't have a say in the matter. Bats can't talk.

4. (I'm getting into this now.) I have Psychic Navigational Abilities. This means I don't need a map, or GPS, I just point myself towards the end of my route and travel there without getting lost. All right, sometimes it takes me a few days to actually arrive, and I'm often a little damper than I like when I get there, and mountains can be quite hard to get over when you're driving Peter Sallis, but nevertheless, I still get to my intended destination.

5. I am the fourth BeeGee. Yep. Can't sing, can't dance (that's why they keep me hidden), but I do look fantastic in very tight white trousers, and I can do the squeaky voice like no-one's business. Ah ah ah ah, stayin' alive. Believe me now?

6. I've got a story in this month's Your Cat magazine. Oh. I've done that one, have I? Ummm. Sssssshh, thinking..... I've never been to Swindon. There, how's that? I am going to Swindon, but bearing in mind that I shall be travelling using Psychic Navigational techniques perfected by myself over years of training, I may be able to continue in my inadvertant non-visitation of Swindon for some time. I'm sure there are many other places, equally lovely and friendly, that I haven't been to either, but for now Swindon will have to do.

I honestly don't think I'm missing much, by the looks of it.

7. I find potatoes very boring. Urgh, totally dull, as a foodstuff and I have it on good authority that they make rubbish stand-up comedians too. Would you want to be stuck at a party with nothing but a King Edward's for company? Well, there you go then, I rest my case... Rice and pasta are pretty nearly as bad, but potatoes really take the biscuit in the bland mouth fluff department. Sorry.

Yeah. What you see is what you get. Yawn.

Now I understand that I must pass this award on to seven other bloggers of my immediate acquaintance. So, here goes...

Of course, all of these people hate me...

Kate Johnson
Frank Tuttle
Elizabeth Currie
Lucie Wheeler
Debs Carr
Stephanie Cage
Fanciful Alice

Best of luck, chaps....

Writing. Almost like a real job, except no one sees you doing it...

2011-05-15T16:40:00.001+01:00

SCENE - an author's office.

The author himself is typing away. 'Bond entered the room. The lovely young girl was astride the...'

"Ian! Eeeeeeeyyyyuuuuunnnn!"

Wearily the author goes to the door and calls down the stairs to his lady wife. "Yes, dear?"

"I'm off then. Don't forget to put the bins out."

"No, dear."

"Oh, and this carpet could do with the hoover run over it."

"Yes, dear." He goes back to his typewriter, pauses a moment, then begins typing. "...astride the chair, hands cuffed behind her..."

"Eeeeeeeeyyyyunnnn!"

This time he doesn't go to the door. He merely calls out. "Yes, dear?"

"Could you put the oven on at twelve? The Pratchetts are coming for dinner and I thought we'd have duck."

"Yes, dear."

"Oh, and don't forget the bins, will you? There's plastic bottles all over the conservatory."

"No, dear."

The door closes and there is a pause of some seconds. Long enough for him to turn his chair back to his desk.

There is a knock at the front door.

"Morning, Mr Fleming! Lovely day. Would you mind taking in this parcel for Number Eleven? Think they've popped out."

"I suppose so."

Ian places the parcel on the table in the hall, signs for it, and closes the front door. Wearily he treads his way back up the stairs and settles himself at his desk. 'cuffed behind her. Doctor X had his rifle trained on her..'

The telephone rings.

"Mr Fleming? Could you come and pick up Alicia, please? She says she feels sick and her teacher says she's looking very peaky."

A sigh. "I'll be there in ten minutes."

The front door bangs. "Dad! Daaaaad!"

"Yes, Simon? I thought you were at Henry's all day."

"Yeah. Was. Came back to pick up me trainers. Can you run us over to Sebastian's? We're at band practice tonight and his dad says we can use the garage."

"Just a minute. I have to pick up your sister first."

"Ohhhh, daaaaaad!"

There is another knock at the front door. "Good morning! Can you spare us five minutes? We're doing a survey on the different types of pipecleaner that people use..."

"Dad!"

"Sorry, I'm a little bit busy."

"DAD! It's school on the phone, Alicia's been sick all over the infants again, can you bring a change of clothes for her?"

"Just a minute."

Ian Fleming climbs the stairs and enters his office. He stares at his typewriter for a moment, before pulling the half-used sheet of paper off the platen and throwing it into the bin. He replaces it with a clean sheet and starts to type.

'See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. See the dog run.'

And the motto of this story is - JUST BECAUSE WE'RE AT HOME WRITING, DOES NOT MEAN WE'RE AT HOME!

Sigh. I bet Terry Pratchett doesn't have to put up with it. Plus, in other news, I have been awarded a 'Versatile Blogger Award' which means I have to tell you things about me that you don't already know. That is for next week.... so you might want to have a notepad beside you.

Lost in a good book?

2011-05-08T15:24:00.001+01:00

Bear with me. In a few weeks I'm off to the Fforde Fiesta! No, not dear Peter Sallis (who continues to go very well, thank you for asking, and if that sentence baffles you then where were you last week?), but the Jasper Fforde Convention, which will be held in the environs of Swindon. I don't know why Swindon has environs.* I'm not even sure what they are - aren't they those arrow shaped things that you get on the road? Anyway, I'm going there, because I llluuuuurve, in a totally perverted and entirely unfamilyfriendly way, Jasper's 'Thursday Next' books. And if you don't know what they are...well, I'm sorry, there's no hope for you.

This is one. Yes, there are mammoths in it. And dodos. Try to keep up...

And one of the major points in these books is - interbook travel. Imagine! If you could visit a book, talk to its supporting cast, look around the locations..well, I suppose we are going to get to look around Swindon, hence the whole environs thing, but imagine being able to visit Manderley? Or actually poke around inside some of the cupboards in Northanger Abbey?

So today, for I am editing and shouldn't even be here... I am going to ask the question "which book would you most like to visit, and why?" Because, quite frankly, it's about time we had a bit of class on this blog, and that I made you think about things entirely unrelated to rubber underwear, Peter Sallis and cake. Oh, all right, you can think about cake for a bit, but you are absolutely FORBIDDEN from thinking about rubber underwear. Is that clear?

So. If I were at liberty to visit any book, which would I choose to wander through, criticising the curtains and annoying the dog? Hmmm. I've always fancied popping round to Wuthering Heights and giving them a piece of my mind, but fear that I'd leave the characters rather confused and liable to randomly taking up playing the tuba or talking about verruca remedies. Or I could run barefoot through the entire collection of M R James ghost stories, shouting "It's behind you!", and causing the pages of Canon Alberic's Scrapbook to flap loose in the wind of my passing.

This would be a whole lot less atmospheric with me in it. Wearing a teacosy and a crotcheted minidress and singing 'Who Let the Dogs Out' at the top of my voice. Or I might surface in Pride and Prejudice, crayoning all over Mr Darcy. Librarians everywhere would be nervous wrecks.

So, I ask you this, before I am dragged back into the editing process by my fingernails.... which book would you visit? And how much damage do you think you could do before they came after you?

* Apparently I am thinking of chevrons.

Fiesta Resistance, or how I came to own a car that looks like Peter Sallis.

2011-05-01T19:39:00.000+01:00

I've never wanted a Ford. Well, apart from that time I was crossing the river and my boots fell off and one of them floated downstream and I had to walk home in my socks, I have to admit that a ford would have been damned useful on that occasion. Or a bridge, a bridge would have been better, because I'm not sure that a small line of raised concrete would have been much use to me, other than to perforate my socks as I attempted to wade with dignity from the water, while my boots made sad little 'ploppy' noises as they submerged. And there is little sadder than the sight of a rapidly sinking wellington when you're three miles from home and it's chilly underfoot.

If the boots had looked like this then I would have dived in after them, careless of my own safety. But they didn't. Which is why I let them go. Better them than me. Although, if they'd looked like this I would have gone down with them.

