Here's a message from the great magazine Candis, about an event I will be attending in August:
We’re delighted to invite you to join us for a very special reader event with not one, but three published authors on 3rd August in Birmingham
Have you ever thought you could write a novel? Maybe you’ve started and need advice about how to get it published or perhaps you’ve got a great idea for an autobiography but aren’t sure how to start. If so, then our aspiring author event is just what you need to kick-start your career as a novelist. We’ve brought together three established authors who are happy to share their experience, advice and anecdotes.
Janey Fraser is author of The Au Pair and Happy Families (Random House). She also writes as chick lit queen Sophie King and has published non-fiction titles. Janey’s session will outline the path of a fledgling author. “You’re more likely to succeed if you know the tricks of the trade.”
Viv Groskop, writer, broadcaster and comedian, is author of I Laughed, I Cried (Orion). She’ll be holding forth on how to turn your life into a story. She says, “I’ll be looking at how to get your work read by agents, publishers or readers and also how to get coverage for your book.”
Flic Everett is a journalist and author of the e-book The Only Friends You Need. Flic’s session will cover the pros and cons of e-publishing – navigating the whole process from costs to working out what sells. “I’m delighted to share my experience with you to help you get a flying start.
Reserve your place
Date: Saturday 3 August
Time: 9.30am-4pm
Venue: Novotel, Birmingham
Cost: £40 special rate (usual ticket price £55 for non-members of Candis)
To book: Call and quote Janey or Jane
What's included?
Welcome drinks
Three-course lunch
Welcome from Editor Debbie Attewell
Talks and Q&A sessions
Goodie bag
Entry into a prize draw to win a JoyTAB Duo Pro tablet worth £179.99
Friday, 26 July 2013
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
Am I the only one with an odds and sods drawer?
Am I the only one who smiled at a recent survey about throwing things out? Apparently, we all have a drawer, somewhere in the house, where we put things that we can’t bear to chuck – but which we don’t need right now.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a kitchen drawer like that. Houses in my life have come and gone but the odds and sods drawer, as I call it, has been there for ever.
It’s not that I’m a hoarder (I leave that to other members of my family, no names mentioned...). It’s just that I can’t help feeling a certain attachment to items which any sensible person would pop out on the Tuesday morning bin collection.
“What have you got in yours, then? “enquired my sister curiously.
Let’s see... There’s a cork, for a start, which I’m pretty sure comes from a bottle of sparkling wine masquerading as champagne to celebrate a special occasion. I can’t quite remember what that was although I think it might have been my eldest son’s twenty first. So of course, I couldn’t possibly jettison that.
Then there’s a collection of loose batteries which I have attempted to shepherd into an old ice cream container, except that the lid is loose and they keep falling out. Every now and then, when a clock stops, I’ll dip into my battery box only to find that the ‘new’ battery must in fact be old because it doesn’t work. Someone along the years, has muddled old batteries with new and one day I’ll have time to sort them out. But not just now.
Then there’s the collection of blue, pink, yellow and white cake candles heavily garnished with wax from children’s birthdays over the years. One or two have cracked and balance precariously from the waist if you attempt to stand them in the middle of my sunken sponges (all my sponges sink but newish husband kindly says they still taste great). I ought to throw them out but each one represents a milestone in my children’s lives. Besides, what if we run out and need spares?
Oh dear. Is this really a table tennis ball even though we don’t possess a table tennis table any more? Still, we might get another one day. And as for this collection of red elastic bands courtesy of the postman, everyone knows that they can come in handy for all kinds of things. In fact, my purse is secured with one, right now.
Talking of purses, there are a few foreign coins hanging around in my odds and sods drawer. Not sure where they come from or whether they’re still legal tender. But you can’t throw away money, can you? It doesn’t feel lucky.
Finally (well not really as there’s quite a lot more in there), I can spot a small iron triangle containing what looks like a long thin line of mercury. It looks like it might belong to something rather technical. Like the heating system three generations ago. Better keep it just in case it’s still crucial. Don’t you think?
You get the picture. Well, housewifely skills never were my thing. I’d rather spend my time writing. But if you have an odds and sods drawer, please email me and tell me about its contents. We might print the worst – I mean, the best – on my blog.
Meanwhile, you might like to read a short story I wrote about all those bits and pieces we can’t bear to throw away. It originally appeared in Woman’s Weekly. Hope to hear from you soon!
