The author sits at the top of the tree, basking in the bright sunlight of recognition while shading all those underneath from its nourishing rays. Trying to push through the foliage, the writer hopes and dreams and toils while the summit sometimes accelerates, sometimes coasts but always seems to float effortlessly up and up and away. The hack sits on the lower branches, munching away at the low hanging fruit, ignoring anything going on above, satisfied with his lot, on which he can grow fat without the urgent grasping for excellence. The scribbler is still carving letters into the bark of the tree trunk - but at least he carves letters rather than the random abstracts of the doodler. The toddler wanders past and wonders what all the fuss is about.
In 1934, Dorothea Brande wrote 'Becoming A Writer', which is still held as an invaluable source and which, in many ways, is responsible for this blog existing.
To paraphrase one of her early points (mostly because I would have to stand up and walk over to the bookcase to quote faithfully), she states that a writer is someone who writes, regardless of readership, success or acclaim. Anyone who writes anything on a regular basis is a writer. As to whether they are a good writer is, of course, a matter of opinion. She insists, however, that anyone who cannot find fifteen minutes, every day, to write something (even if it is only "I am writing, I am writing..." (which, unfortunately, reminds me of the denouement of 'The Shining')), cannot truly call themselves a writer.
Clearly, by her definition, I cannot truly call myself a writer since this is only my eleventh posting in fourteen days. In my defence, I do at least spend rather more than fifteen minutes on these occasions when I do show up for work.
Would an author need to spend at least twenty minutes? Or do we need a substantially different definition - hopefully more sharply drafted than the purple prose introductory paragraph above, although I thought my arborial similes were, if nothing else, at least indicative while being facetious.
(As an aside, is it facetious to point out that facetious is the only word to feature all of the vowels of the English language, once only and in the correct order? Probably no more than to point out that the only London Underground station that does not contain any of the letters of the word 'mackerel' is St John's Wood - speaking of which, I would very much like to know who first noticed this staggeringly important fact and, thankfully, brought it to the attention of mankind.)
(And, as an aside to my aside, having wasted valuable blogging time by Googling 'mackerel st johns wood', I have now discovered, thanks to http://forums.warwick.ac.uk/wf/browse/thread.jsp?tid=4549, that the only element in the periodic table similarly unencumbered by mackerel is tin, the only mackerel proof American state is Ohio and something else about some sporting team... but this is a sport-free blog so I will stop there. This was discussed in November 2003 so I could have found all this out nearly five years ago if I had only thought to look. I suspect that is a common lament in the information age and it probably is normally about facts even more trivial than the above.)
To return to my original topic, this blog is an attempt to justify (mostly to myself, but potentially to others, should the opportunity present itself) describing myself as a writer. I am a writer because I write, and here it is, in all its glory. I am, indeed, a published writer because, once I have finished dribbling words through my computer onto the serves at blogger.com, I shall click on the 'publish post' button. This does, of course, entail the shame of self-publishing or, as I put it so wisely in post number 3 (sour grapes and unreasonable expectations): "the dreaded avenue of self-publication, an avenue of shame littered with broken dreams, shattered hopes, purple prose and wheezing, hackneyed, stinking old clichés".
I feel entitled to quote from my own work because it seems unlikely that anyone else will and it's a whole load less effort than producing something new. And yes, I considered making some eco-crack about recycling but decided it was too obvious and too trite. But then I allowed myself to write that previous sentence so that I could have the cake, eat it and, in this sentence, also sell it to some unsuspecting punter on eBay.
Monday, 18 August 2008
Saturday, 16 August 2008
one red paperclip, but the other way around
Kyle MacDonald started with one red paperclip and, through the wonder of the internet, managed to swap it for a house in only fourteen steps. This sounds even more impressive when you appreciate that the steps included a pen in the shape of a fish and a Kiss snow-globe. He wrote a book about his trip and, if you buy a copy, you may hear a slight grinding noise. That would be the sound of Dave Gorman taking out his frustration on his teeth as I'm sure he wishes he'd thought of it first.
Although, since Dave Gorman was responsible for Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, he should feel that he has already had his American Pie moment (the song, not the film). That's not to say that, like Don Maclean, he should never produce anything of similar quality again but merely that he shouldn't feel too hard done by if the muse-of-world-beating-killer-ideas doesn't come to visit again any time soon.
(As an aside, my favourite interpretation of the song American Pie was Don Maclean's own. He was asked what the song meant and replied, "It meant that I never had to work again.")
We are currently engaged in a reverse process to Kyle's, complicated by the fact that it only involves our own possessions and that they must all remain inside our own home. The problem began when we finally replaced the futon which, useful as it has no doubt been, was never intended to have been the place we called bed for quite so many years. At first, given the strangeness of the British furniture market, the new mattress arrived and was duly deposited atop the futon, thus giving a better vantage point from which to examine the ceiling and the tops of the wardrobes. The comfort was excruciatingly good - excruciating in that it led to a torrent of "why didn't we do this years ago?" and other similar refrains. The second step led to the problems. The bed frame arrived.
The futon gracefully stepped to one side, the new bed was assembled, crowned with the new wonder-mattress and slept on with wild abandon and great delight. And yet, like the ghost of sleeping past, the giant grey elephant futon in the room glowered at us, taking furniture-delight in the knowledge that we didn't have the slightest idea what to do with it. It blocked the bookcase. Its lumbering bulk got in the way of the filing cabinet. It doesn't take much for piling to seem easier than filing - and needing to move a futon out of the way effortlessly moved the scales in favour of the pile of pity, the stack of shame, the collection of crepuscular crap.
It was enough to make the hairs on the back of your trousers stand on end.
We toyed with the idea of moving the bookcase away and sliding the futon back against the wall, on the grounds that the bookcase was marginally smaller than the futon and so we were reducing the size of the problem. Still a long way to go to get it down to the size of one red paperclip. The bookcase could then go into the lounge, displacing the CD tower and the wooden shelving unit housing the circa 1989 stereo and, sadly, unfit for any other purpose.
This would then swap down to two items needing rehousing - the beautifully crafted home for the stereo (and the black, seemed-a-good-idea-at-the-time, Ikea CD tower). Unfortunately, it would also remove the bookcase from the bedroom - as well as the calming influence of the presence of books, it also gave a surface for photographs, as well as the Bob Dylan overflow from the black, Ikea, etc CD tower.
The lounge would then have a CD tower in a window bay which would be, let's face it, a waste of window bay space and the stereo would have to sit in place of N's dolls' apartment (as opposed to the dolls' house or dolls' treehouse - any explanation of that will have to wait).