Where was I? Oh, yes. I've had to buy a new car. There is a long and inevitably boring story behind why I need another car, suffice it to say that our family needs three cars. Oh. Well, I suppose the story isn't really that long then. So, last week I went out on the hunt for a car. Bear it in mind that I know about as much about cars as I do about orthopaedic surgery or lawn management. And also try to keep in mind that, since I haven't won the lottery yet (despite Mystic Meg's perpetual pronouncements that 'Today is a Lucky Day',one of which I even received on the Day of the Boot Submergence) my car buying budget was on the infinitessimal side of pathetic. And the only car I could find was an N reg Ford Fiesta.

I didn't want a Ford. I mean, ideally I'd like a Bugatti. Well, no, what I'd really like is a Lamborghini or a Maserati, but I can't reliably spell those on any forms I'd have to fill in, and besides, any of those Italian jobs just make me think of Jeremy Clarkson, because they are the sort of cars he's always showing off in, so, in an attempt to ward off having to think of Jeremy Clarkson, I decided to go for the Ford.

And now, for some bizarre reason, I think of Peter Sallis. Peter Sallis, him from Last of the Summer Wine, the one who isn't dead. The bloke who does the voice for Wallis and Grommit. Yes. Him. As far as I know, he doesn't have anything to do with Ford Fiestas, apart from just maybe having owned one at some stage in his life, but maybe not even that. I think it's something about the front end, it has this kind of 'nose' which reminds me of Peter Sallis's.

This is him. Go on, take a good look.

Tell me you can't see the resemblance. I won't believe you, you know.

Bonkers Blog Birthday Bash.

2011-04-24T15:39:00.000+01:00

I am going to be an audio book. Well, not me, personally, because they'd never squeeze me into the CD cases and I am far too pretty to be reduced to an Mp3 file, and my nose would stick out and everyone would be all embarrassed when they came to try to close the thing down with bits of me poking all over the place. No. Specifically my books are going to be audio books. All three books. And no, I have no idea who will be reading them, hopefully it won't be someone with a lisp, there's an awful lot of 'ssss' in my books, or someone who persists in reading in a dodgy Lithuanian accent or (and please take notes here) no-one who pronounces the word 'scone' as 'scon'. I'm not even sure if there are any scones in any of the books, but it's the principle of the thing.

Repeat after me 'this is not a scon.'

I'd also like readers who don't eat crisps during the recording (it holds up a romantic scene something chronic if someone has to break off to search their bag of Sensations Thai Red Chili flavour for a really big one) and no-one needs their suspensful prose to be punctuated by the sound of Walkers Cheese and Onion belches. Or anyone who smells of pork scratchings, which doesn't affect their reading at all but makes me uneasy.

Anyway. My wants are small and simple (all right, shut up laughing now. My wants are small and simple, it was only that one time with the diamonds and the mansion, and the whole racehorse thing is so yesterday), and these are they. So any audio recorders reading this, please take note, because I won't be responsible for my actions if the whole 'scone' thing raises its head, all right?

Now, to other news. This blog, quite unremarked by local TV, news and any passing skywriting planes, has passed its first birthday! Yes, now it's got teeth and it can walk and say simple sentences! And, I am also pleased to report, the number of kind people who pass through and make nice remarks is growing by the day. Yes, this blog is quite the place to be seen now, as long as you don't mind being seen in just your underwear or running frivolously through a large meadow with daisies in your hair and a kind of blissfully vacant look in your eyes. BEHIND THE KEYBOARD is an up and coming place. Or at least, this blog is. Being behind the keyboard usually brings me out in anxious hives, and my knees sweat.

So. Yes. Happy Birthday to this Blog. You'll have to imagine the sad little squeaker sound and the pathetic noise of a single balloon deflating because sound effects are expensive. You will also have to imagine the taste of birthday cake, and the tortured squeals of anyone who tried to slip a scon past me.

Nyer-nyer ner ner ner...

2011-04-17T12:52:00.001+01:00

Well, you can't say I didn't tell you. Go on, try, because I think you'll find that your tongue cleaves unto the roof of your mouth like...you know that thing where you try to stuff as many marshmallows into your mouth as you can, and then say 'Chubby Bunnies', and you end up 'Floffffing' and have to go and spit into the nearest potted plant? Oh come on, we all went to those parties, didn't we? Anyway. Like that.

For it was many moons ago, and actually, when you consider that there's a moon every day (or night, as it were), it was exactly the same number of moons ago as it was days. Anyway. Have I lost any of you yet? If anyone needs a break to go to the toilet, or to enable them to get a good headstart, then do go now. I'll wait. I have your names....

So. A long while ago (it will have been about 2007) I sold my first novel to Samhain in the States. It was called Reversing Over Liberace. As indeed it still is. It was published as an e-book, so, prior to its publication, I attempted to interest the local populace in e-books in general. Well, specifically mine, but you know what I mean. Ah, those heady days of 2007! When the Royal Wedding was but a misty-eyed dream for the souvenir manufacturers and when the word 'Kindle' meant to set fire to something, which was a mistake and anyway nothing was ever proven and that petrol was planted on me and I never actually intended to cause criminal damage..ahem. And when, try as I might, persuading people to buy books to download and read on their computer screens was like trying to sell twelve tonnes of slightly-gone-off Gorgonzola to a set of cheese-intolerants.

Of course, when the book came out in paperback it was a different story, as though people needed to be able to handle the book for it to be real. Which is strange, I've never handled David Tennant, yet I firmly believe him to be a real person, even though I have my doubts about his hair. But still I championed the e-book, despite all those slightly curled noses and the cries of 'read on a screen?' which you have to imagine to have been intoned in Lady Bracknellesque fashion.

And now look at us. Well, not at me, obviously, because I am shy and have a tendency to frizzy hair in the mornings and anyway I'm wearing my horrible cardigan, but look at people in general. Go on. I'll wait.

There. I bet that somewhere within your circle, unless your circle is very small, or you're on retreat at a monastery in rural Cork with no walls and where you have to sleep on a donkey, someone will have a Kindle. Even I have a Kindle, and you all know what I'm like with electrical objects.

Mine looks a bit like this. Only without the weird slug-balancing dude. We're all at it. Reading e-books. Just like I predicted FOUR YEARS AGO. So, just remember that, when I'm trying to get you to put your life-savings onto a horse called Jam Factory in the 4.30 from Plumpton. I know what I'm talking about.

Discuss.

This year I might not get ryegrass staggers, if I'm lucky and if I drink all my haddock cocktail.

2011-04-10T17:09:00.000+01:00

I love Pimms. It's all right, it's a purely legal and not at all indecent form of love (not, in other words, the same emotion I feel when confronted with, say, Tony Robinson). There's something so essentially Summery about drinking strong liquor laced only with lemonade. I know, traditionally, one drinks it with cucumber and strawberries but we didn't have any in the fridge, so I thought I'd experiment with some alternative additives...Anyone else for a haddock, cheese and Pimms cocktail? . Apparently you're also supposed to have mint in it, but, let's face it, if my fridge doesn't have cucumber then it's not going to have mint, is it? Mint sauce is nearly as good though. For reference.

I always know that summer has truly arrived when the local Co-Op starts stocking Pimms, just as I know that the new school year has started by the way they fill the shelves with Christmas puddings, and that Christmas is truly on the way when the Easter Eggs hit the stockroom.

You'll have to imagine the haddock. I can't find a picture of a Pimms-and-haddock cocktail.

So, here I sit, in my garden surrounded by hopeful cats, sipping at my fish-and-fruit cup and gazing around me at those tell-tale signs that summer has arrived - the annual underwear-wash hanging (somewhat stiffly) from the line, the phallic rhubarb sprouts protruding through the soil like underground flashers, and the annual Lawnmower wars breaking out elsewhere in the village. And, since we are not going on summer holidays this year but are, instead, going to crouch behind the sofa for a fortnight, we need all the sunshine we can get. Last year was so unsunny that I actually caught several sheep-diseases and the vet was up all night with me.

So I shall release you, my dears, into the sunshine where you may skip and play like unto young gazelle. But don't knock over the Pimms, I'm not made of Stilton...

...and then there was a big bang and the end fell off.

