The Book

I really ought to mention Abandoned by Anya Peters - it sounds a truly awful tale. We hope it has a truly magnificent and happy ending, from now on. I can't believe the comments about her success in getting a publishing deal. I want one too but at least I have the decency to appreciate her good fortune, especially since she was clearly more desperate than I am. Well done, Anya. However, there is a serious point here: that all people have a breaking point. Some consider suicide as a way out of their pain while others want to go on living but close down as a means of coping with the stress. You may think you have life sorted but it does not take a lot to destroy all you hold dear. So, for those of you out there with no sympathy, just remember for whom the bell tolls! Enough pontificating for now. Back to the writing.

Wandering Scribe

Just cast my eyes over Wandering Scribe blog. I'm shivering with fright. Why does the world have to be this way? You would think anyone commenting on her plight would be sympathetic. No way. I just hope the book's a great success and she can carry on sleeping between clean sheets without fear. When I'm rich and famous I'm going to set up a sort of adult Barnardos where one phone call will bring help from happy smiling people with warm soup, clean beds in single rooms and helpers to guide people back into a life of happiness. Okay, tall order. Don't let me start on Iraq, poor sods. There has to be a better way for humans to live together otherwise we are all doomed. The most glaring problem facing us all is that we live on a rock with our source of life, the sun, already dying. A few more billion years may not concern us but some of our DNA related progeny are going to have to find a way out. So, why are we not using our brains to solve this problem? You never know, we might get a spin-off, rather like non-stick frying pans were from the Space Race. Don't worry, readers, I do have a sense of humour. Check out this blog for a little bit of it. Yes, there are some serious points. Some great dreams last night including one where I was cycling down a massive series of steps towards Nice harbour. How was I in France? Well, a researcher friend from Panorama had asked me to go there to buy Ricin from a chemist. In the dream, it was readily available. My expenses would be met and a fee of £10 would be paid. Now that's what I call a reality dream. The sky above Nice was incredibly bright and the bicycle was too big for me to ride. Ah. Just had a thought. As a child we never had much money. My first bike was secondhand and it was so big I could not place both feet on the ground at the same time. Then, shortly after I started using it, I went far too fast downhill and came off, blacked out but recovered without injury. The handlebars had swung 180 degrees. My main problem was getting them to look normal to avoid a bollocking. One little point about the Wandering Scribe post. It strikes me that she was doing something similar to that of Einstein when he, as a humble clerk, would go out at night and stare at the stars for hours. Perhaps it ought to be made compulsory - four hours of silence watching the sky at night.

Hay - Don't Give Up

This is a most encouraging story of success finally defeating failure. A warning to all writers that sometimes it is the tortoise that wins the race. A difficult problem for all unpublished writers is working out whether all the effort has been in vain. Has that time and money really been wasted? On some days you wake up with the feeling that you probably went mad or are suffering from some psychotic illness that compels you to destroy your life and happiness in the pursuit of creating imaginary worlds. Read and inwardly digest.

Rain and Writing

Why is it that writing appears to be so much easier when it is raining? I lived in Florida for a while and had great fun sitting down at an electric typewriter, a Selectric Mark 111 but without the correction key, and creating one of the best children's stories ever. But, in Florida, it always rains about four in the afternoon, as the day's heat creates massive clouds that open on schedule. Got caught in one cycling back from the bookshop. The sun comes out soon after and the wooden deck dries out. Writing solidly in the sun is no fun. The books dried out on the deck, along with my denim jeans. The spines and the glue decided to separate on the thrillers.

Bank Holiday

The rains have come. At long last. The crops will not die. The animals will have food for another month. The humans are scarce. I had a good night's sleep. What more can a writer ask for? Don't go there. The blogs are taking over my life. That's a good sign. At least there's something to put up everyday. Only poor old Struggling Author Story is getting the scraps. The Hay Festival is up and running. I used to love going there. I have just one little bitch. Why are there so many celeb authors as opposed to authors who have become celebs through their writing? Can't we have some more of the likes of Graham Greene, John le Carre, Christopher Isherwood and Daphne du Maurier to name just a few. Dostoyevsky would be a good one. Here's a thought: let's have a fake festival with the big names from the past. Ah well, dream on, babes. It was always the bookshops that got me at Hay. For someone who cannot pass a secondhand bookstall without kissing goodbye to the rest of the day, Hay was a bleedin' disaster. I would need a second life to give it my full attention. Back to the fantasy. Is it going to be the children's book or the global warming book. Who dies next?

Blogging

A awful lot of blogs on the web these days. What does that say about people wanting to become writers? Just been reading a fascinating blog on the Guardian site about slushpiles. Pity the poor writer struggling to get past the gatekeepers at the agents. Nevermind, it'll all get sorted. Suffering from word blindness at the moment and wondering which of my babies gets the words tonight. The fingers going full pelt. Haven't written like this for yonks. Blogger's auto saving now, I see. I think this stage of boredom has to be defeated. Time to zip into fantasy world for a while, wake up the grey cells.

Feelings

Gut feelings are worth their weight in gold to writers. They come along with visions of the future, although not clearly identifiable. They give the writer the urge to set down his thoughts and create his alternative world. Right now The Dark Kingdom is coming through strong. My heroine is on the verge of receiving some much needed help. That's all folks. Gotta go back to work.

The Dark Kingdom

I had the first chapter up on a separate blog but have now taken it down. Not a great idea and anyway the first chapter has now been junked in favour of something far more appropriate ie the original first chapter. Lesson to the writer: don't listen to people who don't know what they're talking about. There are a lot of them in this business. Re. the previous blog. I have not done any work on this book so I guess that's this evening's task.

