Staff

Well I said that the next time I blog it will be about puppies and shoes and it is sort of, although my puppy is six years old and the shoe in question is mostly in her stomach. It's not her fault, her dog walker's had flu and she's been cooped up for a bit, so I forgive her, plus it wasn't one of my very best ones and now I have a reason to buy a new pair.

It made me think though how reliant I have had to become on paying people to help me out. I used to tease a friend of mine about her 'staff' telling her she was a proper lady of the manor - but actually I employ quite a lot of people now. It's not that I am lazy or rich - I am actually the opposite of those things. Its just that there are only a certain number of waking hours in every day (although my baby thinks there are considerably more than I do).

When I do have some time when I am not trying to write a book with a baby on my knee whilst singing him my version of Copacabana (where everyone loves a banana) I don't want to clean the house. I want to play with my baby and little girl, talk at length with her over every single dance move of The High School Musical trilogy and bake some cakes or something! After all I also pay people to look after my eight year old three afternoons a week after school and very soon my baby will be starting part-time at nursery. This is not the way I want it, this is the way it is. Granted I have my dream job, a job I love most of the time - but like most working mums I also have the bills and the mortgage to pay - still I do feel wracked with guilt on a daily basis, and what spare time I have is play time not dusting time. So I have a lady who comes and cleans for me. Apart from anything else it means I tidy up at least once a week in preparation for her arrival, which has got to be a good thing.

Why do I need a dog walker, you might ask? Walking a dog is fun - and at weekends I do walk her and I love it, although recently she has taken to making flying leaps into the canal for no apparent reason, which always results in drama because she seems to be the only dog on earth who can't do the doggy paddle and results in another trip to the groomers (I pay someone to groom my dog too). but during the week i rarely get time to give her the exercise she needs. I have recently exchanged one dog walker for another. My first a surly teen who grew more monosyllabic as each week passed announced his retirement grimly just before Christmas - he has plans of becoming a rock star - I don't think walking a poodle did his cred any good. His replacement is the same age but a good deal bouncier, much like the dog. I also pay for a personal trainer -I need to be shouted at, I'm not naturally drawn toward training shoes as they tend not to have kitten heels - and yet I still don't seem to have the body of Angelina Jolie though....

If my budget as endless what else would I pay people do for me?

Pick up my clothes and hang them up. By the end of the day I'm exhausted - that clothes hanger just seems like a step too far.
Take my make-up off and apply a night cream - see above.
Drive me places. I don't like driving. I didn't learn until I was 35, its just seems wrong to be all these big hunks of metal whizzing along a high speed. I do like being a passenger though, that's one of my best things.
Shoulder massage. One a day would seem like a bare minimum.
Deliver flowers daily - a bunch of tulips always gives me a lift.
Cook me healthy fresh food - I'm fairly sure the microwave doesn't count.
Produce chocolate at a moment's notice.

Twelve Months in the Life of....

Funny how the last time I wrote something here, almost a year ago, it was also snowing. I'd spent the morning rolling around in it with my dog and my daughter and I still feel pretty much the same way about snow today as I did then. I am fully over it. And that really is the only thing over the last year that hasn't changed.

I suppose if anyone has troubled to come back to this blog over the last few months they'll be wondering why I haven't posted anything here for so long. Perhaps they'll think I've been too busy, or I couldn't be bothered or that I'd given up writing all together. The truth is that when ever I sat down to blog, I've reflected on everything that has changed in my life over the past few months and I've been speechless - or more accurately wordless. I've found it impossible to describe until now.

For starters it is almost a year since I became divorced. This isn't something that I feel I can write about here - its too personal, but for some months instead of writing about emotional turmoil I've been living it. I was my decision, if there is anyone to blame it is me - I want to say that, but that's all.

In February of this year my last book THE ACCIDENTAL FAMILY was published. It was a book I'd been meaning to write for a long time - a sequel to THE ACCIDENTAL MOTHER a book that several readers who had enjoyed that book had asked for, both in the UK and America. It sold into accounts well - everybody was optimistic - but the the book didn't do quite as well as previous titles. Perhaps because it was published in a dark depressing February when the credit crunch was really starting to bite, perhaps because in retrospect the title and the cover didn't work as well as they could or perhaps because it simply wasn't good enough. But in any case, it shook my confidence. I'd written it during a very emotionally turbulent time struggling to write about things that were in someways the exact opposite of what I was experiencing in my daily life.