2011-04-03T14:07:00.000+01:00

I should never be allowed within a mile of technology. I realise this would prove restrictive, eg, this blog would have to be delivered via me shouting individually through your letterboxes which would probably curtail my social life quite severely and also be expensive. But it would mean that my chances of pressing the wrong button and deleting the whole post would be less. Although I suppose I could commit the technology-free equivalent, of shouting through the wrong person's letterbox, thus ensuring that my words of wisdomish never actually reached your ears...

And why, I hear you cry, for your voices are loud and, truth be told, really rather penentrating particularly this early in the day when I had half a bottle of wine the night before, so if you could keep it down I would be very grateful? I shall tell you. Lean close, my dears, for this is a tale that begins one dark and stormy night...

Pretty much like this, only a bit more gothic... For I found myself in the streets of York, wandering carelessly over the cobbles like a windblown McDonalds wrapper only a bit less greasy. And, it goes without saying, without a giant yellow M all over me. Anyway. I was inexplicably drawn to the doors of Waterstones bookshop, pulled as though by a giant, invisible elastic band...one of those thick ones, not those stupid thin ones that snap and ping back to hit you on the cheek leaving a little red mark that you spend the day explaining away... Propelled by same elastic force, and also just a little bit by my own legs, I was flung through the doors and into the comfortable and luxurious inside! Yes! I will pause here for you to draw breath, suck your teeth and shake your head at the folly of my being allowed out of doors unattended by my usual care-force.

This is how I picture you right now...

So, I wend..err..wended...went my way inside and towards the back of the shop, where bookshelves are arraigned. The books upon them are not just wiggled into place higgledy-piggeldy you know! They are alphabeticised! And lo, I found myself crouched, sheltering from the storm which raged outside (see above) right next to the 'L''s. And, just as a particularly arcane and indeed eldritch crash of thunder boomed out overhead, my eyes fell upon ... MY OWN BOOK! Yes, well may ye gather your skirts around you and draw closer to the fire, for I had foreseen the coming of the shelving! And, and this is the important bit that relates back to the beginning of this post, I attempted to photograph, for posterity, this positioning of both cover and words in such form that the passing public may be tempted to peruse, nay, purchase, said book.

I took three shots of my own thumb, two of my own face (the camera was on a phone and facing the wrong way, but it's not my phone and, quite frankly, I think it's a bloody miracle that I managed not to call everyone in the address book) and finally.... a shot of Please Don't Stop the Music, resting amid other novels of its ilk.

But I can't work out how to get it a) off the phone and b) onto this blog. So you'll just have to believe me.

This is what it looked like, though. Only there were more of them. And bigger. And other books too.

Festivals - very little mud and non-portable toilets. They screw them to the floor, you know.

2011-03-27T15:53:00.000+01:00

I am returned from the York Festival of Writing, where I helped with some workshops. Well, I say helped, mostly I was in the background making faces and shuffling papers whilst trying to look official. If anyone reading my words here has never been to a Writing Conference/Convention/Festival/Booze-up, then I can thoroughly recommend the experience.

Kate Allan and I (but for my input see above) held a Character master-class, where my clothes were lightly insulted, a bell went missing and many copies of Hello were sacrificed for the cause. To find out why, then you'll have to sign up for the next one..

All my woollens come pre-bobbled. It saves time.

The Choc Lit girls (well, Lyn and Sue and Pia and I) did a bit of a talk about Choc Lit, although we didn't actually have any chocolate to give out, which was a shame since (see a previous blog) I am still in possession of a Christmas tin of Quality Street and those damned Ferreroroeoroer Rochers, so I could have helped out more than I did. It turned out that Lyn had one smallish bar of chocolate, and we offered to let the assembled audience watch us eat it, but they declined. Tony got his name check, in case you were wondering.

My Coming Soon Book.You know, in case you'd forgotten, or something.

Julie Cohen and I then gave a talk on Writing Romantic Comedy. Well, Julie did. I made jokes about Whooopee cushions, threatened to take off my clothes and generally carried on like a bit of a loon while Julie (bless her) carried the show. She was still smiling by the end, and I still had all my clothes on, but it wasn't for want of trying. I thoroughly enjoyed myself during this one (which is usually a bad sign) and hope that someone lets me do it again, or at least lets me caper in the background while Julie talks. Julie also did Her Joke, but I shall never speak of this again. We also threatened to fight over sex, or at least funny sex, but were pulled apart at the last minute by kind people.

This is Julie's latest. It's lovely. She's lovely too... sigh.

Of course, it wasn't all about me, however much I wish this were the case, there were many other workshops and mini-courses going on, lots of people being enlightened and agents looking hunted, and some buns. Once I worked out how the Kit Kat machine operated there were also bits of biscuit everywhere, I made a Great Spanx Discovery, people were nice to me and I re-met some old friends, one of whom was forced to take part in the Flannel Relay, and if all this sounds completely bizarre....well, I guess you had to be there.

Next year, you will, won't you? I'll keep my clothes on...

PS, the Spanx Discovery I made was that they had a split crotch. Not, presumably, for sexual purposes because, after all, who's going to attempt sex when they are wearing knee to ribcage lycra?

Oh. Okay. Some people might. But not me. It would be like having sex inside an inner tube.

Jane 'ThreeBooks' Lovering welcomes a fourth to the fold. And fraternizes fondly with aforementioned fiction.

2011-03-18T14:51:00.000Z

Well, I promised you a peek. Not a peak, sadly, I may be able to perform witty little miracles but I cannot drag a mountain or even a small hillock within reach.

And here it is: (You will need to perform your own 'Taaa daaaa' fanfare arrangement here, I'm cutting back)

And...look, this is it turned sideways!

I would include a picture of it lying down, but that wouldn't really show you very much, would it? Look at it. I mean, just look. Shiny. Stars. A big, pink car...

The story? Oh yes, that's in there too, a woman with no memories meets a man who has too many... In a motel in ...Nevada. Bother. Wish I'd made it Memphis now, for the full alliterative effect. Still, too late now.

Enjoy! (although, don't stroke it. That's unnatural. APPARENTLY.)

NOTICE - The creator of this blog is temporarily busy. Until her return, here is some gubbins. Oh, and picture of a box of chocolate, because she has no imagination.

2011-03-13T15:30:00.000Z

Have I told you my theory about 'Emergency Chocolate'?

I've still got several boxes left from Christmas, and the reason I haven't eaten them is that I have several boxes left. Does this sound dangerously recursive? If so, it's because you don't subscribe to the Emergency Chocolate theory. Which goes: I have some chocolate. Therefore, any time I feel like eating chocolate, I can help myself. Of course, the cussedness of my nature means that I will now only want to eat other things, like Pringles (why is there no Marmite flavour of Pringles yet? Hmmm?) or jelly or fudge. Things, please note, that I DO NOT have in the house.

If my house was devoid of chocolate of any kind, I would want to eat chocolate. It's a simple theory and one which works to the extent that I have an enormous box of Ferrerrrerreerrrro Rocher which I was given for Christmas on top of my wardrobe, and it is untouched. Yep, those annoying little bits of sellotape which you don't notice until you are scrabbling at the lid in the middle of the night, with the eager desperation of an addict, haven't even been broached. Every little golden globe is still there, in its proper place.

Are you jealous yet? Well, ARE YOU? They're calling your name...

And, in other news, I'm still deep in the depths of sticky rewrites for my next book. It's called Starstruck, it's set in the Nevada Desert and I'm busy tiddling around with it to get it shipshape for publication this autumn. Hopefully I will soon have a glorious cover to reveal to you, but not yet, my proud beauties. Hold your eagerness in check...here, have a Ferrero Rocher while you wait...

And now, please excuse the brevity of my wit, but I must head back to those natty little rewrites. Next week you will get your money's worth, if I am any judge.

The growth of Legs and Expectations. Oh, and Bert Fegg.