So, we could swap down to one home for city-dwelling dolls while messing up the arrangement of much furniture in two different rooms, all to house a futon which wasn't a particularly great bed and was not endearing itself to us as it was clearly even worse as a sofa. I bought it many years ago - from 2008, looking back, I can't quite work out why.
So, instead, the futon frame has been taken apart and put in the loft - the long piece balancing quite satisfyingly over roof beams. I hope it is stable enough not to make a spectacular re-entry into the flat but, if it ever does, it will at least destroy the kitchen ceiling and possibly take out the fridge, rather than landing on N or us in the middle of the night.
The futon mattress has been cunningly folded in half and then in thirds and leans against the bookcase like a bad yet achingly fashionable chair. The problem has reduced in size. The paperclip seems a long way off. Anyone want to buy a futon? Buyer to collect.
Although, since Dave Gorman was responsible for Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, he should feel that he has already had his American Pie moment (the song, not the film). That's not to say that, like Don Maclean, he should never produce anything of similar quality again but merely that he shouldn't feel too hard done by if the muse-of-world-beating-killer-ideas doesn't come to visit again any time soon.
(As an aside, my favourite interpretation of the song American Pie was Don Maclean's own. He was asked what the song meant and replied, "It meant that I never had to work again.")
We are currently engaged in a reverse process to Kyle's, complicated by the fact that it only involves our own possessions and that they must all remain inside our own home. The problem began when we finally replaced the futon which, useful as it has no doubt been, was never intended to have been the place we called bed for quite so many years. At first, given the strangeness of the British furniture market, the new mattress arrived and was duly deposited atop the futon, thus giving a better vantage point from which to examine the ceiling and the tops of the wardrobes. The comfort was excruciatingly good - excruciating in that it led to a torrent of "why didn't we do this years ago?" and other similar refrains. The second step led to the problems. The bed frame arrived.
The futon gracefully stepped to one side, the new bed was assembled, crowned with the new wonder-mattress and slept on with wild abandon and great delight. And yet, like the ghost of sleeping past, the giant grey elephant futon in the room glowered at us, taking furniture-delight in the knowledge that we didn't have the slightest idea what to do with it. It blocked the bookcase. Its lumbering bulk got in the way of the filing cabinet. It doesn't take much for piling to seem easier than filing - and needing to move a futon out of the way effortlessly moved the scales in favour of the pile of pity, the stack of shame, the collection of crepuscular crap.
It was enough to make the hairs on the back of your trousers stand on end.
We toyed with the idea of moving the bookcase away and sliding the futon back against the wall, on the grounds that the bookcase was marginally smaller than the futon and so we were reducing the size of the problem. Still a long way to go to get it down to the size of one red paperclip. The bookcase could then go into the lounge, displacing the CD tower and the wooden shelving unit housing the circa 1989 stereo and, sadly, unfit for any other purpose.
This would then swap down to two items needing rehousing - the beautifully crafted home for the stereo (and the black, seemed-a-good-idea-at-the-time, Ikea CD tower). Unfortunately, it would also remove the bookcase from the bedroom - as well as the calming influence of the presence of books, it also gave a surface for photographs, as well as the Bob Dylan overflow from the black, Ikea, etc CD tower.
The lounge would then have a CD tower in a window bay which would be, let's face it, a waste of window bay space and the stereo would have to sit in place of N's dolls' apartment (as opposed to the dolls' house or dolls' treehouse - any explanation of that will have to wait).
So, we could swap down to one home for city-dwelling dolls while messing up the arrangement of much furniture in two different rooms, all to house a futon which wasn't a particularly great bed and was not endearing itself to us as it was clearly even worse as a sofa. I bought it many years ago - from 2008, looking back, I can't quite work out why.
So, instead, the futon frame has been taken apart and put in the loft - the long piece balancing quite satisfyingly over roof beams. I hope it is stable enough not to make a spectacular re-entry into the flat but, if it ever does, it will at least destroy the kitchen ceiling and possibly take out the fridge, rather than landing on N or us in the middle of the night.
The futon mattress has been cunningly folded in half and then in thirds and leans against the bookcase like a bad yet achingly fashionable chair. The problem has reduced in size. The paperclip seems a long way off. Anyone want to buy a futon? Buyer to collect.
Friday, 15 August 2008
driving without due care and attention
According to N, Daddy is a much better driver than Mummy. I am not convinced that she is right - and have certainly never compared our driving styles in front of her. Nevertheless, she would have changed her mind if she had had any idea what I was doing yesterday.
Frankly, I blame the BBC. They carried this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7530652.stm
...which concerns the technique called eco-driving. The trouble is, when the screen in the car can give a real-time, as well as average, fuel consumption figure, it is all too easy to drive more in response to what the little wiggly lines and bar charts are doing, rather than being concerned with inconsequential matters such as what the traffic in front is doing.
When I started the car yesterday, it displayed an average figure of about 36mpg - an average based on an unknown amount of time since it also includes the performance of the not-particularly-careful previous owner (quite how he (surely it was a 'he'?) managed to smash the driver's central arm-rest is a mystery to me).
Pressing the reset button for the first time, I arrived at my destination, having proudly achieved 54mpg - and without crashing into moving (or stationary) vehicles, or careering off the road, or choosing a new destination based on where the traffic seemed lightest. Keeping the speed around 60mph on the motorway-class road, I arrived feeling calm and eco-smug, delighted to discover how much quieter the car can be at lower speeds. And I hadn't even driven in the slipstream of a lorry - mostly because the back of a lorry isn't really much fun to look at.
Sadly, the thin patina of enviro-respectability quickly tarnishes. A similar driving style, coupled with rather greater observation of the road, yielded only 46mpg on the way back, together with a realisation that the route had been mostly coasting downhill on the way out and so, inevitably, there was significantly less coasting on the uphill return. Oh, and S arrived after us and so had to bring her car as well.
Today, the outings have involved a walk to the shop for milk and mushrooms. Additionally, N has spent a large chunk of the morning out in dreamland - no doubt recovering from the late night. Negligible carbon emissions for either trip.
And now, I must go and burn some natural gas in order to cook lunch. With any luck, I might even get most of it done before N wakes up. Any carbon dioxide emissions will probably be gobbled up by the Busy-Lizzie desperately trying to take over the windowsill.