Last year was also the year of being pregnant. I can't say that I loved being pregnant - I don't think I suit it especially and with all the other ups and downs and stresses going on around me it wasn't exactly an idyllic time. But my baby son is here now and he is wonderful. He and my daughter are a constant source of joy. Writing when you are pregnant is a curious thing. Its almost like someone has peeled off a layer of your skin, as if your nerve endings are exposed to the world. You feel everything more keenly, joy more intensely, sadness more deeply. Every day, every hour, from minute to minute is a roller coaster of emotion. But the words keep flowing, the ideas keep coming, its a very creative time, a time of creation - and of acid reflux - there's a lot of acid reflux too.

I've moved house twice last year too. Firstly into a rented house which felt a little less comfortable that camping in a leaking tent in the pouring rain during the winter in a peat bog. And I had to pay almost a thousand pounds a month for the privilege. And then into my new house, which is lovely but brand, brand new and taking some settling into. And also there are those annoying little things - like the fact that once you move into it, it's all full of stuff that needs putting away. Must get round to that sometime...

Which brings me to the practical reason that I haven't blogged here for so long. In amongst all of the other things that I have been doing I've also written two and a half books. THE MAKING OF ELLIE WOODS which will be published in April 2010, and its American edition which will be called A HOME FOR BROKEN HEARTS out in September 2010. Also my teen supernatural novel NEARLY DEPARTED written under the name of Rook Hastings which is out next month and half of its follow up novel IMMORTAL REMAINS which will be out next September. I've also planned and will soon be starting work a new novel for adults to be published in 2011, its an idea that I am really excited about.

So that is it. I don't suppose the last year has been any more or any less difficult or tumultuous than the average persons, and there have been some wonderful moments in amongst all the difficult ones. And from now on I'm going to try and blog here more regularly and I promise that the next thing I write will be about shoes and puppies. Seriously.

Snowdrops on lashes

My writing schedule works on one simple basis. I can get all the work I need to done on time as long as ABSOLUTELY nothing happens. This includes no illnesses, no power cuts, no Internet interference, no car break downs, no impulse trips to the shops to buy spam because for the first time since 1978 i fancy spam (the canned spiced ham, younger readers, not the nuisance electronic mail), no unexpected and lengthy phone calls from beloved but verbose friends who like to tell you long stories about people you don't know and finally and most importantly NO SNOW.

Monday morning 7a.m wake to find world carpeted in a glittering garland of snow. 7.15 Lily my seven year old little girl wakes up.
'Look out of the window!' I whisper, all agog.
'Oh yeah, snow,' she says decidedly unimpressed, which is a symptom of her going on her first skiing holiday with her dad over Christmas. It appears that a seven year old can experience a surfeit of snow.
'I means your school will probably be shut,' I tell her.
'Does that mean I can watch telly all day?'
'I know, lets build a snowman!'
'Can I have a packet of skips.'
It's 7.30 in the morning you can't have a packet of skips.'
'Then why are you even thinking of building a snowman?'

And so it goes on. Anyway a couple of hours later and suitably girded, Lily in her skiing all in one suit (more of that later) me in a pair of leaky boots and a sheepskin coat that an eighties premiership manager would have rejected.
'Let's make a really big snowman,' Lily says enthusiastically.
'Yay, lets!' I am prepared for a mother/daughter magic moment.
'You make it, I'll watch.
Lily does not watch. Lily rolls around in the snow. I am quite charmed by her rolling around in the snow so forgive her for abandoning the snowman project before its even begun. However it soon becomes apparent that under the lovely fresh snow she was rolling around was a message. A message left by a particularly large dog. (NOT mine. I am a responsible owner)
Gingerly we go in. Have you ever tried to peel an all in one ski suit plastered with poo off of a near hysterical child. You must try it. It's a blast.
So we had an extra day together and it was lovely, poo aside. And we had Tuesday (Lovely) and now Thursday (LOVELY) and it looks like probably Friday too. And I love her being at home. She is a great laugh, she's funny and smart and great company. She's not that keen on my working though when she's around and neither am I. I'm so busy most of the time that when she is here I want to be with her. So my precariously balanced schedule slips back a week.
Not to mention my lack of wardrobe. I have a small house. My house is so small that literally the whole thing would fit in the hallway of my friends house (Think flashy new build faux Georgian, fake pillared, gated community stoke broker pile). I'm short of storage so reluctantly I decided to sell my lovely Edwardian oak wardrobe and get a fitted one from Sharpe's. For two weeks now my clothes have been piled up on my tiny office floor waiting for the new roomy wardrobes to come. I have been writing (or not) amid a cacophony of frocks, a confection of underwear, a hails of hats and a pile of shoes that nearly reaches the ceiling. (My house is small but there is always room for shoes.) Today was D day. Today my super dooper new wardrobes were due to be fitted but they did not come. Why?

