March 2007 - Posts
Mild celebrations as my story, 'Well Spotted',was accepted by Dimdima Magazine. I received a complimentary email from the editor, but best of all the cheque is in the post.
I have decided that my usual chaotic writing regime must change. It just about works for short stories, but if I go on like this my novel will not be finished until the 2012 Olympics (delayed until 2013 due to strikes, cost over-runs and weak management). So, with Germanic efficiency, I am setting my alarm clock early and writing for half an hour before I get up. Then I type the results in the evening. So far it is working, I have done ten times as much work in the first week.
I am still enjoying 'Huckleberry Finn'. I love the political incorrectness. Everybody shouls read or re-read it before it is banned from schools and burnt in public places by order of central government.
Something good came out of the chicken pox. I actually wrote the third story for Dimdima Magazine. It is now being tweaked before firing it off and hoping it doesn't get fired straight back again.
I received the delegate pack to the London Book Fair (16-18 April). My lapel badge says 'author'. There is a reason for this. It is to warn publishers of incoming fire when authors approach their stands. They can then have long conversations with colleagues until the author gets tired and bored and goes away.
I note that our ever democratic goverment is proposing to site post offices in libraries. It could, of course, be to enable customers to read War and Peace while queuing for twelve first class stamps. The more likely reason is that all those nasty subversive books will have to be removed and probably burnt to make space.
Only childern get chicken pox. I have proved that theory wrong. As I write I look like a badly drawn medieval picture of a plague victim, furtively checking for the skeleton with a scythe behind his back. Friends and family have fled, so I have time for creativity. Not really, as chichen pox is flue with spots and all I can do is stare into space. Creativity is on hold for the duration.
My children's story 'The Littlest Sea Serpent' is just out in Dimdima Magazine. The illustrations give my characters a strange new life of their own. Another story will appear in April and, amazingly, the editor has asked for one more. This produces instant worry. Firstly I may have to write something new. Secondly what if the editor feels she has to reject it as unsuitable or even not very good? The embarrasment would be immense. It is so much better to be rejected by total strangers.
I have finished Margaret Atwood's 'The Robber Bride.' Dispite the terrible title it was elegantly written, as expected, but not very elegantly plotted. I do have prblems with women in literature, having always thought that Anna Karenina could have helped the reader enormously by throwing herself under a train in chapter one. That also applies in my view to several other famous female characters. So maybe I wasn't too sympathetic to a novel about four women with a minimal interest in men. It goes without saying, of course, that I am now enjoying 'Huckleberry Finn' a lot.