Home Thoughts Weekly

Thank you to all of you who entered the draw to win a copy of Turning the Tide. All the names were placed in a hat (one of my berets, in fact. I wasn't wearing it at the time 'though) and the one Tom picked out at random was... Elizabethd! I hope you enjoy it, Elizabeth.

It’s all right, you can look – I’m not even going to mention You Know What ... well not until the end, anyway. Lily is poorly so we’re off to Cardiff today to give her some TLC. Looking after Lily means I won’t be a danger to myself in Cardiff, which is what happened a couple of weeks ago. I had a few minutes before I was due to meet Tom so thought I’d wander round the new John Lewis store to look at all the things I can’t afford. But before I got there, I noticed a bevy of gorgeous women offering some sort of beauty treatment. For someone who’s resisted all that stuff all their life (and it shows, dear reader), I’ve been slightly seduced by my ten pound manicure in New York so I decided to take a closer look. ‘You want eyebrows threaded?’ said one lovely lady. Did I? I’m pale-skinned with fine hair, not exactly a rain forest among women, yet when I took a close look at the rest of them with their perfectly-arched eyebrows, I had a real desire to be in the Beautiful Eyebrow Gang. ...

Look what the postman just delivered! For someone who’s supposed to be able to tell you about these things in words, I’m really struggling to describe the feeling of seeing everything I’ve worked and hoped for come together. Choc Lit produce the most beautiful covers; I’m utterly thrilled with mine and I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to hold a copy of Turning the Tide in my hands at last.

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...

So there we were, fish and chips from the Hake Inn at, er, Hakin, balanced on our laps watching the fondant colours in the sky and an unusually flat, calm quicksilver sea. ‘We’ll always remember this evening, won’t we?’ we said, pausing only to blow on piping hot chips. A romantic tryst at Milford Haven? Not as unlikely as it sound, I’ll have you know. We’ve spent many happy hours on or around the Haven. In fact, we’ve come to some of our best decisions bobbing around in a little wooden boat there. But this time we were looking across the Haven pleasantly passing the time whilst the country made a decision. Well, we will remember Election Night 2010, not because we sat up through the night (all right, I did grab a couple of hours kip at 3.am, but Tom was a real trouper) to watch the dawning of a new government, but for reasons that everyone’s all too familiar with by now. Ah well, what Laura Kuenssberg (what a star!) has been referring to all day as the ‘fluid situation’ is playing ou...

Well, that’s it . A few days of absolutely no peeping so that I can spot any mistakes when I sit down for a final read-through, then it’s print it in triplicate and send if off to the OU. My End of Course Assessment, the culmination of two years of hard work towards my Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing. Sheesh! I’ve worked hard for this, much harder than when I went through the sausage-machine of university the first time – just goes to show what you’re prepared to do when you really want something as opposed to thinking you want something. It’s going to be very strange not always having the next Tutor Marked Assignment ahead of me, but there’s lots to look forwards to on the writing front. I’m going to really enjoy concentrating on the current novel, but I’m also hoping to find time to write and submit more poetry too. The photo is a summary of two years work. My trusty knitted monkey sits on my printer – goodness knows I’m not a soft toy person, and my preferred tea is Earl ...

THIS is happening to 'Turning the Tide' at the moment! If you click on the picture it enlarges... not sure 'Turning the Tide' will reach any schools though! Ooh! Sorry to do a bit of Trumpet Tootling but I feel very honoured to have my own Author's page at Hilary Johnson's Authors' Advisory Service. I was very fortunate to meet Hilary through the Romantic Novelists' Association's New Writers Scheme and used her service when I wanted a professional opinion of my initial draft of 'Turning the Tide'. I can honestly say it was Hilary's belief in my work since those early RNA days that gave me the tenacity to keep going!