As for poor Oscar's coffin, where I usually rest my bag to replace my freedom pass -no chance, because it had a large puddle on it.


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The psyche moves in mysterious ways; and also, it would appear, performs the most unexpected wonders.


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A copy editor once pointed out that I'd written 'look', 'looking' or 'looked' five times in one manuscript page - say, 250 words? Of course it's a copy-editor's job to flag up things which contravene the usual principles of good, fluent writing. And it's my job to decide if, this time, I meant it that way, so I had a long, hard look [sic]. One of them was easily dealt with: it was one of those all-purpose 'It looks like she meant to...' where it doesn't really need to be a verb about the physical act of seeing at all. But the others were all part of the scene and, as such, as much at the core of what was happening as the dialogue was. I think I found a replacement for one more of the 'looks', but stet-ed the others.

One of the nicest small compliments I've ever had about my writing from a pro was the writing teacher who said, 'I might have known you studied drama, Emma: I always know where all your characters are.'

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Was wondering what to do when someone tagged me with 25 Random Things, so I’ll post them here too:

1: I’m an idealist
2: A humanist too
3: I’d rather work for nothing doing something worthwhile than have a job
4: I can cook pretty pretty well (when I want to)
5: I have an honours degree in graphic design
6: I love writing
7: I have an individualistic view on life
8: I have a very musical ear
9: I travelled behind the Iron Curtain when there was one

[more]

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Several funny things have happened since I last blogged. I was headhunted for a job with 'foreign travel opportunities' (this is funny because I have to be put in an arm lock to be persuaded to leave the house most days, what with wanting to write and all).

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It’s not easy, though, to really plumb the Spanish psyche, when all the people you meet are waiters, couriers or shop assistants. I craved more in-depth conversation, even in English.


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1) I can change genres without having to change my name.

2) I revel in comments such as “Good for you for following your dream”, instead of “I haven’t heard of your book”, “How much then do you earn?” or the classic, “Ooh, would you take a look at my work?”

3) Tax forms? Not for me – I’m an artist, not an accountant.

4) My self-esteem is not dependent on sales figures or reviews on Amazon. It relies solely on my own view of my work until the submission process and even then I can dismiss an agent who’s rejected me as a narrow-minded jerk.



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I’ve just had a nice advance review for Kill-Grief. It’s on my website here:

http://www.carolinerance.co.uk/reviews.html



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In Under the bugle-beaded bonnet I said, as something of an afterthought, that because what I most notice in excellent writing is the things I couldn't do myself and ideas which I must work to apprehend, I associate excellent writing with ideas and things I don't do and only sort-of understand. In which case my writing - which by definition is ideas and things which I do do and do understand - is not excellent.

It's not just me, is it? At any rate, this phenomenon's a funny mixture: part of the necessary schizophrenia of the writer. On the one hand, humility becomes writers, since none of us are Shakespeare. And it's only the truly awful (or very, very beginnery) writers who have so little sense of what's good writing (because they have yet to learn to be bad), that they think they're terrific. On the other hand it takes a thick streak of confidence that you have something to say and some craft with which to say it, or none of us would ever show our first poem to a friend, or fight for years to get published.

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'Next!'
The Great Careers Officer in the Sky pushes her horn-rimmed spectacles up her nose, adjusts her beard, and sighs. It's been a long day. She shifts the damp, wriggling bundle onto her knee and hopes for a swift dispatch down the Tunnel To The World.
'So.' She eyes the fidgeting one without enthusiasm. 'What do you want to Be?'
The infant hiccups and fixes her with a watery, yet penetrating stare.
'Well?' The Great Careers Officer in the Sky manoevres the child into launch mode, thinking of Ovaltine and Jeremy Paxman.
A thought-bubble pulses around the child's head. 'I think...' it whispers, 'I need to...'
'Spit it out, do -' snaps The Great Careers Officer in the Sky, then wishes she hadn't as a gobbet of undigested ambrosia further dampens her knee.

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