Nice Try

Mentioning Gordon Ramsay's name was a nice try but a no no. Always the case, isn't it? A day of major action with submissions being prepared left, right and centre, including a really heavy one that I have been working on for some time. I need some help in getting published and I can feel it close by but how do I find the right agent who will find the right publisher who will land me the deal that will allow me to get these ideas and stories into the market place? It's really frustrating. At the moment I'm working on four stories at the same time. I'm surprised at how easy this can be. They all have their separate homes inside my mind, although matters such as food tend to get ignored. My emailed submissions have received no acknowledgement yet. Guess they receive a lot but I'm still worried a lot of modern email stuff never gets to the place it was sent. I've tested this with snail mail. The responses are quite quick but the original email stuff seems to have disappeared into the ether. Anyway, bouncing with confidence and four books on the go so I suppose I had better stop the blogging, fun as it may well be, and return to the real world!

Prescient

I guarantee that Foreseeing the Future is going to be the hot topic. Further back on the blogline I mentioned the scientists who are taking seriously the awareness of events yet to happen that some people have experienced. The article by James Fenton mentions the burning of Dresden and the prophetic picture by Otto Dix. I've heard this before but it had quite slipped my mind until I was running through Fenton's website.

Gordon Ramsay

What's this about putting Gordon Ramsay into the melting pot of one's blog? Will it guarantee me book sales? Will agents come running to my door? Click on Gordon's name to find out, please.

Gosh!

I got a comment on one of the blogs. I don't believe it. I'm not alone in the world.

Why?

There are times all seems lost and you come across something that accurately reflects your own life. This story seems to be one of them. It's a hell of a crazy life, as viewed from outside, until it becomes successful. By that, I mean commercially successful. When I began to walk the road of writer I often spoke about Dostoyevky's troubles and Kafka's oblivion while alive. I never meant to follow the road so precisely in their footsteps. Careful old me, I just avoided putting in an alliterative word prior to the final word of that last sentence. Will there ever be any hope? I emailed some webstuff to a new publisher but haven't heard back from them yet. I suppose now that the panic has really set in I am expecting instant success. So unrealistic. Never mind, the real world consists of the partner's afternoon session cleaning the rat cage and being unable to persuade the fourth ratty to return home. Just been done. Anyway, the goods news about this publisher is that Scott Pack, late of Waterstone's, is the commercial director. He was the one that got the publishing industry angry over his demands for story-led novels rather than the rubbish littering most of our shelves. Let's hope he goes for a good story-led author - ME! Hope I quoted you right Mr Pack, it was a synopsial precis. Having played a part in bringing up twin girls the story in today's papers about the missing three year old breaks my heart into a trillion pieces. The existence of kidnappers like this one, or more, is why I wanted to change the world with my writing. Still do. Anyone out there willing to give me a break?

Time

Time was when time itself was simple. Not anymore it seems. There's a growing debate amongst serious scientists about the past, present and future. We know we live in the present, might have a future and definitely have a past. Now there's a possibility that we only exist in the Now. Today I came across some information that absolutely fascinated me. It's about how we might be able to predict the future. I wonder how many writers experience the thought that they have seen something before it happened? The experience is not exact. To use an exaggerated example you see an elephant crawling up the wall in front of your bed, and when you wake up there is something there, but it's a large spider. Not a good analogy. In March 2003 I was up all night trying to create the link that made a thriller work. I heard Heanor church clock strike three and the Nottingham train pass through the Langley Mill junction. Then it came to me: it was a fire that destroyed the entire family of the main living criminal character. That was a fire in a large East London terraced house. At four that afternoon I was in Nottingham waiting for a film to start when a curious, shaky feeling come over me. I bought a Pepsi and sat down with my new notebook from Eastwood - is the connection relevant, I think so - and saw a huge blaze in the middle of the country. A massive plume of smoke was rising from green fields and forests with bursts of violent flame. After the film I toodled around the city looking at the flats I used to live in before making my way home. I took the wrong road, ending up at the Hucknall intersection with the M1. Crossed it and nearly crashed the car. Ahead of me was the vision I had seen four hours earlier. It was an school in Heanor burning down but from the distance all that could be seen was the fire and the smoke on a beautiful spring night. There are also two other major premonitions that I have experienced, both connected with the death of my mother. More on those at a later date. Back to thinking.

CROOKED HOUSE

What is this Crooked House that I live in? I don't mean this one. The one I am referring to lies deep inside my mind. If only I knew what made it work then I would be racing through life at a hundred miles an hour rather than pootling along slightly slower than the average snail. Are well, ain't nothing in this life that's easy to understand.

Elections

I used to become excited by this stuff but the feeling's fading. What real changes are we going to see whoever gets into power? Can it all be about Iraq and Bin Collections? The more I read on both subjects the more depressed I become about the future of the human race. Time for a picture.

Well Done

Congratulations to this writer, Will Eaves, for producing his own poems. While we're on the subject of poetry I notice that Faber no longer accept manuscripts except for poetry. I guess that's par for the course these days. It would be shame if a publishing house with such a glorious history also closed its doors to poetry. What intrigues me here is the author's description of how a book can alter your life as you write it. The plot, characters and scenes really do start to take real substance inside your head even when you think you can easily separate reality from fantasy.

New Mood

Weird how human moods change. This morning and afternoon I was more low than I have ever been. But right now I feel bloody excellent. When I consider both my problems and the challenges they present I am often overcome. Correction here, I am always overcome. However, the opportunities open to me are so great and potentially so financially rewarding that only a fool would give up now, certainly not without a fight. I am so close to selling my work. Much more close than ever before. All I need now are balls of steel and a determination to think on the positive side all the time. Take a look at this for example. So many writers have to go through this awful process of rejection. It makes you wonder sometimes why more don't end it all. It is the hardest work I have ever done and also by far the most lonely.