Frankly, I blame the BBC. They carried this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7530652.stm
...which concerns the technique called eco-driving. The trouble is, when the screen in the car can give a real-time, as well as average, fuel consumption figure, it is all too easy to drive more in response to what the little wiggly lines and bar charts are doing, rather than being concerned with inconsequential matters such as what the traffic in front is doing.
When I started the car yesterday, it displayed an average figure of about 36mpg - an average based on an unknown amount of time since it also includes the performance of the not-particularly-careful previous owner (quite how he (surely it was a 'he'?) managed to smash the driver's central arm-rest is a mystery to me).
Pressing the reset button for the first time, I arrived at my destination, having proudly achieved 54mpg - and without crashing into moving (or stationary) vehicles, or careering off the road, or choosing a new destination based on where the traffic seemed lightest. Keeping the speed around 60mph on the motorway-class road, I arrived feeling calm and eco-smug, delighted to discover how much quieter the car can be at lower speeds. And I hadn't even driven in the slipstream of a lorry - mostly because the back of a lorry isn't really much fun to look at.
Sadly, the thin patina of enviro-respectability quickly tarnishes. A similar driving style, coupled with rather greater observation of the road, yielded only 46mpg on the way back, together with a realisation that the route had been mostly coasting downhill on the way out and so, inevitably, there was significantly less coasting on the uphill return. Oh, and S arrived after us and so had to bring her car as well.
Today, the outings have involved a walk to the shop for milk and mushrooms. Additionally, N has spent a large chunk of the morning out in dreamland - no doubt recovering from the late night. Negligible carbon emissions for either trip.
And now, I must go and burn some natural gas in order to cook lunch. With any luck, I might even get most of it done before N wakes up. Any carbon dioxide emissions will probably be gobbled up by the Busy-Lizzie desperately trying to take over the windowsill.
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
choosing Derek as a profile photograph stunt-monkey
Sitting down to write a new blog post without the merest shred of an idea in mind is never a good plan. Distraction and diversion go into overdrive - for example, today I thought that it was suddenly very important to improve my Blogger profile. Specifically, I became horrified at my lack of a photograph.
Being the owner of a digital camera, I have no shortage of photographs of myself - taken by others, I hasten to add. Should I choose the smiling, the thoughtful, the jumping, the morbid, the facile or the neanderthal pose? And how about that one, taken by N, not quite straight, not quite in focus and with my camera-supporting foreshortened arm filling the corner? None seemed to chime with rightness.
And then I remembered Derek.
N has a long-suffering soft toy, Derek The Psychedelic Monkey. Much loved, in need of a wash, bedtime comfort and, sadly, extinct. Yes, the Gund Corporation of New Jersey has decreed that this crazy melange of clashing colours in simian form is no longer to be manufactured and, even on the world wide web, I have found none still for sale. So we'd better not lose him. Machine washable, by the way, but only on the delicate cycle.
Somehow, the calm, steady gaze, together with the dependable nature of that enigmatic half-smile, summed up the qualities which I wanted to get across. A purple monkey - it's not how I think of myself and yet...
N is partly to blame for this since she has inherited the family disease of addressing relatives by a rollcall of names, sometimes stopping at the correct one, sometimes overshooting and doubling back, sometimes passing nowhere near before petering out. To that end, I am often known as Derek-Daddy, a name which I find not at all unpleasing.
The two of them are currently asleep, which is why I find myself able to write anything at all during the day. A brief swim this morning in our local pool has worn us both out ("us both" meaning N and Derek-Daddy, not Derek himself - he might be easily washable but takes an implausible amount of time to dry). The month of August has found the toddlers' and the children's pools both closed for maintenance, thereby throwing parent and infant combos into the main pool with the "youth element".
And I find that there is hope for society - the youths in question being loud, boisterous, keen to splash and to congregate obstructively in gangs in the water and on the side and, at the same time, being fun and polite and careful not to disturb the littler ones and overly apologetic over a barely noticeable splash that didn't even go particularly near to N.
I would still rather have a roped-off section for parents with young children - not to protect the young children, of whom the other kids are already sufficiently protective, but more so that the older children can have more of a rumpus without worrying about who's getting a drenching.
Being the owner of a digital camera, I have no shortage of photographs of myself - taken by others, I hasten to add. Should I choose the smiling, the thoughtful, the jumping, the morbid, the facile or the neanderthal pose? And how about that one, taken by N, not quite straight, not quite in focus and with my camera-supporting foreshortened arm filling the corner? None seemed to chime with rightness.
And then I remembered Derek.
N has a long-suffering soft toy, Derek The Psychedelic Monkey. Much loved, in need of a wash, bedtime comfort and, sadly, extinct. Yes, the Gund Corporation of New Jersey has decreed that this crazy melange of clashing colours in simian form is no longer to be manufactured and, even on the world wide web, I have found none still for sale. So we'd better not lose him. Machine washable, by the way, but only on the delicate cycle.
Somehow, the calm, steady gaze, together with the dependable nature of that enigmatic half-smile, summed up the qualities which I wanted to get across. A purple monkey - it's not how I think of myself and yet...
N is partly to blame for this since she has inherited the family disease of addressing relatives by a rollcall of names, sometimes stopping at the correct one, sometimes overshooting and doubling back, sometimes passing nowhere near before petering out. To that end, I am often known as Derek-Daddy, a name which I find not at all unpleasing.
The two of them are currently asleep, which is why I find myself able to write anything at all during the day. A brief swim this morning in our local pool has worn us both out ("us both" meaning N and Derek-Daddy, not Derek himself - he might be easily washable but takes an implausible amount of time to dry). The month of August has found the toddlers' and the children's pools both closed for maintenance, thereby throwing parent and infant combos into the main pool with the "youth element".
And I find that there is hope for society - the youths in question being loud, boisterous, keen to splash and to congregate obstructively in gangs in the water and on the side and, at the same time, being fun and polite and careful not to disturb the littler ones and overly apologetic over a barely noticeable splash that didn't even go particularly near to N.
I would still rather have a roped-off section for parents with young children - not to protect the young children, of whom the other kids are already sufficiently protective, but more so that the older children can have more of a rumpus without worrying about who's getting a drenching.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
a broken pretend gear stick
I was driving. N was watching me intently from the back seat - or so I assume as I was, of course, giving my full attention to the road rather than to the two-year-old sitting behind me. Her view is rather improved since I thought of removing the headrest from the unoccupied passenger seat.
"What's that stick?" she asked.
After working out that she was talking about the gear stick and explaining that it was how I could tell the car how quickly I was going to need it to go, there was a silence, either of intellectual satisfaction or possibly complete incomprehension - it can be difficult to tell the difference while giving my full attention to the road.