2011-03-06T18:14:00.000Z

My wonderful husband and I (not that I have any other husbands, you understand, I'm not saying that this is my 'wonderful' husband as opposed to my 'sulky' husband or my 'high-achieving' husband, I'm merely saying that the one I have is wonderful) took the dogs out for a walk today. That, in itself, isn't blogworthy. I mean we take the dogs out every day, three times a day, well we have to. They give such dirty looks if you miss a walk, and then they start coming up the stairs in deputations and sitting outside the bedroom door.

The eyes follow you around the room. And, after a while, so do the paws. So, we took them somewhere I used to take the kids, years ago when they were small. A local Roman camp, where I provided impromptu history lessons and it was more like an episode of Outnumbered than anything else. We used to take picnics and spend the whole day there, in the days when the kids thought a stick was a high-tech plaything, and they could spend three hours jumping on and off a bridge.

Walking the dogs took 40 minutes. 40 minutes to cover an area of ground it used to take all day to walk. Of course, we didn't have to stop for a pee every two minutes (although my time is coming, I can feel it) or for toddler-sized legs to climb every incline of over 1/3 gradient just to shout 'I'm the King of the Castle!' only to get shoved off by an older sibling. And we weren't even walking that fast....

In fact, we did walk up there with the kids on Christmas Day. There was four feet of snow lying, and even then it only took us an hour to go round. And I started to think. In the old days, when I had five small children, they were quite content to spend their time pushing each other off high ledges and poking sticks into the ground, and a walk of two miles took all day. Now they can do two miles in an hour (although we did have to have a 'pushing off high ledge' break half way round, honestly it's a wonder they've survived - well, that and my cooking) but poking things with sticks is no longer a viable activity. No, an activity is only entertaining these days if it comes with five headline bands, two roller coasters and a private swimming pool.

And the conclusion I came to? As their legs grow, so do their expectations.

Right, that's enough philosophy. Now to the serious point of my blog. The question has been raised (and I'm not allowed to say by whom, suffice it to say that he's already been mentioned in this blog and the dog isn't that clever), that in a series of photographs taken by that same someone, I bear a startling resemblence to a cartoon character from his youth.

I looked at the aforementioned pictures, and he might have a point. Judge for yourselves...

This, just to be clear is ME.

And this is Bert Fegg. Apparently, we could be twins. Apart from the fact that he's a drawing and I'm not.

And now I'd like you all to vote. Not on whether we're alike, but on a suitable punishment for the person who suggested the likeness....

The Writers' League for Anti-Procrastin... hang on, just need to clean the bath...

2011-02-27T13:09:00.001Z

Before I get carried away...go and listen to my dulcet tones as I am interviewed by Morgen Bailey! Yes, a chance to hear my lovely voice in Real Life, as I spread words of wisdom...well, it's more chat really, but you might pick up something useful. Go to the Google's Feedburner and my interview is listed there right at the bottom. Go. I'll wait here for you. Honestly, you won't miss anything, I'll just hum and wander about and write my name in the dust til you get back....

There.

Now, this may come as a bit of a shock, but I have discovered procrastination. It's an evil little thing that makes you stop wanting to do the fun stuff, like writing, and instead brings a deep desire to hoover the stairs, scrub the oven or leave blatant and obvious comments on the statuses of people you have never met on Facebook.

You all know me. You know that I regard housework to be the Invention of the Devil, that no-one ever died of a grubby shower curtain (except that one time and I still maintain that wasn't my fault, he shouldn't have been trying to lick the pattern off), and that any time spent in detailed dusting of bookshelves is time that could better have been spent doing ANYTHING ELSE, and yet... Here I sit procrastinating by drawing up mental plans (that's 'mental' as in in my head, not as in bonkers. Obviously) for devices to remove cobwebs without disturbing the spiders. Not that I care about the spiders, as such, but I've always held that hoovering up the cobwebs when you can't see the spider that made them is just asking for an enormous eight-legged freak to come wandering home one day to find its web gone and then to start RAMPAGING around your house like some kind of DISPOSSESSED NUTJOB, and you've only got yourself to blame if it lands on your face in the night and you wake to find it sitting beside you on your PILLOW, grinning and rubbing its hands together as it plots your fate. Or something.

To you, this is messy. To a spider, it's home. Plus it's where it sits planning the best way to freak you out.

And all this because I should be writing. I know I should. I open up the document, re-read the stuff I did yesterday and then go and wash my flannel.

I have ideas. I have whole lines of dialogue running through my head, causing me to mutter as I go about my daily tasks, like an old lady in the supermarket. I can see my characters, I know their motivations, their downfalls. So why the hell would I rather painstakingly pick all the lint from the inside of my duvet cover than write anything?

Answer - the procrastination worm.

There are cures. One is to shout loudly at yourself (or, if you have staff, get them to shout at you). Constantly reminding yourself that writing is not exactly rocket science (unless you are writing science fiction of course, in which case it probably is) and that you are privileged enough to have an indoor job with no heavy lifting, and that if you don't do it then your family may very well starve, or at least be forced to eat Lidl jam can work in some cases. As can sitting in front of your computer writing any old rubbish until your brain is forced by your intellect to start making some kind of sense. Nothing annoys an intellect faster than someone who insists on typing 'my blurgle ate my dog' over and over.

The third way is just to endure the infection until it works its way out of your system. You won't get any writing done, but eventually you will have a sparkling clean house, a freezer full of home cooked food and your correspondence will be completely up to date. You will, by now, be one hundred and five years old, but think of that lovely sparkly shower curtain!

For those of you who can't be bothered, this is what a clean shower curtain looks like. Yeah, apparently they're not meant to have all that yellow gunk all over them. I was surprised too.

Right. I'm off now to pick bits of fluff off the dog and read through some DIY manuals. Might even wash my flannel again.

Blu-Tac, gin and sitting on Jimmy Saville.

2011-02-21T13:25:00.001Z

I know, I know, I'm a day late with the blog this week. I shall attribute the tardiness to my general level of snot-production this last week, which was prolific, and it is very hard to type and blow at the same time. As it is the screen of my laptop is ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// and the keyboard has got ///////////////////////////////// with ///////////////////all over the Y key. (This sentence has been edited for those among you whose stomachs may be a little less sturdy than average. Suffice it to say that it is quite disgusting, and, should your imagination not be equal to the task, you really don't need to know).

Anyway. I'm here now. So, what can I tell you? This week is half-term, and I shall mostly be found sealed hermetically into my room with my laptop, finding new ways to avoid writing. Chief among these will be my interview with Morgen Bailey, which will be podcast this week as Bailey's Writing Tips. It's all right, I've managed to suppress my desire to have my hair cut again in honour of the event, I shall simply be wearing it swept back in an elegant style, and offset with a cocktail dress in simple velour (always assuming the new sofa covers arrive in time). And pearls. Obviously. Because I am a Lady.

Well, not so much actual pearls, for although I am a Lady I find myself struck with impecunity (it's all right, I've got an ointment), and will have to mock up a pearl necklace using Blu-Tac and some marbles, but I shall look stunning nonetheless.

Like this, but with added Blu-Tac. And snot. And a less whimsical expression because, let's face it, she looks as though she's just now realising that she has inadvertently seated herself upon Jimmy Saville. Which is a huge faux-pas in such circles.

In Other News, I also have to do my Tesco Shopping and assist my husband in his reorganisation of a briefcase which threatens to Overwhelm Us All. But it smells of new leather, which is curiously like the smell of fish, and oddly reassuring. I also have to finish seeing off the last remnants of The Cold, which was unlike normal colds in its manner of attack - but I think half a pint of gin should do it. And should also set me up nicely for the podcast too, although I shall do my utmost to avoid sitting on Jimmy Saville during the event.

Because...well. You know. I've got my marbles to think about.

Being Allowed Out in Public in Unsuitable Underwear - A Survivor's Tale

2011-02-13T14:23:00.000Z

I'm sure you'll all be delighted to hear that no-one was injured, I kept my clothes on and that the nearest we came to a fatality was when my smile threatened to knock a bookcase over.

Oh, sorry, didn't I say? I'm talking about yesterday's book signing, in which I performed two parts, that of manic author, stuffed with E-numbers and wearing unsuitable underwear, and also that of responsible business woman, keen to press her latest novel onto members of the public. I think I managed to carry it off. Although there was one unsightly moment when I became confused, threatened to press my unsuitable underwear on a passing businessman and had to be restrained behind the Two For One offers desk.

