Oops!

I published a post on my Facebook page but totally forgot about my blog! The Boggins of Willow Drove is finished! I finally completed my debut children's novel on target during October half term, have edited the manuscript and have now started the daunting task of approaching agents with it. The first agent I sent it to was Curtis Brown and they replied very quickly, which in itself is a rarity. It was ultimately a 'no' but it was a very positive no!

They said my submission stood out immediately amongst the THREE HUNDRED submissions they receive each week and they very much enjoyed reading it. At this time, however, there is not an agent looking for that type of book to market - I assume they meant due to the historical element of the story - so for now, it is a no.

I was disappointed but also very much encouraged as my work stood out enough for them to read it straight away rather than push it to the bottom of the slush pile. A personal reply is always a good sign too rather than a generic 'thanks but no thanks' email. So onwards and upwards! I shall carry on submitting and see what happens.

In the meantime, I have started work on ideas for a non-fiction book and have picked up where I left off with Airtight, the novel I started eighteen months ago. I have already written 26,000 words of it and would like to finish it before starting to write a brand new book. I loved writing for children but have lots of ideas and plots for adult fiction too... THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY! :) Happy New Year!

Progress and delays...

I managed to write a good 5000 words last week but this week, due to a death in the family, I have written none :( Hopefully, I can get back on form and get into writing mode once again. I am so pleased at how the book is coming along and the story is coming together. It might just be my best yet... :)

I've just read The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins (better late than never!) and really enjoyed it. It comes out as a movie later this year so I watched the trailer and was deeply disappointed... it's set in the US and not in London and although Rachel, the main character, is British, the rest of the cast is American. Why do they do that?! I loved the gritty storyline and the railway setting of the novel. I could picture the rattling trains and the graffiti and the weeds and the tracks as I read it, typical scenes of a mundane, railway journey into London. I'll watch the film but I'm betting it's going to be rubbish compared to the book, as is usually the case.

I have just been bought and started to read A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman (thank you Kyle!). I love a nice bit of prose and this book so far is jam-packed full of it! The storyline interested me – an elderly woman waiting for her last big adventure in life. Seems all the more poignant now after the events of this week...

Rest in peace, Crystal x

Time to get cracking!

Well, I've cleaned the house from top to toe, overhauled the straggly garden and spent a wonderful week in Italy with the one I love... now I have four weeks left of the summer holidays and it's time to get my third novel finished! I have been so busy over the past few months, that writing has been almost shelved, but my job allows me precious time to get back on top of things and I am going to use it wisely. 

I've no real clue how much I still have to write to complete the book. At a guess I'd say I am two-thirds of the way through but I know from past experience that my storyline's can deviate away from the original plot and sometimes completely change path altogether. The Charm's ending was going to be pretty depressing with Lorna dying... but as I wrote the final chapters I had a change of heart and I kept her very much alive. I'm so glad I did because I have plans to write a sequel eventually, called A Charmed Life, which I couldn't do if Lorna was six foot under!

So, I have a brand new laptop, the sky is full of clouds and today writing commences! :)

My column from Queen Bee, Spring 2016

Kiss and make-up?

Being a forty-something woman, I am fortunate enough to be more than a little comfortable in my own skin. After all, I’ve been staring back at my mush in the mirror since the days of glam rock… I’ve pretty much got used to it by now. What I do find baffling, however, is the current trend for young women to layer on so much slap, they become almost unrecognisable from the flawless canvas that lay beneath. A lack of confidence, unrealistic portrayal of celebrities in the media or just having a pretty best mate can all push a girl into cosmetic addiction.

Contouring is big business, with everyone from teenagers to middle-aged women spending a small fortune on not just one foundation but three separate bottles of polyfilla; all in a bid to create the illusion of bones that don’t actually exist. And it doesn’t stop there.

We have brow kits that create monstrous Brooke Shield-esque arches of chestnut and ebony, which allegedly ‘frame the face’. Lip maximizers that plump the flesh to near bursting point. False eyelashes so long, so black, so menacing, I often mistake them for house spiders and either scream when I spot one lying on the bathroom floor or worse, try to beat it to death with a slipper. Next up, layer upon layer of concealers, bronzer, highlighters, blusher, shimmer sticks and eyeshadows, creating an alluring effect of having fallen head first into a rainbow.

And let’s not forget the mouth – lips outlined so far outside the actual lipline, it’s hard to decipher whether you are looking at a girl or a pufferfish.