"My car has a broken stick," she announced after the next junction.
"Then you won't be able to drive it," I said. "You'll need to get it fixed. The shop where you bought it will probably be able to do it for you." It is a pretend car, often found in unlikely places such as parked behind the armchair near the television or, occasionally, resting under the washing that frequently airs behind the sofa (one of the many joys of the second-floor-flat life).
Some time later - in fact, on the return trip - she told me that Winnie The Pooh and Aunt Larlie had come to visit and had mended the broken gear stick.
(You probably know Winnie The Pooh. You may be less familiar with Wibbly Pig's Big Aunt Larlie who features in the wonderful-in-every-way "Tickly Christmas Wibbly Pig" by Mick Inkpen. You can see a picture of her if you follow this link and use the 'Search Inside' feature:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tickly-Christmas-Wibbly-Pig/dp/0340893516
There's no kind way of putting it - Big Aunt Larlie is a fat pig but, boy, can she knit. Anyway, in N's mind, Big Aunt Larlie, in an act of series cross-fertilisation has escaped from Mick Inkpen's stable and invaded A A Milne's world. She hangs out with Winnie The Pooh every chance she gets and (I hope this won't put you off your dinner) they are definitely cohabiting.)
"That's great!" I said. "You can drive your pretend car again."
But she hadn't finished.
"Winnie The Pooh fixed it," she informed me. "Because he's a man and men know how to fix things."
Where did this come from? I promise it wasn't from me. Being a twenty-first century father, I immediately, and thoroughly, explained that many men couldn't fix a small tear in a paper bag, even if given the correct length of non-twist sellotape, and that many women could actually build all of the ludicrous contraptions that the A Team always managed to throw together out of whatever old scrap was lying around in whichever surprisingly well-equipped barn they'd been locked in.
It might have been more interesting, if rather less useful, if I'd actually phrased it like that.
"What's that stick?" she asked.
After working out that she was talking about the gear stick and explaining that it was how I could tell the car how quickly I was going to need it to go, there was a silence, either of intellectual satisfaction or possibly complete incomprehension - it can be difficult to tell the difference while giving my full attention to the road.
"My car has a broken stick," she announced after the next junction.
"Then you won't be able to drive it," I said. "You'll need to get it fixed. The shop where you bought it will probably be able to do it for you." It is a pretend car, often found in unlikely places such as parked behind the armchair near the television or, occasionally, resting under the washing that frequently airs behind the sofa (one of the many joys of the second-floor-flat life).
Some time later - in fact, on the return trip - she told me that Winnie The Pooh and Aunt Larlie had come to visit and had mended the broken gear stick.
(You probably know Winnie The Pooh. You may be less familiar with Wibbly Pig's Big Aunt Larlie who features in the wonderful-in-every-way "Tickly Christmas Wibbly Pig" by Mick Inkpen. You can see a picture of her if you follow this link and use the 'Search Inside' feature:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tickly-Christmas-Wibbly-Pig/dp/0340893516
There's no kind way of putting it - Big Aunt Larlie is a fat pig but, boy, can she knit. Anyway, in N's mind, Big Aunt Larlie, in an act of series cross-fertilisation has escaped from Mick Inkpen's stable and invaded A A Milne's world. She hangs out with Winnie The Pooh every chance she gets and (I hope this won't put you off your dinner) they are definitely cohabiting.)
"That's great!" I said. "You can drive your pretend car again."
But she hadn't finished.
"Winnie The Pooh fixed it," she informed me. "Because he's a man and men know how to fix things."
Where did this come from? I promise it wasn't from me. Being a twenty-first century father, I immediately, and thoroughly, explained that many men couldn't fix a small tear in a paper bag, even if given the correct length of non-twist sellotape, and that many women could actually build all of the ludicrous contraptions that the A Team always managed to throw together out of whatever old scrap was lying around in whichever surprisingly well-equipped barn they'd been locked in.
It might have been more interesting, if rather less useful, if I'd actually phrased it like that.
Monday, 11 August 2008
fourteen cards, a credit card bill and a new bin
Today is my birthday and so the postman gave to me fourteen cards, one credit card bill, a flyer from AA Insurance Services and a brand new kitchen bin.
Top marks for customer service go to SimpleHuman for their generous and friendly approach to, well, customer service.
And the special award for outstanding effort in a pointless and bizarre endeavour must go to the ParcelForce deliveryman who carefully pulled a heavy, yet tall and thin, plant away from the front door in order to hide the bin behind it. The box containing the bin is about three times as wide as the plant so any opportunistic bin swiper would need to be serious myopic to fail to spot the item of his dreams.
As I was lying in bed, wondering how long I would be allowed to stay put, N ran into the room and launched into a spirited rendition of Happy Birthday. She then handed me an envelope on which she had drawn some boisterous squiggles. "It's a man," she said, pointing at the greyer lines. "What's he saying?" I asked. "He can't say anything because he hasn't got a mouth," she answered. "Maybe you could draw one on and then he could," I said.
She looked at me as though I were simple, but in a kind and caring way - the way I hope a nurse might look at me in another fifty or sixty years when I become totally incompetent. "He's just a picture," she said, finally. "His mouth won't open." She is two and three-quarters and already nonsense must be on her terms or not at all - even on my birthday.
We chose the indoor option for my party yesterday. By late morning, it seemed clear that it would either rain, blow a gale or both during the afternoon - which would not be particularly well suited to sitting on grass, drinking Pimms and munching far too much cake. Bad weather gives me no pleasure but perhaps there was a frisson of schadenfreude when the torrential downpour came in the middle of the afternoon. (Okay, it's probably not technically schadenfreude unless you know the people doing the suffering but I thought it was a fair assumption that some poor idiot somewhere was trying to picnic.)
There's plenty of cake left, which I blame on dieting guests. There wasn't a blog posting yesterday, which I blame on Pimms, red wine, friends staying well into the evening and too much clearing up to do because the party was at home rather than in a field. Only the last of those scapegoats is a bad thing.
Top marks for customer service go to SimpleHuman for their generous and friendly approach to, well, customer service.
And the special award for outstanding effort in a pointless and bizarre endeavour must go to the ParcelForce deliveryman who carefully pulled a heavy, yet tall and thin, plant away from the front door in order to hide the bin behind it. The box containing the bin is about three times as wide as the plant so any opportunistic bin swiper would need to be serious myopic to fail to spot the item of his dreams.