Anyway. For those who missed it, this is what I looked like.

You can't see it, but there was a tin of Quality Street on the desk. No, really, there was. It only looks as though I'm sitting on it to prevent casual running thefts of the green triangles. And don't stare at my cleavage for too long, you'll go blind.

This signing was undertaken (with the minimum of protective clothing) at the York branch of Waterstones, where they make unruly authors very nice cups of coffee and give them a really comfy chair. I admit that I did forget to bring a pen, and entertained a brief idea of having to sign copies of my novel using my own spit and a soggy toffee-finger, but my lovely husband had thoughtfully shoved a biro into his pocket only that very morning, and I was able to write my name in the usual fashion. Which, I think, may have disappointed some customers, but you can't have everything, can you.

And here's another one.

Just to prove the Quality Street thing. And that there were actual customers in the shop, they didn't just pretend to let me in, whilst in reality closing the shop to real people. There are two of them visible, probably plotting how to relieve me of my Strawberry Creams, although they may still be in shock, I fear I may have rushed up to them bearing bookmarks and incoherent gabble. But at least my husband is smiling.

And I meant it about not staring at my cleavage. You'll start to lose your v ion and ever hing w l start t l ok
all br ken up. So d n't do t.

Corsets and PVC underwear - the authors' guide to book signings

2011-02-06T16:26:00.000Z

Rolls of barbed wire - check. Aerial reconnaisance craft - check. Full SAS troop at the ready on nearby buildings - check.

That's right, I'm doing a book signing. And no-one's getting out of that shop without a copy of Please Don't Stop the Music, even the ones who only wandered in to see if their copy of 'Accountancy without Tears (Except for the Client's, Obviously)' was in stock. I've got the doors set to Emergency Lock, the Science Fiction section will be swarming with My Men, there will be Stormtroopers in the Children's department and I've got a plant in the Gardening section. I think I'm good to go.

Of course, if I wear full camouflage gear no-one will be able to see me, so I'm going for the full Author look (which any writer will confirm consists of corset, kilt and clogs, it's almost a uniform in fact). If this doesn't make me noticeable enough (and it might not, I can blend in you know. I didn't spend years in MI5...no, actually, come to think of it, I didn't spend years in MI5) I shall be wearing underwear almost unparalleled in its oddness. Which may mean that I can't sit down, but that's not a bad thing, right? Who wants their authors sitting down anyway? People want their authors to look dynamic, go-getting sort of people, you wouldn't want to buy a book from someone who looks like they sit around in comfortable underwear all day, would you? NO. You would rather purchase from someone who looks as if they suffer for their art, someone for whom spiked underpants and a gusset made of nylon is merely the tip of the iceberg of discomfort.

I'm not promising anything, just saying.
So, it's been a busy week, all in all. What with Please Don't Stop the Music being released on Tuesday and then having to spend the rest of the week getting four Army units into position and training up my friends in hand to hand combat; buying really nasty underwear and finding clogs to fit...well, you can imagine.

Anyway. Waterstone's, York. 2pm Saturday 12th of February. Make a note. It won't be pretty, but then, who is, in PVC underwear?

The marzipan/old lady slippers correlation effect, and why licking plasterboard and liking David Suchet are inextricably intertwined

2011-01-30T14:09:00.000Z

Marzipan. Delicious yellow cake covering or food of the Devil? Discuss.

Seriously. If you can look at this picture without flinching, you're over eighteen.

There is a point to this, just hold on, I'll get there in a minute.

I always hated marzipan. Many a fruitcake has been picked to shreds by yours truly in her formative years, carefully dissecting the icing layer to remove any stray molecules of almondy stuff. In fact it's a wonder I didn't go into forensic medicine, such was my attention to detail. And then, suddenly one day, (probably in the middle of an unsuspected Battenburg, slipped onto my plate by a 'friend' whilst I was busy holding forth on some subject dear to my heart), I realised that it wasn't so bad after all. All right, a bit unnaturally yellow, but so is Dale Winton. Although I suppose he's more orangey, but in a bad light he's a dead ringer for a sponge finger. Anyway. I was a marzipanular convert.

This means that I now eat Christmas cake with all the fervour of a cult-junkie instead of nibbling round the icing like an explosives expert entering a mine field. All right, this has repercussions for the size of my bottom, but it also made me start thinking (well, I had to, can't leave the house any more. It's only a matter of days before I have to start cleaning myself with a rag on a stick - damn you, marzipan!). Remember all those things you hated when you were a child? And I'm talking about food items here, not other things like whiskery aunts, next-door's dog, Mrs Adams from Class One and those faceless zombie things your friend showed you a picture of and now teases you because you refuse to go to upstairs alone unless all the lights are on and the downstairs door is kept open.

Things like dark chocolate. Marmite. Old-man's leg cheese (that's the cheese with those blue veins in, not cheese that smells like an old man's leg, because that would suppose knowledge that you would never admit to having). How many of these things have you come around to liking, now that you have a full set of adult teeth and your own Council Tax bill? Seriously, what happens to the taste buds as we get older? Am I going to find that, in say ten years time, I enjoy the taste of wet plasterboard? And how many of my other tastes have changed beyond recognition? Sadly, I no longer find Adam Ant the pinacle of male desirability and I find myself dreading the inevitable slide towards lusting after such well-known objects of desire as David Suchet and nice upright chairs.

Likewise, I am teetering on the borderline between quietly dribbling over these:

and thinking that maybe I'd be better off in these:

So. Next time you find yourself hesitating between a packet of Haribo and a tube of Werthers Originals, just remember, it's only a short hop from Old Man Sweets to listening to Charles Aznevour and wondering whatever happened to horse-drawn omnibuses.

And keep your hands off the marzipan.

A Novel Pregnancy - or why being a tart ought to win you prizes.

2011-01-23T12:01:00.001Z

Launching a new book is a bit like giving birth to a fully-grown man.

All right, you can stop wincing now, and crossing your legs and making all those faces, obviously it's not exactly like giving birth to a full grown man, otherwise we'd only ever produce the one and then have to go for a long lie down and wonder where we went wrong and why he never phones. But. It is a bit like it.

I realise that now I have to explain myself, otherwise you are all going to spend the day shaking your heads slowly and muttering about 'poor Jane' and how it all went to her head and how she's obviously only moments away from running down the road with a pencil up her nose, shouting 'wibble!' So, here I go.

When you write a book you spend many months gestating. Not only during the actual writing process (which is more like being pregnant than I care to remember - you spend a lot of time sitting down and getting fat and everyone keeps asking you when it's coming out), but thinking up names for your book and being persuaded by people that 'Ethelred' probably won't stand it in good stead. You worry about how it's going to get on on those big-bad shelves, where it will get bullied by Nora Roberts and Marian Keyes. And you worry about its appearance - will it be glossy and poised and classy? Or will it have odd eyes and be the novel equivalent of ginger? (Apologies there to my auburn friends, who all know that I have nothing personally against those of the red-haired persuasion, and all remember that embarrassing time with the man who came to fix the fume cupboard..ahem).

Meet Ethelred. Twenty four months gestation, three months of hard labour, and not even a Mothers' Day card. Bastard.

And when it comes to appearance, you can't even do the pregnancy equivalent of finding the best looking man you can in order to ensure a reasonable looking progeny. You have to trust in a cover-art person whom you never meet! Who might have three thumbs and a squint!

And then it's all too late to worry, and it's coming out and there's nothing you can do about it but brace yourself and try to find something firm to bite on. Because labour is nothing to actually getting a book out there. To launch a novel involves more pushing than launching a boat. You shove and you force yourself onto people who also push on your behalf and before you know it there's a whole team of people all heaving in an unseemly way and hopefully getting sweaty and grubby. And then, with one huge POP (in my case that huge pop will take place on 01 February), the book is there, blinking in the bright lights and taking its first liberties with the readers' affections. But, unlike a child, which you get to nurture and encourage and drop on its head a bit, this Ethelred is standing on its own already! Wandering around and shoving its hand up the skirts of the ill-prepared!