SNOW.

I am so over snow.

It's been a very long time since I blogged last - months and months in fact and a lot in my life has changed since then, but then that's the nature of life isn't it? Nothing ever stays the same.

One of the reasons I've been quite on the blogging front is because I have been so busy on the writing front, working to get my new book ready for publication in February. I am just about there now, only page proofs to read and then ta-da! There's the book all finished. Its a bit like childbirth, in a very small way in that as soon as you see it you forget all the pain and angst of producing it and want to do it all over again.

To be fair the kind of book I write isn't really as prone to pain and angst as most people, how artistic can one get over a romantic/dramatic/comedy? I'm not Proust after all, if I smell cake all I want to do is eat it.

I am hover, now sort of a Russian Novelist in that last week I got the Russian translation of THE ACCIDENTAL MOTHER. I love getting foreign language translations - although in this case I really, really wish I could read Russian because the text is actually annotated with asterisks and extra explanations and I'd love to know which bits! If any one reading this happens to be fluent in Russian please do let me know....

Also last week ANOTHER MOTHER'S LIFE - which is the U.S title for THE ACCIDENTAL WIFE - was published in America and by all accounts its doing quite well and is to be put on a list called The Indie Next Notable Book list in December, which is great news. It's such a thrill for me to think of my books being read in other countries, or at all by anyone anywhere. I will never stop feeling privileged to have this job.

So now I have three books at page proof stage which, purely coincidentally as they all different publishers, will all be out in February 2009. THE ACCIDENTAL FAMILY - the sequel to THE ACCIDENTAL MOTHER, when you can find out what happened next to Sophie, Louis and the girls, RUBY PARKER SHOOTING STAR, the fifth and penultimate book in the Ruby series, where Ruby braves Hollywood again and MOMMY BY MISTAKE which is the US title for THE BABY GROUP.

And by the end of this year I will have started my new children's paranormal series called WELCOME TO WEIRDSVILLE and early next year I'll be starting my new women's novel, which is Top Secret at the moment but I can't wait to start it.

So here I am, back blogging, dipping my toe in the water once again and hoping to be much more present here over the next weeks and months...ONWARDS!

The Injustice of Judges

God knows I hate to be judged, but the thing about being a writer is that you are essentially inviting the whole world to judge you, should they feel inclined to. In fact you are rather hoping that at least some of the world will want to judge you, and that a percentage of them will rule in your favour.

On the whole I'm fairly immune to the judgements of others. For example I wear what I like, which is usually party wear even if its a rainy Monday morning and I'm taking my daughter to school. Like the lead character in the book I am writing I'm 'a woman who enjoys a sequin on a weekday and has a rule that the the heels of my shoes should never dwindle below three inches.' Subsequently some peole look at me a little askance on the school run, but what do I care? The answer is I don't. Life is too short for sensible shoes and a raincoat.

So me, judge me all you like - I can take it. But please DO NOT JUDGE MY DOG.

Yes this blog is all about my dog not winning HAPPIEST DOG category at the local dog show last weekend. Its a travesty.

My dog, Polly is a standard poodle. She's not a poodlefied poodle, she doesn't have the poodle hair cut, she rolls about in mud and likes to steal food - just now she stole an entire packet of fresh Parmesan out of the fridge is even now sleeping it off on the sofa murmuring Italian in her dreams. She would never win crufts. She was the decided runt of the litter, a good deal smaller than she should be, with buck teeth and a wonky eye. And well....lets put it this way I used to take her to puppy training classes but she got expelled for leading the other puppies astray.

I have never planned a life of dog show glory for her. But when my little girl begged me to take her to the local dog show where there were categories like 'Prettiest eyes' and 'Best rescue dog' I had to relent.

'Polly will definitely win 'Happiest Dog, Mummy,' my daughter cried. 'Look at her!'

And at the time she was snacking on one of my best shoes and she did look pretty pleased with herself, so I thought why not?