What worries me most is what happens when said young woman falls in love? It’s a bit like the chicken-fillet dilemma of the 1990s… when the illusion of a perfect pair of breasts ended in utter dismay after removal of hot pink Wonderbra with added fillets revealed a couple of fried eggs…

Most of us, if we’re honest, fall in love with a face. Everything else is an added bonus. So what happens when said young woman eventually has to remove the mask, exposing her canvas and she looks nothing like the goddess she resembled ten minutes before scrubbing commenced?

I’m all in favour of enhancing your features and making the most of what you’ve got and personally, I wouldn’t be seen dead without my Double Wear. But I think its time girls started to embrace their natural beauty and realise that less really is more. Hiding behind a mask is for villains and we all know women are the true heroines of this story.

Good morning!

My children's book is coming along nicely – slowly but surely. I've just finished writing Chapter 8 and have written 22,000 in total so far. I have so much less time to write now than I did when I wrote my first two books, which is frustrating, but I'll get there eventually! For this chapter I have had to research ancient medicinal herbs and discovered this interesting fact about the Romans...

''Remember, these people also believed that a person could cure a headache by tying a fox's genitals to their foreheads, and that eating the heart of a donkey could cure epilepsy.''

Fascinating!!

Clouds

I've been a little preoccupied lately and my writing has fallen by the wayside but seeing as I've had an unexpected free Sunday afternoon, I've managed to pick up where I left off and have started writing chapter seven of my children's book, secretively titled TBOWD!!!

I also made the mistake of opening and reading Airtight today. It's half-written and I shelved it last autumn to write TBOWD... Very big mistake!! I now want to pick up where I left off and finish it! Argh!!! I need to ditch my day job! There are not enough hours in the day! :)

I'm playing Marc and the Mambas 'Torment and Toreros' album as I write. There are some very beautiful songs on there but none more so that Your Love Is A Lesion, which is slightly disturbing seeing as it's about domestic abuse but as I'm feeling a little dark today, here are the lyrics.

My hands tied behind my back

You forced me to love you

Down on my knees I lied

My real self stays locked safe from you

My ears always ringing

And the tears always brimming

It's so hard to keep you at bay

Maybe I won't bother today

Blood smeared across my mouth

This love leaves me lost without you

But when will we tire of disease and desire

And I'll turn around and I'll destroy you

But your love leave a lesion

And it gives me a reason

It's so hard to keep you at bay

Maybe I won't bother today

The touch of the bruises

The pain that amuses

My hand always shielding my eyes

My hand always shielding my eyes

And here is the song...

https://youtu.be/L8Np2SLr1ag

My latest magazine article

From Queen Bee, Winter Issue

Patriotism is a wonderful thing. The French are brilliant at it. But amongst our fair isles, patriotism is only usually seen during times of sporting conflict. We’re not a very proud nation. Given the slightest opportunity to slag Britain off, we will. The government! The weather! The NHS! Immigrants!

England’s recent departure from the Rugby World Cup caused a Facebook furor amongst my collection of British friends. So much so, I read their comments with genuine shock; thread after thread of long, aggressive spats between grown men (and women – shame on you!) throwing around more racist insults about each others homelands than tries scored throughout the entire competition.

All I could think about as I read page after page of antagonism, was the Christmas present I received four years ago. It wasn’t a diamond ring or a Mulberry handbag. It was a small cardboard box that contained a little pot to spit into. Being of mixed heritage, I had always wanted to have my DNA tested, just to see exactly where my ancestors same from. And it was the best present I have ever received.

Several weeks later, the results came through. I discovered my fatherline was of mainly French and Spanish descent (despite coming from Country Mayo, Ireland) which confirmed our link to the Spanish Armada. My motherline was much more exotic. Markers from Egypt and Iran, Yemen and Turkey, plus an extremely rare marker originating from a very elite group of people living in the Middle East 2000 years ago. It was fascinating. I discovered that a million people in the UK descend from Romans and that my blue eyes descend from a single genetic mutation 10,000 years ago. And he lived by the Black Sea… hence my Persian marker.

We may be fiercely patriotic about out birthplace but if we all looked at the bigger picture, we would see that our genetic paths criss-cross the globe, each unique line making us who we are today. If you live with somebody who refuses to believe they are anything but English / Welsh / Scottish / Irish through and through, buy them a DNA kit for Christmas. It’ll be the making of them. We are all immigrants!

So let’s stop hurling racist insults at one another and stop and think about where we came from. After all, the purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one…