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a kitchen drawer like that. Houses in my life have come and gone but the odds and sods drawer, as I call it, has been there for ever.
It’s not that I’m a hoarder (I leave that to other members of my family, no names mentioned...). It’s just that I can’t help feeling a certain attachment to items which any sensible person would pop out on the Tuesday morning bin collection.
“What have you got in yours, then? “enquired my sister curiously.
Let’s see... There’s a cork, for a start, which I’m pretty sure comes from a bottle of sparkling wine masquerading as champagne to celebrate a special occasion. I can’t quite remember what that was although I think it might have been my eldest son’s twenty first. So of course, I couldn’t possibly jettison that.
Then there’s a collection of loose batteries which I have attempted to shepherd into an old ice cream container, except that the lid is loose and they keep falling out. Every now and then, when a clock stops, I’ll dip into my battery box only to find that the ‘new’ battery must in fact be old because it doesn’t work. Someone along the years, has muddled old batteries with new and one day I’ll have time to sort them out. But not just now.
Then there’s the collection of blue, pink, yellow and white cake candles heavily garnished with wax from children’s birthdays over the years. One or two have cracked and balance precariously from the waist if you attempt to stand them in the middle of my sunken sponges (all my sponges sink but newish husband kindly says they still taste great). I ought to throw them out but each one represents a milestone in my children’s lives. Besides, what if we run out and need spares?
Oh dear. Is this really a table tennis ball even though we don’t possess a table tennis table any more? Still, we might get another one day. And as for this collection of red elastic bands courtesy of the postman, everyone knows that they can come in handy for all kinds of things. In fact, my purse is secured with one, right now.
Talking of purses, there are a few foreign coins hanging around in my odds and sods drawer. Not sure where they come from or whether they’re still legal tender. But you can’t throw away money, can you? It doesn’t feel lucky.
Finally (well not really as there’s quite a lot more in there), I can spot a small iron triangle containing what looks like a long thin line of mercury. It looks like it might belong to something rather technical. Like the heating system three generations ago. Better keep it just in case it’s still crucial. Don’t you think?
You get the picture. Well, housewifely skills never were my thing. I’d rather spend my time writing. But if you have an odds and sods drawer, please email me and tell me about its contents. We might print the worst – I mean, the best – on my blog.
Meanwhile, you might like to read a short story I wrote about all those bits and pieces we can’t bear to throw away. It originally appeared in Woman’s Weekly. Hope to hear from you soon!
Posted by
at
02:38
Short story - Odds and Sods
There are all kinds of things in the drawer. Old birthday candles with the wrong number of matching candle holders. A champagne cork. An instruction book for a long-deceased washing machine. A smooth brown pebble. A ribbon. A lone navy glove.
Does everyone else have an odds and sods drawer? Somewhere to house all that stuff that just doesn’t seem to belong anywhere else?
‘Just chuck it all out,’ said my daughter dismissively as she sorted through my china. ‘You don’t need it, Mum.’
Ah but I might! Take this big ball of string. Reminds me of the time when I didn’t shut the window properly in our first house and it smashed in the wind. It was a Bank Holiday Monday and we couldn’t get anyone to come out and mend it. So Alan – who cheerfully confessed he wasn’t much good at DIY – tied it up until it could be sorted out properly. And after that, we always kept string for emergencies.
‘What about that old pink ribbon?’ asked Emily, crouching down next to me. ‘You don’t need that.’
Ah but I do! ‘When I was expecting you,’ I told her, ‘I bumped into a gypsy bang outside the antenatal department. Thought it might be bad luck to walk past so when I gave her a pound, she handed me a bunch of white heather and a pink ribbon. Six months later, you were born.’
My pragmatic daughter fingered the ribbon with new reverence. ‘ Do you think it was a coincidence?’
I shook my head, continuing to rifle through the drawer. They’d be here soon and I really should have done this ages ago. Perhaps I ought to throw away the candles but then again, how could I? Each represented so many different stages in my children’s lives. I could remember slaving for hours over birthday cakes; one year, I’d made a pink sweet shop supported by candy twirl sticks but when I came down in the morning, it had collapsed.
‘Don’t worry,’ Alan had said. ‘We’ll prop it up with marzipan. It’s the taste that counts.’
He always saw the bright side of life, did my husband.
‘Where did the champagne cork come from?’ asked Emily curiously.
