Home Thoughts Weekly

Lately, I have been mainly composting. Well, that’s the answer I gave Kath Eastman yesterday when she kindly asked during a Twitter ‘conversation’ where I was with my writing. Only, instead of a series of wooden bins in a corner of the garden, I’ve got the notebook/box file equivalent. Hopefully they’re not filled with rubbish either, but with all sorts of ideas which, with a bit of alchemy, will transform themselves into a fertile growing medium for future work. My current notebook is the one with the raw ideas, all the base ingredients I’ve picked up and collected, hoping to make them into something sparkly. Flicking through at random, there’s a cutting on the use of external landscapes in fiction to reflect internal portraits, a poem by Simon Armitage and a picture of a hamster sitting in a mug. There are lists of names, words, messages to self and stabs at haiku: Winter clouds sinking. Sear yellow; summer’s last grass. Run it in colour. By stepping back a bit, and ...

After a seven hour car journey and a near-death experience in the Cambrian mountains where an oncoming driver is trying to create a dual carriageway in the narrow pass, we arrive at our hotel in Bury St Edmunds. ‘You’re in the chalet with the four poster,’ the receptionist tells us cheerfully. I’m less thrilled, ‘chalet’ being something I associate with Butlins not the lovely old building on the hotel’s website. Making our way across the courtyard I hear what sounds like an orchestra warming up from the other chalets; that’s because an orchestra is warming up in the other chalets. Once inside though the chalet is quiet, clean and cosy - if a little reminiscent of eighties suburbia. Still we’re not here to admire the decor, it’s a quick wash and brush up before heading into town for the Choc Lit authors (well, four of us) ‘Girls’ Night In’ at Waterstone’s Bury St Edmunds. Stand by your Books! Sue, Christina, me and Margaret It’s not true that all my nerves evaporate when Jen, the m...

My sense of direction, never wonderful, fails completely when I’m in London so, despite detailed instructions from Tom, I still end up walking in the wrong direction and have to phone to be reoriented. Still, at least I’ve got as far as St James’s Park without falling down the gap boarding the train at Epsom, laddering my tights or snapping the heel off my shoes – all fears which have been haunting me. Reaching the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the venue for the RNA summer party, my next fear is that no one will talk to me and I’ll be left standing on the side like the girl nobody wants to dance with. Fortunately this too becomes a needless worry. The problem isn’t about having no one to talk to, but rather the opposite; there just isn’t enough time to catch up with everyone. It’s a great delight to meet my fellow Choc Lit authors Sue, Christina and Margaret for the first time (Jane and Juliet, we missed you!) and to catch up with Lyn, Publisher Extraordinaire. We share a few...

... I am up to them today. In view of author blog nomination thingy should probably be jumping up and down doing the 'oooh, look at me!' bit, but not v.comfortable doing that sort of thing anyway. However, I have joined my fellow Choc Lit authors for a blog on how we got started. There are photos too. Sigh.

If you've been wondering where all the good men come from, wander over to Choc Lit Author's Corner where we've been writing about where we find ours... Hmm, some of those good men are a tad naughty though.