News!

July 20th, 2011

I haven’t blogged in a good while (slaps wrist) BUT I have good reason, and with that reason, lots of juicy news. Above is a photograph of my other half and two of our children at St Ives, Cornwall, where we spent a few days at the beginning of June. Oh. My. Goodness. St Ives is divine. In fact, all of Cornwall is an export of Heaven. I think we ate strawberries with Cornish clotted cream for every single meal. The journey home was sheer hell, mind you – a 12 hour saga involving about 99 pee stops, 5 bucketloads of vomit, 1,112 tantrums and an equal number of naughty-step IOUs (to be fulfilled upon returning to said naughty step) – but within hours of settling back into our own living room, Husband and I were typing ‘St Ives’ into the search bar of Rightmove.co.uk… No, we’re not moving to Cornwall, but it is very, very tempting, and not just because of the Cornish cream…

We ARE moving house, as a matter of fact, because my oldest daughter didn’t get into our primary school of choice. We appealed the decision, lost miserably, and so contacted an estate agency and started searching for houses in County Durham. For me, moving house is right up there with root canal and episiotomies. The tedium of house viewings, going to view other people’s houses and spotting a gazillion things that need fixing, bartering about prices, faxing finance stuff to mortgage companies, stamp duty, conveyers, solicitors… and none of this even comes close to the Herculean task of boxing up all our stuff. Despite living at our current abode for less than five years, we seem to have amassed a plethora of stuff and things that would rival the contents of the Pyramids at Giza. It feels like trying to move an entire Ikea warehouse. On the plus side, I find no small amount of joy in picking out wallpaper etc, and our new place will even allow me to have an office that’s not at the top of the house and subjected to gale force winds blowing through holes in the roof. And it has a driveway. I have never, ever lived in a house with a driveway. I am excited beyond all measure.

I’m currently finishing the edits for my second novel and, boy, am I excited for this one! Recently I was discussing with my editor the difference between material I’ve enjoyed writing and material I wrote while gritting my teeth. I hadn’t realized how much the pleasure (or pain) of writing something shines through to the reader – like sample A (Nutella) and sample B (bargain basement ‘chocolate spread’ – bleurgh!), the writer’s enjoyment of a project almost always renders itself visible to the reader in one form or another. And my wonderful editor, she knows Nutella. A writing project – especially when it’s novel-sized – always has its moments of difficulty, but when those moments turn into months… it’s probably a wise move to reconsider the direction of the piece. Something I realised long ago (and forgot, a few months back) was to listen carefully to my gut. When my gut says ‘meh’, it’s time to go back and fix what I’ve written until I get the instinctive thumbs-up. Lately, there have been no ‘meh’s’ from my digestive system. Thank goodness for that. In fact, I’ve been absolutely fixated with what I’m writing, and that can only be a good thing.

And finally, promotional stuff. I’m reading at North Shields Central Library on Thurs 21st July at 7pm, or in other words, TOMORROW night (memo to self), so please come along if you’re in the neighbourhood. There’ll be ‘refreshments’, which I believe is code in this case for tea and cake. I’m signing at Waterstones Derby on July 30th, which is quite a trek for me but I’m HOPING (hint hint) all you lovely people will come along and make the journey most worthwhile. I might even have a box of Quality Street on my person…

Oh, and here’s some pictures of my kids. Just ‘cos I love them. I’ve been writing so intensely for the last six months that I’ve missed my darlings terribly, writing into the wee hours so I can spend more time with them during the day – albeit in a drooling, zombified state. Though it’s not all bad – my oldest daughter (see below) announced she is currently designing the cover for her future novel. She’s 4. I’ll keep you posted on what she comes up with.

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