Ah! Now that’s asking. I can see it now. All those people from work and Alan pretending he was looking forward to his early retirement instead of having it forced on him. ‘What will you do with all your spare time?’ someone had asked him and he’d put his arm around me and given me a warm squeeze. 'Spend it with my lovely wife,’ he’d said, which brought such a lump to my throat that I couldn’t speak. No one else knew, you see.
‘Just a party,’ I lied.
‘Well you don’t need this.’ Emily was getting tougher now as she waved the woollen navy glove in front of me. ‘What’s the use of one without the other?’
That’s what I’d said when the time eventually came for Alan to go. We’d been everywhere together. It seemed inconceivable to be going it alone.
‘Hi Mum. Everything all packed?’ Ben, my eldest came striding in, accompanied by Nellie, my eight year old grand-daughter who flung her arms around me. Greedily, I breathed in her smell which catapulted me back down the years to when her father was that age.
‘More or less,’ said Emily, writing ‘China’ on the box. ‘ Tell Mum she doesn’t need this rubbish in her bottom drawer, apart from this rather nice ribbon.’
But Emily already had her nose in. ‘Look Dad. String!’
‘Fantastic. We’ve been searching for some at home to finish off that art project for school. Mind if I borrow this? And candles too. That’ll save me having to buy some for a certain someone’s birthday, won’t it Miss?’
Ben was one of those new dads who ran the house while their wife went out to work.
‘Actually, I wouldn’t mind this screw driver,’ said my daughter. I hadn’t even realised it was in there. ‘And do these batteries work because if so…’
Somehow, before my eyes, the odds and sods drawer was disappearing. Just then, there was a knock on the door.
‘The removal men are here, Mum,’ said Ben gently. ‘Let’s leave them to it shall we?’
I took one last look around my home where Alan and I had shared so many happy memories.
‘Come on Gran,’ Nellie was tugging my hand. ‘I can’t wait for you to see your new room. Dad and I have spent ages decorating it. You’ll be able to read to me every night!’
‘She’s right,’ said Alan inside my head. ‘Time to move on, love.’
It was only a short drive but I shook with nerves, remembering what the nurse had said. ‘He’s a different man, now. His mind will never quite be the same again.’
Holding onto my grand-daughter’s arm, I made my way down the path towards the converted annexe which my son and daughter- in-law had added to their house. The back door was open but he wasn’t inside. He was sitting in the garden, waiting.
‘Hello, love,’ said Alan as though I’d just popped out to the shops. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea? It’s a bit nippy out here. Think I might come in.’
I took my husband’s cold hands between mine as his face gazed trustingly up at me, like the child he’d become. ‘Here, love, put this on.’
He frowned at the glove I’d taken from the drawer to hold inside my pocket, for comfort along with the pebble from our honeymoon. ‘But there’s only one.’
I laughed and he began to laugh too, like someone who’s pretending to see the joke. ‘Ah but we’ll buy a pair soon,’ I said through my tears.
And we would. Because there were two of us again, back in our drawer. Two old odds and sods. A perfect mis-match.
Does everyone else have an odds and sods drawer? Somewhere to house all that stuff that just doesn’t seem to belong anywhere else?
‘Just chuck it all out,’ said my daughter dismissively as she sorted through my china. ‘You don’t need it, Mum.’
Ah but I might! Take this big ball of string. Reminds me of the time when I didn’t shut the window properly in our first house and it smashed in the wind. It was a Bank Holiday Monday and we couldn’t get anyone to come out and mend it. So Alan – who cheerfully confessed he wasn’t much good at DIY – tied it up until it could be sorted out properly. And after that, we always kept string for emergencies.
‘What about that old pink ribbon?’ asked Emily, crouching down next to me. ‘You don’t need that.’
Ah but I do! ‘When I was expecting you,’ I told her, ‘I bumped into a gypsy bang outside the antenatal department. Thought it might be bad luck to walk past so when I gave her a pound, she handed me a bunch of white heather and a pink ribbon. Six months later, you were born.’
My pragmatic daughter fingered the ribbon with new reverence. ‘ Do you think it was a coincidence?’
I shook my head, continuing to rifle through the drawer. They’d be here soon and I really should have done this ages ago. Perhaps I ought to throw away the candles but then again, how could I? Each represented so many different stages in my children’s lives. I could remember slaving for hours over birthday cakes; one year, I’d made a pink sweet shop supported by candy twirl sticks but when I came down in the morning, it had collapsed.
‘Don’t worry,’ Alan had said. ‘We’ll prop it up with marzipan. It’s the taste that counts.’