As I was lying in bed, wondering how long I would be allowed to stay put, N ran into the room and launched into a spirited rendition of Happy Birthday. She then handed me an envelope on which she had drawn some boisterous squiggles. "It's a man," she said, pointing at the greyer lines. "What's he saying?" I asked. "He can't say anything because he hasn't got a mouth," she answered. "Maybe you could draw one on and then he could," I said.
She looked at me as though I were simple, but in a kind and caring way - the way I hope a nurse might look at me in another fifty or sixty years when I become totally incompetent. "He's just a picture," she said, finally. "His mouth won't open." She is two and three-quarters and already nonsense must be on her terms or not at all - even on my birthday.
We chose the indoor option for my party yesterday. By late morning, it seemed clear that it would either rain, blow a gale or both during the afternoon - which would not be particularly well suited to sitting on grass, drinking Pimms and munching far too much cake. Bad weather gives me no pleasure but perhaps there was a frisson of schadenfreude when the torrential downpour came in the middle of the afternoon. (Okay, it's probably not technically schadenfreude unless you know the people doing the suffering but I thought it was a fair assumption that some poor idiot somewhere was trying to picnic.)
There's plenty of cake left, which I blame on dieting guests. There wasn't a blog posting yesterday, which I blame on Pimms, red wine, friends staying well into the evening and too much clearing up to do because the party was at home rather than in a field. Only the last of those scapegoats is a bad thing.
Saturday, 9 August 2008
another summer birthday party
Tomorrow I celebrate another birthday, even though my actual birthday is not until the following day. And it looks as though the weather will be sweeping us indoors with our Pimms, our crisps, our fairy cakes and whatever other goodies the friends are bringing.
When I originally said, "If the weather is rubbish, we'll relocate the whole shebang to our home," I had high hopes that we would be basking in a luke-warm summer afternoon, sitting in the gardens of a stately home, eating as much cake as would still allow us to drive home afterwards. Indoor eating may save an untold number of paper plates from landfill but does still present the two additional challenges of clearing up and getting rid of stragglers. The new Nick Cave album ought to achieve the latter but doesn't offer any clues on the former.
N was reluctant to go to sleep this evening, possibly due to an impromptu and lengthy late afternoon nap. Bringing her to the lounge to watch a recording of Top Gear didn't persuade her that sleep was preferable, while a three month old Later With Jools Holland just made her run round the table, waving her arms in the air. I can't really blame her for that one as I was running round the sofa, arms similarly waggling, but at least my steps were in time with the music.
I have not set foot outside the flat today. I'd like to blame bad weather but I fear inertia may have played a part. I'll also blame cakes. There are so many of them to bake for tomorrow.
Returning to a subject on which I ranted earlier this week - my latest rejection letter. I can cope with sentences like this one: "Regrettably I do not feel either novel would be strong enough for our list." It's clear, it's to the point, it expresses personal opinion which, while disappointing, can be respected since everyone is entitled to have one.
I do, however, take issue with this: "Too many names/characters bombard the reader, with not enough focus on the person who is to be the protagonist. The frequent shifts in scenes, too, don’t help to anchor the thrust of the stories."
So I wrote a prologue - a few pages at the beginning of one of the two books, not dealing with any major characters explicitly, in order to set the scene. In a book of about 175 pages, I spent a few pages at the beginning on a prologue. I felt that, as the main protagonist is, well, the main protagonist, I could perhaps wait all of three pages before letting him loose on the story except, of course, he's in the background in those three pages - the reader just doesn't know it yet.
Maybe it doesn't work very well - in which case it could be excised without too much trouble and the main protagonist could enter on page one. Hell, I could even make his name the first two words...
People say that I don't respond well to feedback and, er, I suppose I don't respond well to being told that. I dislike lazy feedback and feedback which I can't use and feedback which is so trifling as to not be worth thinking about. If you don't like the prologue, it can be taken away. It doesn't give you the right to assume that a narrative style employed as a lead-in will be wholly indicative of the rest of the work, to such an extent that the part must stand for the whole and the whole must therefore be worthless.
And what about the other book? Nothing at all about that one. If the rejection letter had just said, "Regrettably I do not feel either novel would be strong enough for our list," then I would have been much happier.
I really need to package up my happy words and post or email them to the next literary agent on my list. It will add an extra frisson of excitement to the sound of the postman or the sight of the Outlook Express progress bar as another message is sucked in from the outside world until, finally, the reply comes and I either celebrate or complain somebody else not appreciating me, the tortured artist.
When I originally said, "If the weather is rubbish, we'll relocate the whole shebang to our home," I had high hopes that we would be basking in a luke-warm summer afternoon, sitting in the gardens of a stately home, eating as much cake as would still allow us to drive home afterwards. Indoor eating may save an untold number of paper plates from landfill but does still present the two additional challenges of clearing up and getting rid of stragglers. The new Nick Cave album ought to achieve the latter but doesn't offer any clues on the former.
N was reluctant to go to sleep this evening, possibly due to an impromptu and lengthy late afternoon nap. Bringing her to the lounge to watch a recording of Top Gear didn't persuade her that sleep was preferable, while a three month old Later With Jools Holland just made her run round the table, waving her arms in the air. I can't really blame her for that one as I was running round the sofa, arms similarly waggling, but at least my steps were in time with the music.
I have not set foot outside the flat today. I'd like to blame bad weather but I fear inertia may have played a part. I'll also blame cakes. There are so many of them to bake for tomorrow.
Returning to a subject on which I ranted earlier this week - my latest rejection letter. I can cope with sentences like this one: "Regrettably I do not feel either novel would be strong enough for our list." It's clear, it's to the point, it expresses personal opinion which, while disappointing, can be respected since everyone is entitled to have one.
I do, however, take issue with this: "Too many names/characters bombard the reader, with not enough focus on the person who is to be the protagonist. The frequent shifts in scenes, too, don’t help to anchor the thrust of the stories."
So I wrote a prologue - a few pages at the beginning of one of the two books, not dealing with any major characters explicitly, in order to set the scene. In a book of about 175 pages, I spent a few pages at the beginning on a prologue. I felt that, as the main protagonist is, well, the main protagonist, I could perhaps wait all of three pages before letting him loose on the story except, of course, he's in the background in those three pages - the reader just doesn't know it yet.
Maybe it doesn't work very well - in which case it could be excised without too much trouble and the main protagonist could enter on page one. Hell, I could even make his name the first two words...