It no longer needs you. And, after all that effort, all that is left is to make sure it pulls up its socks and takes the world by storm. And, while it still retains that place in your heart that is peculiar to your firstborn, you must let it go, and work on the literary coy looks and low-cut blouses that are necessary in order to fertilise the next idea and grow yourself a new novel.

And you'll never get yourself a Booker like that. Although I'm off to give it a shot...

Radio hairdos, sunflower impersonations and why my postman carries Vaseline.

2011-01-16T16:11:00.000Z

I'm on the radio soon. 28th, to be precise. Radio York, 3.15, for anyone who wants to tune in. Now, I know about radios - they're those little boxes that sit in the corner and chatter, and have NO PICTURE. I know this.

So why was my first reaction, on hearing that said radio event was going to take place TO BOOK A HAIRDRESSER'S APPOINTMENT? I mean, bearing in mind the actual radio studio in question is, at the moment, above a Domino's Pizza Parlour in York, I could stagger in wearing my dressing gown and with my usual 'Coco The Clown' hairstyle and no-one would know or care. But no. Still, I suppose I stopped short of booking a manicure or a personal shopper.

But then, I am sitting here writing this in full make up and wearing a cocktail frock.

This is how I will look. Although I might need more than my hair done. And do you think Ann Summers still sell those things in the front?

Now. In other news. My guest post on LoveRomancePassion has appeared, giving anyone who, in a momentary oversight, does not yet possess a copy of Please Don't Stop the Music yet another chance to win one, this time by talking about a shopping experience. In that post I briefly mention the time I got stuck in a dress in New Look (yes, I know, but it was a long time ago, all right? In those days I had every right to be trying on dresses made four sizes smaller than it says on the label). I attempted to pull said dress off over my head and became...jammed. The dress had frilled around my (slightly chubby) face and gave me, allegedly, an acute resemblance to a sunflower in some distress.

I danced around that changing room like a Van Gogh cartoon for ages, until my friend managed to pull it off, whereupon we had to hang it back up and run like crazy, hoping no-one had heard the rending of stitchery. That experience completed my aversion therapy to shopping, and now, through the wonders of Internet shopping, I am free to become jammed in the clothing of my choice in the comfort of my own home. Where both the postman and the milkman have become used to being summoned into my front room by myself, stuck in all manner of clothing, and indeed, now carry a vat of Vaseline, rubber gloves and a shoehorn in order to be of more assistance. We will pass over the incident with the corset swiftly and with no further comment.

They did well to get me out of this one. Look, it said Size 12 on the label... But I've grown my hair since then...

Oh, and in one last note, each page of this blog is now a mere three entries long, not, as it used to be, me rambling on for months at a time. And I heard that sigh of relief, you at the back! This is to facilitate those who load it in a mobile format. Apparently. Yes, I don't know what it means either, perhaps it's got wheels or something. I don't know.

The Problems of Blumberjacking (and another competition)

2011-01-09T12:42:00.002Z

It may not have escaped your notice (in fact it had better not, otherwise I am coming round to your house and shouting through your letterbox), that I am presently a Blumberjack.

Like it? I'm rather proud of it as a word myself. My reasoning went this way... if someone who does a lot of stuff with logs is a lumberjack, then someone who does a lot with blogs...you see where I'm going with this? So. I find myself in the midst of a rather nice blog tour, inserting myself into other people's writings with aplomb (which isn't, as I recently found out, a fruit bomb. I was disappointed, since I sort of specialise in detonating apples and bananas at people) and otherwise rambling about my book (Please Don't Stop the Music, available for pre-order, and published by Choc Lit Publishing on 01 February)

So far I have been hosted at The Nut Press, where the squirrels were most welcoming, and a lucky person won a copy of the book (see above for details), and presently I am sitting purring amid the blog at Strictly Writing, where I am informing those kind enough to drop by about my lack of television watching habits.

There's also another chance to win a copy of THE BOOK over there, running at THIS VERY MOMENT, by telling us there about your favourite Rock Star. Now, as I pointed out, this is an anomaly, since stars most self evidently are balls of gas undergoing nuclear fusion in order to throw out heat and light. A star made of rock would be...well, not really much of a star, more of a..well, a rock.

A star. Self evidently, not rock.

Anyway, you'll have to pop over there yourselves to see if I made any sensible contribution to the conversation. And, as of next Saturday I shall be at LoveRomancePassion. What I shall say there is, as yet, undecided. Which is where my blumberjacking problem comes in. When visiting someone else's blog, and let us just assume here that said blog is a tidy, organised place with clean carpets and a nice sofa - and no squirrels - then is it allowed for visiting blumberjack to come in and take over the place? Dropping crisps and bits of cake all over the floor, trampling the literary version of mud through the entire wordage and leaving the seat up on the metaphorical toilet?

I like to think I am well behaved under these circumstances. But then I also like to think that I am tall, thin and have the sex appeal of Karen Gillan (without, of course, the unfortunate accent). So, my question of the moment is - how much do I try to fit in with these Other Blogs? Here, naturally, I am free to run around without my trousers on and a paper clip up my nose shouting 'What Ho, here come the badgers!' and nobody minds, because this is MY blog. Mine, do you hear me! MINE!!!!

I'm sorry. Apparently I have to go for a little lie down.

But think of me....

I Resolve to be promiscuous. Read on, there's a competition...

2011-01-02T11:47:00.000Z

I don't make New Year's Resolutions.

Now, partly this is because, by the time I've sobered up and raised my head from the pillow, unglued my eyes and managed to get at least mostly vertical, it is already February and people are asking me what I'm doing for Valentine's Day so it's far too late. And partly it's because I wouldn't know where to start.

Most people have just one core imperfection - you know, they need to do something with their hair, or to give more to charity or to clean the bath more than once a year. This makes Resoluting easy. Unfortunately, short of a major rebuild or a team of SWAT cleaners, there's not much to be done about my housekeeping. Ditto my cooking. One year I made a resolution to cook one home-made meal a day, to eschew the frozen section of Tesco's (do I mean eschew? Isn't that a sneeze? Oh well, carry on and hope they don't notice) and lovingly hand-craft pies, stews and fricassees for my family's gustatory delight.

Yeah. Won't be doing that again. People came by just to LAUGH and POINT. Can you imagine? Never mind, I got my own back. One flapjack and most of them will never dance the tarantella again..
.

And the rest of them daren't get down...

So anyway. The nearest I have come this year to Resolution, is to promise that I shall be promiscuous. Now, for all those of you currently clutching your sides and phoning me up to tell me that a resolution is supposed to make you change your life, and not to enable you to have even more fun than you currently do, please let me finish my sentence.

I resolve to be promiscuous with my book marketing. To leave no blog unvisited, no 'comments' section un..err..commented - and all in the interests of getting Please Don't Stop the Music in those reader charts.

Just to refresh your memories.

And, to whet your considerable appetites (I saw you at the Boxing Day table, good grief, it was like some kind of automated device), I am blogging at http://nutpress.co.uk/ where, for the next few days, by the simple expedient of telling us your Darkest Secret, you may be in with a chance of winning a copy of the book!

So what are you waiting for? Get on over there and tell us all about that time you were sick over a minor member of Parliament! Oh, no, sorry, that was me.

Go! Fly, you fools!

And I shall sit here and think about how I may improve my life. Yeah, right, you all know I'm going to be finishing up the Bailey's Truffles, don't you?

And a very merry midwinter festival of your choice!

2010-12-26T21:33:00.000Z

Just popping by, my cheeky little ones, to wish you all the very best in this merry season of goodwill and merriment. Thank you for patronising me thus far, and I look forward to the New Year, when I will return the favour.

Do keep dropping by, for there will be announcements in the weeks to come! Yey, verily shall I say unto you that you may win copies of my very latest, Please Don't Stop the Music in the competition with which I shall gladden your hearts in the very near future.