He always saw the bright side of life, did my husband.
‘Where did the champagne cork come from?’ asked Emily curiously.
Ah! Now that’s asking. I can see it now. All those people from work and Alan pretending he was looking forward to his early retirement instead of having it forced on him. ‘What will you do with all your spare time?’ someone had asked him and he’d put his arm around me and given me a warm squeeze. 'Spend it with my lovely wife,’ he’d said, which brought such a lump to my throat that I couldn’t speak. No one else knew, you see.
‘Just a party,’ I lied.
‘Well you don’t need this.’ Emily was getting tougher now as she waved the woollen navy glove in front of me. ‘What’s the use of one without the other?’
That’s what I’d said when the time eventually came for Alan to go. We’d been everywhere together. It seemed inconceivable to be going it alone.
‘Hi Mum. Everything all packed?’ Ben, my eldest came striding in, accompanied by Nellie, my eight year old grand-daughter who flung her arms around me. Greedily, I breathed in her smell which catapulted me back down the years to when her father was that age.
‘More or less,’ said Emily, writing ‘China’ on the box. ‘ Tell Mum she doesn’t need this rubbish in her bottom drawer, apart from this rather nice ribbon.’
But Emily already had her nose in. ‘Look Dad. String!’
‘Fantastic. We’ve been searching for some at home to finish off that art project for school. Mind if I borrow this? And candles too. That’ll save me having to buy some for a certain someone’s birthday, won’t it Miss?’
Ben was one of those new dads who ran the house while their wife went out to work.
‘Actually, I wouldn’t mind this screw driver,’ said my daughter. I hadn’t even realised it was in there. ‘And do these batteries work because if so…’
Somehow, before my eyes, the odds and sods drawer was disappearing. Just then, there was a knock on the door.
‘The removal men are here, Mum,’ said Ben gently. ‘Let’s leave them to it shall we?’
I took one last look around my home where Alan and I had shared so many happy memories.
‘Come on Gran,’ Nellie was tugging my hand. ‘I can’t wait for you to see your new room. Dad and I have spent ages decorating it. You’ll be able to read to me every night!’
‘She’s right,’ said Alan inside my head. ‘Time to move on, love.’
It was only a short drive but I shook with nerves, remembering what the nurse had said. ‘He’s a different man, now. His mind will never quite be the same again.’
Holding onto my grand-daughter’s arm, I made my way down the path towards the converted annexe which my son and daughter- in-law had added to their house. The back door was open but he wasn’t inside. He was sitting in the garden, waiting.
‘Hello, love,’ said Alan as though I’d just popped out to the shops. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea? It’s a bit nippy out here. Think I might come in.’
I took my husband’s cold hands between mine as his face gazed trustingly up at me, like the child he’d become. ‘Here, love, put this on.’
He frowned at the glove I’d taken from the drawer to hold inside my pocket, for comfort along with the pebble from our honeymoon. ‘But there’s only one.’
I laughed and he began to laugh too, like someone who’s pretending to see the joke. ‘Ah but we’ll buy a pair soon,’ I said through my tears.
And we would. Because there were two of us again, back in our drawer. Two old odds and sods. A perfect mis-match.
Posted by
at
02:36
Wednesday, 3 July 2013
Am I the only one to get two parking tickets in a week?
Am I the only one who’s had two parking tickets in a week? Now before you read any more, I want you to know that I’m actually a good girl. I don’t smoke. I can’t drink (that’s another story). I don’t lie. And I never ever park where I shouldn’t. (With the following two exceptions, obviously.)
But last week, I nipped into my local city for a little light shopping and gaily popped two hours’ worth of change into the car park meter. I nearly did three but then again, I wasn’t going to be any longer, was I?
Well I wouldn’t have been, if it hadn’t been for the complex duvet world we seem to inhabit. Now I’m old enough to remember when duvets first came in. The word ‘tog’ had to be looked up in a dictionary and some people, including an aunt, referred to them as “doo vays” with the accent on the first syllable.
Since then, I’ve bought quite a few doo vays during both my married lives, but newish husband and I have been doing up our bedroom. So I thought we might just splash out on another.
Indeed, I got so carried away in John Lewis, debating the pros and cons of goose down or feathers or synthetic or allergy free, (helped by an absolutely brilliant assistant) that I completely forgot about my two hour deadline.