People say that I don't respond well to feedback and, er, I suppose I don't respond well to being told that. I dislike lazy feedback and feedback which I can't use and feedback which is so trifling as to not be worth thinking about. If you don't like the prologue, it can be taken away. It doesn't give you the right to assume that a narrative style employed as a lead-in will be wholly indicative of the rest of the work, to such an extent that the part must stand for the whole and the whole must therefore be worthless.
And what about the other book? Nothing at all about that one. If the rejection letter had just said, "Regrettably I do not feel either novel would be strong enough for our list," then I would have been much happier.
I really need to package up my happy words and post or email them to the next literary agent on my list. It will add an extra frisson of excitement to the sound of the postman or the sight of the Outlook Express progress bar as another message is sucked in from the outside world until, finally, the reply comes and I either celebrate or complain somebody else not appreciating me, the tortured artist.
Friday, 8 August 2008
writer's block and house prices
Day four of the blog and this big empty white square on the screen has been glaring at me accusingly for about ten minutes, no doubt wondering whether anything will be imparted. I'm anthropomorphising a website dialogue box so that can't be a good sign.
A lovely house, a while on the market, has had its asking price reduced. Can we afford it? Who knows..? It depends on whether a buyer can be found for the flat, how generous that buyer feels at the time and, more desperately, whether the (no doubt forthcoming) book deal brings a flood of untold riches.
Anyway, the house is great but the location is potentially rubbish. We are discussing testing it by finding a volunteer to walk around late on Saturday night (around ten past eleven ought to do it), braying into something that looks like an iPhone and carrying something that looks expensive. Mind you, it'll probably rain tomorrow night which would invalidate the findings.
Speaking of rubbish, the new kitchen bin still hasn't arrived. The replacement, nearly three years ago, of our old Brabantia pedal bin by a gleaming, brushed steel SimpleHuman bin was a day of joy. No more would the disposal of kitchen scrapings be announced by the harsh clang of the lid closing. Instead, a smooth glide and a soft clunk would reassure that the smell would be kept in.
Well, that was the case until a couple of weeks ago when the hinge went all squiffy and the lid went all wobbly and clang-bang-wallop ensued. To my amazement, a simple email to SimpleHuman elicited a promise to replace the entire unit free of charge due to the surprisingly generous ten year warranty. But the replacement is yet to arrive and we are now outside the seven-to-ten-days. Maybe it was working days. The clanging continues.
We need a good bin in order to collect an aspirational price for the flat. We could even risk the wrath of the taxman by trying to sell the bin separately for a few thousand quid as a stamp duty work-around.
This plan, however, is probably contingent on the bin being new and fully functioning and also on my being a famous published author, thus endowing a potential receptacle for my rejected scribblings with a value far exceeding sensible expectation. Didn't Dickens sell his dustbin for a few thousand? Amis probably wouldn't even get out of bed to sign a bin unless he was paid a six-figure sum. Archer would be cheaper but one could argue that he never discarded any writing, just gathered up the off-cuts and put them in the next book of short stories. Oh dear - am I having a go at successful authors again?
While writing this, N has woken up and stridently complained that I didn't give her a good-night kiss. This is blatantly untrue but, to be fair, she was asleep at the time so may not have fully appreciated it. She then scrambled around the bed, retreating under duvet, turning suddenly, flailing around as though drumming up business for the dentist. I could almost believe she was trying to prevent another loving fatherly kiss from being bestowed and thereby, in half-asleep infant logic, proving herself right.
A lovely house, a while on the market, has had its asking price reduced. Can we afford it? Who knows..? It depends on whether a buyer can be found for the flat, how generous that buyer feels at the time and, more desperately, whether the (no doubt forthcoming) book deal brings a flood of untold riches.
Anyway, the house is great but the location is potentially rubbish. We are discussing testing it by finding a volunteer to walk around late on Saturday night (around ten past eleven ought to do it), braying into something that looks like an iPhone and carrying something that looks expensive. Mind you, it'll probably rain tomorrow night which would invalidate the findings.
Speaking of rubbish, the new kitchen bin still hasn't arrived. The replacement, nearly three years ago, of our old Brabantia pedal bin by a gleaming, brushed steel SimpleHuman bin was a day of joy. No more would the disposal of kitchen scrapings be announced by the harsh clang of the lid closing. Instead, a smooth glide and a soft clunk would reassure that the smell would be kept in.
Well, that was the case until a couple of weeks ago when the hinge went all squiffy and the lid went all wobbly and clang-bang-wallop ensued. To my amazement, a simple email to SimpleHuman elicited a promise to replace the entire unit free of charge due to the surprisingly generous ten year warranty. But the replacement is yet to arrive and we are now outside the seven-to-ten-days. Maybe it was working days. The clanging continues.
We need a good bin in order to collect an aspirational price for the flat. We could even risk the wrath of the taxman by trying to sell the bin separately for a few thousand quid as a stamp duty work-around.
This plan, however, is probably contingent on the bin being new and fully functioning and also on my being a famous published author, thus endowing a potential receptacle for my rejected scribblings with a value far exceeding sensible expectation. Didn't Dickens sell his dustbin for a few thousand? Amis probably wouldn't even get out of bed to sign a bin unless he was paid a six-figure sum. Archer would be cheaper but one could argue that he never discarded any writing, just gathered up the off-cuts and put them in the next book of short stories. Oh dear - am I having a go at successful authors again?
While writing this, N has woken up and stridently complained that I didn't give her a good-night kiss. This is blatantly untrue but, to be fair, she was asleep at the time so may not have fully appreciated it. She then scrambled around the bed, retreating under duvet, turning suddenly, flailing around as though drumming up business for the dentist. I could almost believe she was trying to prevent another loving fatherly kiss from being bestowed and thereby, in half-asleep infant logic, proving herself right.
Thursday, 7 August 2008
sour grapes and unreasonable expectations
Is it healthy to feel hatred towards someone whose only crime is to not be interested in my work? Probably - after all, the bile has to go somewhere. And such a large portion of bile now that my hot lead has replied with great coolness.
I have wrestled with whether or not to go on the offensive, to rant, to scream and shout and whine and whinge and complain about fairness. After all, I send my work, my carefully honed and polished and cossetted babies, out to the market to see if anyone will buy - and what do I get back but weasel words and patronising platitudes and the strangely comforting form letter?