I should have known that we weren't going to fit in when the man on the registration desk looked at me wrestling Polly to a standstill and asked me 'Does she behave?'
'Yes she does,' I informed him tartly. Because it was true, of course she 'behaves' as long as you are non-specific as to type of behaviour then you cannot deny that she 'behaves' only it is usually quite badly.

Also I didn't have the right uniform on. Yes it was a county dog show, but I thought it was more for fun and fundraising than anything. I didn't know that a wellington boot and a barber jacket were obligatory. I thought a gold sling back and a red summerfrock would be fine. Plus whilst we were waiting for our class to come on an ice cream was dropped and Polly rather smartly helped save the environment by polishing it off - leaving her with ice creamed smeared chops that only just surpassed that of my daughters.

So eventually it was our turn to line up to be judged. Me, my dog and daughter stood in line with spaniels and dobermans, collies and Labradors, mongrels and pure breeds and I'm thinking this is a cinch - we are defiantly going win - sure these dogs look happy but my dog is the only one jumping up and down and barking and you can't get happier than that.

The judge approached us, I wanted to ask her how she quantified happiness in a pet, was it a look in their eye, the cock of a tail or tilt of an ear or was it that they were literally jumping for joy - because that was what my dog was doing, edging her far ahead of the field I'd say.

Only I didn't get a chance to ask her because before I could Polly put her front paws on the judges shoulders and licked her face all over.

'She's happy to see you,' I said enthusiastically. The judge did not smile back.

We waited for a long time while she frowned and looked up and down the lines of dogs. There were six prizes. Polly didn't even get one.

And that my friends, is a travesty. I demand an enquiry.

Publication Palpitations

So its finally here, the eve of the official UK publication of THE ACCIDENTAL WIFE. Thursday 24th April 2008.

I've written about this before, but oh well - let's talk about it again. This part, the publication part is a bit like waiting for a boy to call you. Yes, its the nearest thing I can think of to being a teenager in love, once again. You know, when you're not sure if you are going to get that call you've been longing for to be asked out to the youth club disco by the boy from the year above, where you will both stand on opposite sides of the room until the slow dance at the end of night, where upon you will magnetically connect at the mouth and snog for three and half minutes without even coming up for air until 'Careless Whisper' is finished and you have to retreat to the opposite sides of the room again and ignore each other.

Okay - its not EXACTLY like that. But it is exciting, pulse thunderingly nerve wracking, stomach twistingly scary and also, some of the time, bewilderingly anticlimactic.

I think that that last part is because publication day is a bit like - and oh I am loving my metaphors here today - losing your virginity once a year. The deed is done, and you feel as if something about you should have changed. There should be fireworks, a certain look in you eye, perhaps a particular knowing wisdom should alight you. You should be able to walk down the street and have people point and stare and say 'Look - she's written a book, you can tell just by looking at her.'

But its not REALLY like that, either. It's really like sending your child off to school on their first day. (metaphor number three, I'm counting) You are full of hope and pride and you just pray you've done enough to help them hold their own in the big bad world.

Still, as emotionally turbulent as the whole process is, there isn't a single moment I don't thank my lucky stars that I have a 'publication day' at all. And really there is only one final eloquent, erudite, sophisticated phrase that can truly sum up how I am feeling. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!

Spring Fever

I don't know about you but I genuinely do go a bit mad around this time of year. There's something about daffodils that make me a bit giddy and gives me the feeling that I should be off somewhere exotic, like Casablanca, sipping strong coffee, having adventures and not worrying about the consequences. After all in the scheme of things it wouldn't amount to a hill of beans.

But of course there are a few practical issues with running off to far flung places on a whim. The school run is one of them, plus we have to use up that half eaten packet of ham in the fridge by Thursday. This may be the female writers dilemma because like all working women, hang that, all women, we tend to have a lot of things to do. Dare I suggest, though, that for writers it might be even trickier. One minute we are busy working on a highly emotionally charged scene that may result in the climax of the novel and the next we are sorting socks, walking the dog, finding best teddy or searching for the remote.

Plus when you get to a certain age (about 10 plus)running around in daffodils is not considered seemly, especially if you don't happen to have dog or a child at hand to lend an air of respectability.

Why now? Why at this time of year do I feel restless and excited and uncertain and scared and glad to be scared? I don't know, maybe its the wind, maybe its the glimpses of blue sky after an age of grey. Perhaps its the promise of summer on a mild day or the glamour of the spring flowers making an appearance in my garden. Or maybe its because my new book is due to be published in April.

Yikes.