But for now - I think I'm entitled to a little holidayette, don't you? Normal service shall be resumed just as soon as I am normal again.

I leave you with this picture of an exploding Christmas Tree. Because I can.

..coming to a toilet near you!

2010-12-19T18:57:00.000Z

Those of you who follow me (yes, I know you're there, even when you dodge behind those bushes) will know that, as part of my Releasing a Book into the Wild campaign (Please Don't Stop the Music, coming from Choc Lit on 01 February), I shall be undertaking a bog tour.

Many of my friends and acquaintances have volunteered their amenities for this tour, about which I must admit to being slightly baffled. Who wants a writer who comes around, uses their facilities and then leaves again? But dear Luke at Choc Lit, a man with a mission and probably an Armitage and Shanks full flush number with low level cistern and mahogany seat (you see, I'm picking up the lingo already), maintains that a bog tour is the best way to raise my profile and announce the book to the world.

So, in preparation, I have loaded myself down with Andrex Super Strong, some wet wipes, a number of large books, and a number of tins of curried pea and ham soup (well, it always has that effect on me). I have been working on my glutes, practicing my crouching, have installed myself in several pairs of elasticated waisted trousers, and now I am ready for the off!

It won't look like this when I've finished...

Already committed (as they should be) are The Nut Press -1^st January, Strictly Writing- 8^th January

LoveRomancePassion 16^th Jan, Coffee Time Romance 24^th Jan. And others are arriving all the time, for example the lovely Lucie Wheeler has also volunteered, as long as while I'm in there I don't dance or sing. In fact, the calls for me not to sing are almost outnumbering those requesting various numbers! I know! I don't understand it either!

Anyway, I'm now off to buy myself a special brush for those..err..awkward moments, and a little step to put my feet up on, also to double as a stage should I feel like regailing those there present with my own particular take on Biffy Clyro. So, if anyone else feels like hosting my bog tour, just make sure that your porcelain number is buffed to perfection and I'll put you on the list.

Hold on a minute. My publicity man is on the other line...

Oh.

Er.

Apparently it's a BLOG tour.

Anyone want to buy forty-five rolls of mostly unused Andrex?

I'll even throw in the puppy...No, not like that!

The impact of a wind-assisted Christmas Tree.

2010-12-12T15:12:00.001Z

Now, I don't want to panic anyone, but there are only 50 DAYS LEFT TO PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY OF PLEASE DON'T STOP THE MUSIC! 50! That's like, no time at all if, like me, you can spend a fortnight looking for a sock. And you know those 50 days will be gone in a flash, by the time you've had Christmas, and then New Year, and you're still thinking 'oh, I'll get round to it soon', and then before you know it it's February the First and the book is out and you have LOST YOUR CHANCE TO BE THE FIRST TO READ IT!

Consider yourselves told.

Now. In more sober news, I have yet to buy a Christmas tree. But this is because I have yet to shovel clear an area of floor suitable for placement of said Yule greenery. I live in the official House of Doors, you see. It's a bit like living in a giant corridor when it comes to Christmas Trees and televisions - where do you put it so that it doesn't have to be wheeled out of the way every time someone lets the cat in?

Aha, I hear you cry, then why not get a small tree? Something convenient and plastic with an inbuilt crumple zone and umbrella-fold decorations? Why insist on one of those new-fangled 'real' things? Well, my dearios, it isn't like I haven't experimented, you know. Oh yes, once I too was possessed of a plastic tree; two and a half feet of shine and glitter with a little stand and ... Or was that Tony Robinson? No, no, I'm fairly sure that was the tree.

Like this, but less classy. If you can imagine.

And I did mention that I live in a corridor, didn't I? My living room has...(hang on, I might need fingers here).. four doors (one of them a cupboard), a fireplace, a staircase and the recent cast of Strictly Come Dancing in it. To accommodate these features, the tree could only be placed in one position - directly opposite the patio doors. Which, in keeping with tradition, opened on to the garden.

Now I can see some of you have got ahead of me here. I can tell by the way you are sniggering and smirking. For, yes, the tree was duly placed opposite the patio doors. In a house with two dogs and four cats, all of which treat the door as though it has been placed there for their own personal use.

And Lo! came Christmas Eve! And with Christmas Eve came gales! And with the Christmas Eve gales came a run of animal incontinence the like of which has ne'er been seen!

Now, if you've ever opened a patio door to a gale you may have some glimmering as to the result. Cat wanted out. Door was casually opened, in came a wind as winds do, wandering around the place, running its finger along the mantelpiece and muttering about dust, caught the plastic Christmas tree somewhere around midsection and suddenly the air was full of balls and tinsel.

The tree itself did three circuits of the living room before we caught it, some of the baubles have never been recaptured and the dog now hides under the table at the sight of a fairy.

Hence, thereafter we have always had a real tree. Six foot of solid pine which, to be on the safe side, we then nail to the floor. It ain't pretty but I'm not having those vet bills again.

364 days warning and it STILL catches us by surprise!

2010-12-05T14:48:00.000Z

Now, I don't want to alarm anyone (actually I do, you should see how funny you look when your hair stands on end and you shout "Ahhhhh! What the hell was that?!"), but it's only three weeks to Christmas.

Three weeks. That's, say fifteen shopping days if you don't go at weekends, which are always too busy. But, if you don't go on Wednesdays (because the shops close early) or Mondays (because who wants to shop on a Monday when you're all hungover and cross), then it's only about seven days. Ish. More or less. So. You've got seven days to find the perfect present for everyone in the entire world, you don't get paid until a week on Tuesday, your Amazon account is broken, your credit card accidentally snapped in half when you were trying to break into the cupboard at work that everyone refers to as THE CUPBOARD OF DOOM, when funny noises were coming out of it and you suspected that a hedgehog might have got in - all right, it's up five flights of stairs, but hedgehogs can climb stairs, can't they? - and M&S keep sending you e-mails telling you that everyone you know really REALLY wants a purple jumper with sequins on.

Ready? GO!

Yes, the annual panic is upon us. Well, it's upon me anyway. I start in September, carefully hand-selecting items of extreme personal interest to those closest to me, and yet, by the first of December I too have resorted to buying anything labelled '3 for 2' in Superdrug in a kind of ritualistic frenzy, fuelled by egg-nog and Cranberry Surprise.

I start with those on the outer fringes of my circle, the work colleagues, the cousins, the neighbours. These all get unfrenzied, thoughtful, hand-picked presents of personal interest and appeal.

This kind of thing. Tasteful, and attractive. Like me.

Next we come to siblings, close friends and parents. These receive gifts slightly less personally chosen, because by now it's November, the shops are busy and I'm stressed. But still, nice things. You know. Not rubbish or anything. Useful presents.

Everyone needs somewhere to put the wheelie bin, right?

Then the kids. Oh, yes, the kids. And when you have five of the little....things, this involves quite a lot of shopping. But, oddly, not that much thought.

Any and all of the above. Usually all. Walk into the first shop bearing any of these logos, fill basket, pay, walk out.

But by now it's the middle of December. Work is busy, there is writing to be done, I haven't yet written a single Christmas card, there's all the food to sort out and the dog was just sick on the carpet. And I haven't bought a thing for my husband.

Oh, I've looked. You cannot fault my research skills. I have surfed the net until my fingers went all wrinkly, I have made lists (which I then lost, but at least I made them) of super, innovative, fun, thrilling and wacky ideas. And then, suddenly - because 364 days is NOT ENOUGH WARNING, it's Christmas Eve. And we all know what that means, don't we?

Yep. He's getting it in purple. With sequins. M&S, you win again.

Doctor Who is NOT biscuits, I repeat, NOT biscuits!

2010-11-28T13:19:00.000Z

Today 'tis my my birthday. I have reached an age which has got an 0 at the end and is therefore a major cause of celebration. Possibly because I have managed to reach this age without dying which, you have to admit, given my propensity for throwing myself if not in the way of trouble then certainly only slightly to trouble's left, is something of an achievement.