In some ways, the form letter has much to recommend it. "We don't want it - so shove off." Would I prefer what I received today - ill-considered feedback, tarring two books with a quick impression based on, at most, two pages? Then again, am I being fair? They don't like the work, they have so much more to read before they can go home and have dinner, or watch television, or go to the gym, or meet a friend for a drink, or even go to a book launch and have to network and chat and sell, sell, sell the product. Why should anyone read beyond the point when the attention slips to how cold the coffee has become? They don't owe me anything, my expectations are unreasonable.
Then again, how about common courtesy? But then again, no one asked me to write a book and certainly no one asked me to send it to them so that they could waste minutes of their lives reading it. And there are plenty more sending this stuff in all the time and they only need a handful more every week, from the bulging mailsacks.
This is becoming a rant. Looks like I made that decision while writing this posting. But I won't name names. Not yet anyway. And every rejection drives me ever closer to the dreaded avenue of self-publication, an avenue of shame littered with broken dreams, shattered hopes, purple prose and wheezing, hackneyed, stinking old clichés. And, having written that sentence, I feel overly qualified.
FB - if you ever read this, you might recognise yourself as the target. Am I being unfair? Would you reconsider either your opinion or the manner in which you expressed it? Drop me a line, or send me a comment on this blog which I can moderate.
More positivity tomorrow. After all, it's my birthday on Monday and I must get in the right frame of mind.
I have wrestled with whether or not to go on the offensive, to rant, to scream and shout and whine and whinge and complain about fairness. After all, I send my work, my carefully honed and polished and cossetted babies, out to the market to see if anyone will buy - and what do I get back but weasel words and patronising platitudes and the strangely comforting form letter?
In some ways, the form letter has much to recommend it. "We don't want it - so shove off." Would I prefer what I received today - ill-considered feedback, tarring two books with a quick impression based on, at most, two pages? Then again, am I being fair? They don't like the work, they have so much more to read before they can go home and have dinner, or watch television, or go to the gym, or meet a friend for a drink, or even go to a book launch and have to network and chat and sell, sell, sell the product. Why should anyone read beyond the point when the attention slips to how cold the coffee has become? They don't owe me anything, my expectations are unreasonable.
Then again, how about common courtesy? But then again, no one asked me to write a book and certainly no one asked me to send it to them so that they could waste minutes of their lives reading it. And there are plenty more sending this stuff in all the time and they only need a handful more every week, from the bulging mailsacks.
This is becoming a rant. Looks like I made that decision while writing this posting. But I won't name names. Not yet anyway. And every rejection drives me ever closer to the dreaded avenue of self-publication, an avenue of shame littered with broken dreams, shattered hopes, purple prose and wheezing, hackneyed, stinking old clichés. And, having written that sentence, I feel overly qualified.
FB - if you ever read this, you might recognise yourself as the target. Am I being unfair? Would you reconsider either your opinion or the manner in which you expressed it? Drop me a line, or send me a comment on this blog which I can moderate.
More positivity tomorrow. After all, it's my birthday on Monday and I must get in the right frame of mind.
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
keeping momentum, which is more than could be said for the kite
No reply, as yet, from the editor looking at my work but then I only wrote the (chasing) email last night. This is probably just as well since I cannot imagine that a quick reply could indicate any interest in reading samples of a couple of novels. Not that this makes it good news either - all I can say is that no news is no news and the waiting game continues.
This afternoon, N and I took one of her kites to the park. We had intended to blow bubbles but, unknown to me, the bubbles had been moved to the cupboard under the kitchen sink which was, of course, a place I did not look. Kites, however, were in abundance, all still sealed in their original packaging. I don't know why there are so many here. I chose the most colourful, of course. We assembled it and tried it on a short leash in the car park, until it became clear that it probably wouldn't rain and that the thing might fly, given half a chance.
It didn't really get half a chance but it did get a few trips up and down the hill in the park. It mostly bumped along the grass, occasionally flying alongside us (sadly, rarely above us) before tediously spiralling into the ground.
We mostly attracted the interest of a noisy and very stupid dog which stood about twenty feet down the hill from us, barking incessantly and glaring. I was reminded of an ex-colleague who claimed to have accidentally killed a dog by kicking it as it savaged his ankles. This creature never came close enough for ankle biting so I never had to discover whether I could bring myself to kick a small dog, no matter how annoying it turned out to be. I suspect I would have shooed it away inefficiently and probably tutted and moved away myself instead, while holding N out of reach.
N is my daughter. She is two years old and, without a doubt, the best and most fun little girl ever. I speak objectively, of course. I look after her while awaiting the book deal. This is slightly the wrong way around since, if I get a book deal, I'll be able to continue doing this and, if I don't, the wonderful world of wage slavery awaits. It's tricky though since, while I would know the exact moment at which I signed a book deal (at which point I would continue doing what I'm doing), the points at which I haven't yet signed a book deal could stretch off over the next many decades (please, no), in which case when do I give up the lack of day job? When the money looks like it might run out could be a sensible answer. But it's dull, oh so dull.
Whether this blog is similarly dull is not for me to say. But I am keeping the momentum going by managing to post a second piece on my second day. It might appear that, as an unpublished author, I'm not exactly trying very hard - either to write a lengthy blog that considers the weighty matters of the day or to flog the already completed books sitting expectantly in the hard drive of this computer. This is very true but, looking after a two-year old does not leave a huge amount of spare time in the day, especially now that the afternoon nap is no longer required (by her - I could certainly do with one). Next month she starts nursery, at which point my mornings become available for bothering literary agents and, possibly, starting the third book. Neither of my books were written in mornings - maybe they would have been better if they had been.
I long to have some comments so that I can find out what happens if I click 'Moderate Comments'. In the lack of any requests to the contrary, I might tell the Korg or the kitchen bin story tomorrow, unless something dramatic happens.
This afternoon, N and I took one of her kites to the park. We had intended to blow bubbles but, unknown to me, the bubbles had been moved to the cupboard under the kitchen sink which was, of course, a place I did not look. Kites, however, were in abundance, all still sealed in their original packaging. I don't know why there are so many here. I chose the most colourful, of course. We assembled it and tried it on a short leash in the car park, until it became clear that it probably wouldn't rain and that the thing might fly, given half a chance.
It didn't really get half a chance but it did get a few trips up and down the hill in the park. It mostly bumped along the grass, occasionally flying alongside us (sadly, rarely above us) before tediously spiralling into the ground.
We mostly attracted the interest of a noisy and very stupid dog which stood about twenty feet down the hill from us, barking incessantly and glaring. I was reminded of an ex-colleague who claimed to have accidentally killed a dog by kicking it as it savaged his ankles. This creature never came close enough for ankle biting so I never had to discover whether I could bring myself to kick a small dog, no matter how annoying it turned out to be. I suspect I would have shooed it away inefficiently and probably tutted and moved away myself instead, while holding N out of reach.