When I returned, there was a waspish coloured sticker on my windscreen. (Why is the combination of yellow and black so threatening?) The nice enforcement officer totally sympathised when I told her that the fine was more than I’d just saved in the John Lewis sale. We also had a chat about Hungarian goose feather versus polyester. But we also agreed that I only had myself to blame for the car parking ticket. Never again, I told myself ...
Two days later, I was playing truant again. Usually I write all morning but on that day, I had signed up for a botanical art class in a village I didn’t know very well. (The thing about moving from London to Devon, by the way, is that everything is so new and unfamiliar that you don’t know any of the villages very well.)
The class was held in a sweet little hall with a free car park at the back. Perfect. I was running fifteen minutes late (as I’d finished off a chapter of my new novel before leaving home) so I dashed in, just in time for the demo. A lily, since you ask.
Two hours later – by which time my own lily resembled an angry puffed up face crossed with a hard boiled egg suffering from acne - I nipped back to the car to check my emails and discovered a black and yellow sticker on the my windscreen. Not again! Only then did I see the sign "Pay Here", surreptitiously hidden on the back of a machine in the corner of the leafy car park. Turned out the latter wasn’t free at all.
The fine was more than the cost of my art class and not nearly as much value. How could I be so stupid? Naturally. I tried looking around for a parking officer but he’d scarpered. All I could find was a bloke in orange coming out of the Gents with the word Council on his back. “Try ringing to say you don’t know the area,” he suggested, doing up his flies.
Good idea. But all I got was an automated message. So I complained to that, instead.
OK. I know I was in the wrong on both counts. But the following day, I got a phone call from my youngest son who has just got (subsidised) wheels. “Mum,” he said. “I’m really sorry but I got a ticket. I did actually pay for one but it turned out it was for the bay next to mine. Don’t suppose you could help me out, could you?”
Did I say two parking tickets? Make that three...
But last week, I nipped into my local city for a little light shopping and gaily popped two hours’ worth of change into the car park meter. I nearly did three but then again, I wasn’t going to be any longer, was I?
Well I wouldn’t have been, if it hadn’t been for the complex duvet world we seem to inhabit. Now I’m old enough to remember when duvets first came in. The word ‘tog’ had to be looked up in a dictionary and some people, including an aunt, referred to them as “doo vays” with the accent on the first syllable.
Since then, I’ve bought quite a few doo vays during both my married lives, but newish husband and I have been doing up our bedroom. So I thought we might just splash out on another.
Indeed, I got so carried away in John Lewis, debating the pros and cons of goose down or feathers or synthetic or allergy free, (helped by an absolutely brilliant assistant) that I completely forgot about my two hour deadline.
When I returned, there was a waspish coloured sticker on my windscreen. (Why is the combination of yellow and black so threatening?) The nice enforcement officer totally sympathised when I told her that the fine was more than I’d just saved in the John Lewis sale. We also had a chat about Hungarian goose feather versus polyester. But we also agreed that I only had myself to blame for the car parking ticket. Never again, I told myself ...
Two days later, I was playing truant again. Usually I write all morning but on that day, I had signed up for a botanical art class in a village I didn’t know very well. (The thing about moving from London to Devon, by the way, is that everything is so new and unfamiliar that you don’t know any of the villages very well.)
The class was held in a sweet little hall with a free car park at the back. Perfect. I was running fifteen minutes late (as I’d finished off a chapter of my new novel before leaving home) so I dashed in, just in time for the demo. A lily, since you ask.
Two hours later – by which time my own lily resembled an angry puffed up face crossed with a hard boiled egg suffering from acne - I nipped back to the car to check my emails and discovered a black and yellow sticker on the my windscreen. Not again! Only then did I see the sign "Pay Here", surreptitiously hidden on the back of a machine in the corner of the leafy car park. Turned out the latter wasn’t free at all.
The fine was more than the cost of my art class and not nearly as much value. How could I be so stupid? Naturally. I tried looking around for a parking officer but he’d scarpered. All I could find was a bloke in orange coming out of the Gents with the word Council on his back. “Try ringing to say you don’t know the area,” he suggested, doing up his flies.
Good idea. But all I got was an automated message. So I complained to that, instead.
OK. I know I was in the wrong on both counts. But the following day, I got a phone call from my youngest son who has just got (subsidised) wheels. “Mum,” he said. “I’m really sorry but I got a ticket. I did actually pay for one but it turned out it was for the bay next to mine. Don’t suppose you could help me out, could you?”
Did I say two parking tickets? Make that three...
Posted by
at
10:14
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