To mark this continued lack of affilitation with the Grim Reaper, people have generously pressed gifts upon me. In some cases quite literally, since I was repeatedly struck with a large bunch of lilies and a box of M&S Belgian Chocolate biscuits was squeezed upon my loveliness beneath my large fluffy jacket, it being meterologically of the chilly persuasion today. And I did get to go to the very lovely Appleton Spa, courtesy of my lovely children (having lots of children stands me in very good stead when it comes to 'Have a Whip Round for Mother'). And then I got rubbed with stuff, had stuff painted on me, and then had a Head Massage (which did not kick start my brain, sadly). It is a very nice place, and I got to lie in the Hot Tub in the snow. In fact, this has been my first White Birthday!

So, in combination with people giving me lovely things and the white stuff continuously falling from the sky, it has been a most memorable day. I intend to spend most of the remainder of it sponging squashed biscuits from my body and snuggling in front of an open fire watching Dr Who DVD's. I may lick the biscuits off the sponge if I really feel like pushing the boat out, although given my propensity for memory lapses I may find myself licking Dr Who and staring at a small yellow sponge bobbing about in greasy water. Worse still, I may well find this entertaining.

Gripping, I think you'll all agree.

I know how to live! The secret is to keep breathing In and let the whole Out thing take care of itself. Disclaimer - Embarassing noises caused by the Out procedure are not the responsibility of Yours Truly, you are on your own with the whole 'parp' thing.

I may well be licking this man off my body later. But only because I forgot he isn't M&S Belgian Chocolate biscuits, you understand. And I probably won't enjoy it. Well, one of us won't. And it may, or may not, be me.

So. Happy Birthday To Me. I shan't sing, because I know how it distresses you, so I shall just hum quietly while you all muse on your lacklustre performance in the Sending Me Presents department, and then I shall leave you to your guilt.

Darlings, you shouldn't have! Can I eat them now?

In which I discover I am not quite perfect. Oh, the shame!

2010-11-21T15:46:00.001Z

I have come to the conclusion (reluctantly, of course) that I might not be perfect.

Silence your gasps of amazement and disbelief, I don’t mean that I’m not perfect in any practical way. My mane of tousled blonde hair remains the envy of all and my perfect thighs mean that we need not buy a nutcracker this Christmas (seriously, where do they all go? Every Christmas a new nutcracker – it can’t be natural).And yet, I find myself falling short of my own, amazingly high standards.

By about this much usually.

Mostly this happens when writing. It has come to my attention that I have a tendency for my characters (let’s call them ‘Molly’ and ‘Phinn’ for such are their names) to call one another by their given names all the damn time. Now I know that people use names to attract someone’s attention, to direct a comment etc, but these two just keep on and on Mollying and Phinning until I’m tired of the pair of them.

Now, bearing in mind that my dear husband and I rarely use one another’s names, preferring to refer to one another as ‘husband’ and ‘stenchblob’, I find this constant waving about of personal names quite offensive. She’s called Molly, shut up about it, already! Actually, now I come to think about it, I’m not sure my husband actually knows my name. We were both very drunk when we were introduced and I’m sure the minister mumbled over that bit during our wedding ceremony. He probably thinks I’m called ‘Fnrfrt’, which is eyecatching but not that great on a book jacket.

Anyway. My imperfections, slight as they are. I am finding that I am writing dialogue exactly as it is spoken. Which gives rise to...errr...you know, that thing...umm...ooh, did you see Merlin last night? Wasn’t that the bloke from...thingie, oh, you know the one with the owls in?...ow, bit my tongue there... umm....thingie. Digressions, that’s the thing. For dialogue shouldn’t be true to life, but more ‘true to how life would be if it was all shiny and no-one ever farted or coughed inappropriately or suddenly had to go to the toilet in the middle of....

Ah, there you are. Sorry, I just had to...um, answer the phone. So. Yes. I hate to disillusion you all, but I am not perfect. Well, I am, mostly, but, you know. Still ‘down with the people’ as you young folks say.

Sorry.

Snow patrol - not odd, damn it!

2010-11-14T12:09:00.000Z

My late father (in both senses of the word - that's the word 'late' obviously, not 'father'. He was definitely my father, I have his chin. It's around here somewhere, just can't put my hands on it right now, and he wasn't all that father away. Quite close, in fact. Bugger. Where was I? Better get out of these brackets) (he was often late. In fact, the hearse arrived somewhat tardily for his funeral, thereby fulfilling a family prophecy put forward by my mother on many an occasion - damn these brackets!) was a Man Who Sang. And along with his chin, a slightly chewed biro and some strange metal things that no-one really knows the use of, I have inherited his Singing.

But what I haven't told you is, that he Never Knew the Words. And, I too, have inherited this tendency. Hell, I grew up thinking the song went "Bye bye Miss American Pie, drovel shevvie anna levvie budle levvie's drah'.

So now I must put to you a Question. WHY DOES NO-ONE EVER CORRECT ME? There I am, singing at the top of my voice, 'boodle doo' ing like mad, and no-one takes me gently to one side and points out carefully, and in words of one syllable that the Arctic Monkeys are not doo-wop singers and that their songs have real words in? No-one. Not Ever. Kings of Leon, apparently, do not sing 'Nyar nyar, these legs is on fah' either. Bet you never knew that.

And then there's the words that I swear I have heard and reproduced correctly, and yet have people rolling about and wiping their eyes when I sing them, again at the top of my voice because my volume control knob is broken and I'm sick of trying to find the pliers to turn it down.

For example. The other day, there I am, singing along to Snow Patrol's 'Throw the Shutters Open Wide', merrily bellowing 'I could sit for hours finding new ways to be odd each minute', and when my audience finally regained the ability to speak, and mopped up the puddles of resultant merriment, they told me that what he is actually singing is 'finding new ways to be AWED each minute.'

Well! All I can say is, he should learn to ENUNCIATE. And, speaking as someone who can, clearly and demonstrably, find new ways to be odd each minute, I have no idea what the song means now. I had been feeling a certain amount of closeness and empathy with him up until then. No one realises how hard life can be when one lives under the umbrella of Odd, and I thought I had finally found someone who appreciated it. And then it goes and turns out that he's just smitten with some tart or another, and all that fellow-feeling just flew out of the window.

Don't be fooled. These men are not Odd. Even though they apparently chained themselves to a single radiator, they are not Odd. Hmph. Although, if you look closely, you can just see my fellow-feeling vanishing out of the window. It looks a bit like a bush.

So, I am giving up my career in the world of singing. No, plead ye not, I shall not be diverted. I am going to dedicate my time to this writing nonsense, in which the words all mean what I think they mean, and a homogenous confabulation is simply a piece of furniture covered in embroidery.

Hmph.

Learning to play Cat Chess and why dogs are like Robbie Williams

2010-11-07T13:06:00.000Z

Every time I think I've got this one figured out, those damn cats come up with a new rule! Okay, so the small black cat can only move in a straight line, the ginger one can go sideways, and the tabby is allowed to jump over all other cats, but only if there isn't a dog in the room? Is that right? And, if so, where does the big black one go?

All right, clever clogs, YOU tell me which one of these is winning?!

I have given up trying to figure out cats. Dogs are easier. Dog have ball = dog happy. Dog have dinner = dog happy. Dog left alone while owner goes to work = dog not quite so happy but prepared to be forgiving and ecstatic on owner's return. Leave a cat for more than half an hour and, upon your return, it will pretend to have forgotten your name, if you're lucky, and if you're not, it will have forgotten your existence and be opening a jar of caviar and sitting in your chair to watch the latest QI episode.

Dog - ball - happy

"Your face is vaguely familiar, do I know you?"

What you acquire as a cute, fluffy little kitten that plays with your toes and sleeps on your shoulder, grows up to make remarks about your ability to handle the staff, your general culinary prowess and your manners, viz your way of cutting your toenails in front of Strictly Come Dancing. It's a bit like rearing a baby Princess. Whereas dogs are bundles of enthusiasm and acceptance of your nastier habits (because they have plenty of their own), which, I like to think, is more like rearing a tiny Robbie Williams.

And there I leave you. I have to, the cat wants the chair.