N is my daughter. She is two years old and, without a doubt, the best and most fun little girl ever. I speak objectively, of course. I look after her while awaiting the book deal. This is slightly the wrong way around since, if I get a book deal, I'll be able to continue doing this and, if I don't, the wonderful world of wage slavery awaits. It's tricky though since, while I would know the exact moment at which I signed a book deal (at which point I would continue doing what I'm doing), the points at which I haven't yet signed a book deal could stretch off over the next many decades (please, no), in which case when do I give up the lack of day job? When the money looks like it might run out could be a sensible answer. But it's dull, oh so dull.
Whether this blog is similarly dull is not for me to say. But I am keeping the momentum going by managing to post a second piece on my second day. It might appear that, as an unpublished author, I'm not exactly trying very hard - either to write a lengthy blog that considers the weighty matters of the day or to flog the already completed books sitting expectantly in the hard drive of this computer. This is very true but, looking after a two-year old does not leave a huge amount of spare time in the day, especially now that the afternoon nap is no longer required (by her - I could certainly do with one). Next month she starts nursery, at which point my mornings become available for bothering literary agents and, possibly, starting the third book. Neither of my books were written in mornings - maybe they would have been better if they had been.
I long to have some comments so that I can find out what happens if I click 'Moderate Comments'. In the lack of any requests to the contrary, I might tell the Korg or the kitchen bin story tomorrow, unless something dramatic happens.
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
me as a blogger, and dealing with the subject of J K Rowling early
Does every new blogger begin with best intentions of twice daily postings, witty repartee with those posting comment, early serialisation in respected journals and, before the year is out, a book deal, a film deal and a percentage of the soundtrack and action figures? Probably. Well, I'm not convinced I'll manage all of that, although there may be a niche in the market for an executive toy blogger figurine.
As you will know already, if you've read the title, I'm an unpublished author. I've written two children's books and am part way to being able to redecorate my home using rejection letters as wallpaper.
Maybe my writing is just no good, maybe my style doesn't fit with what marketing says is needed this year or maybe the literary agents I've contacted so far only read every seventeenth letter that is sent to them due to the problem that their days are no longer than those of mere mortals (such as I) and yet they have a Herculean amount of ordure shovelling to perform just to check that their desk is the same colour that it was last year.
Maybe I'm out of touch with what children read. There could be truth to this. Other than JKR's HP books, I haven't read any other children's books since I was a child. And, just to deal with the elephant in the room right now...
I'm not expecting to be the next JKR. I feel that, at the very least, my writing is not any worse than much dross which is already published and so I deserve a chance, at least as much as the next scribbler. I do not begrudge her a penny of her income (even though, from what I read in the newspaper, I felt her attack on the author of the HP Lexicon was petty). Personally, I felt that the HP books became overlong and bloated towards the end, almost as though the editor was too frightened of being replaced to suggest a much-needed pruning. But those feelings might have been manifestations of my growing ever more envious as the series continued. I hope not.
The latest news on my journey to publication is... (Well, I don't want to name names because it's inadvisable to pass comment on someone who might provide help, guidance, income...)
So, the books are with an editor, who is an acquaintance of a friend and who works for a major publishing house. This editor kindly agreed to take a look. And, after waiting about two months, I wrote what I hope is a polite and friendly email about twenty minutes ago as a reminder. I claimed it wasn't meant as a nag, which probably will sound like a lie, and that I was only asking for a guess as to when I might hear something. I then padded the email with some other nonsense about how I'd only sent a sample of the work but that I could send it all (which I'd said two months ago when I originally sent the work) - mainly because I felt I should at least pretend I had something more to say.
I'll post updates on here, which will either be celebratory or, if not, will probably be unfairly vitriolic but hopefully interested, pithy, etc.
Further posts may or may not deal with such subjects as maintaining a Korg M1 keyboard, whether SimpleHuman will actually send me a replacement kitchen bin free of charge, and why my local swimming pool has closed the children's pool for the entire month of August. If anyone reads this blog and has any feelings about which, if any, of the above are interesting, feel free to place a request.
As you will know already, if you've read the title, I'm an unpublished author. I've written two children's books and am part way to being able to redecorate my home using rejection letters as wallpaper.
Maybe my writing is just no good, maybe my style doesn't fit with what marketing says is needed this year or maybe the literary agents I've contacted so far only read every seventeenth letter that is sent to them due to the problem that their days are no longer than those of mere mortals (such as I) and yet they have a Herculean amount of ordure shovelling to perform just to check that their desk is the same colour that it was last year.
Maybe I'm out of touch with what children read. There could be truth to this. Other than JKR's HP books, I haven't read any other children's books since I was a child. And, just to deal with the elephant in the room right now...
I'm not expecting to be the next JKR. I feel that, at the very least, my writing is not any worse than much dross which is already published and so I deserve a chance, at least as much as the next scribbler. I do not begrudge her a penny of her income (even though, from what I read in the newspaper, I felt her attack on the author of the HP Lexicon was petty). Personally, I felt that the HP books became overlong and bloated towards the end, almost as though the editor was too frightened of being replaced to suggest a much-needed pruning. But those feelings might have been manifestations of my growing ever more envious as the series continued. I hope not.
The latest news on my journey to publication is... (Well, I don't want to name names because it's inadvisable to pass comment on someone who might provide help, guidance, income...)
So, the books are with an editor, who is an acquaintance of a friend and who works for a major publishing house. This editor kindly agreed to take a look. And, after waiting about two months, I wrote what I hope is a polite and friendly email about twenty minutes ago as a reminder. I claimed it wasn't meant as a nag, which probably will sound like a lie, and that I was only asking for a guess as to when I might hear something. I then padded the email with some other nonsense about how I'd only sent a sample of the work but that I could send it all (which I'd said two months ago when I originally sent the work) - mainly because I felt I should at least pretend I had something more to say.
I'll post updates on here, which will either be celebratory or, if not, will probably be unfairly vitriolic but hopefully interested, pithy, etc.
Further posts may or may not deal with such subjects as maintaining a Korg M1 keyboard, whether SimpleHuman will actually send me a replacement kitchen bin free of charge, and why my local swimming pool has closed the children's pool for the entire month of August. If anyone reads this blog and has any feelings about which, if any, of the above are interesting, feel free to place a request.
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