Have spent most of the day trawling my way slowly, slowly through the vast numbers of notes I took on last week’s Away Day. It’s like wading through treacle. When you have no map. Soon I think I will lose the will to live entirely. Hey ho.

Still, I’m much cheered by the thought of nipping into town at lunchtime to look at eternity rings, hurrah! I’d like one with emeralds, as the engagement ring is an emerald and, dahlings, you know how I do so hate to clash … UPDATE: I found a ring I really, really, really like in Cry For The Moon. Swoon. I’ve asked them to put it aside till Lord H and I can see it together on Saturday. It’s fabulous – I am seriously in love with it. Give me jewellery and give it to me now!... Oh Lordy, but I hope he likes it too. Anyway, while I was there, I also paid in a cheque (for books, double hurrah!), picked up a copy of the Radio Times and tried to see if there was anything about Goldenford or me in this month’s Writers’ Forum magazine – there wasn’t. Lordy, but I have a planet-sized ego for sure – just a shame I don’t have the confidence to go with it. Now there’s a scary thought ...


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Thank goodness the email appears to be back online at work again, after one week of floundering around in the ditches waiting to be rescued. Sigh. Not sure what I might have lost though, but I'm hoping that if it's anything urgent then whoever sent it might contact me again. Or that the situation will have resolved itself without my interference. Much the best way really. Interestingly, the stuff I do have appears to have been sent twice, which means my inbox wasn't as scary as I first thought. Thank the Lord ...

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Well, we are at issue 9 already, almost at our hundredth review.... not quite!
What do we have this month? Four collections that were longlisted for the world's richest short story prize, the Frank O'Connor international short story award, including Writeworder Vanessa Gebbie's Words from a Glass Bubble....

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Well I don't suppose it never will be when it's spent in A & E. Yup I have been a little bit poorly. To sum up without boring you... felt a bit rotten last week and developed a sore foot, which on Friday was so bad I couldn't walk on it. And then it got worse. I can honestly say that I have NEVER EVER, EVER been in so much relentless pain. I mean it PROPER hurt. And then I became nauseous. And got a temperature. And shivery. And that all turned into a bit of a fever. Didn't sleep a wink last night - not a wink. The pain was excruciating (I know what that word feels like now!) and I was dripping with sweat.

So this morning, my beloved took me to the hospital. And I am so glad she did. Things could have got really nasty.


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Managed to get ourselves to church this morning and actually it was okay. Though I did start singing the third hymn in the tune I knew with great gusto, only to realise that everyone else, including the organist, was using an entirely different tune. Ah well, I never did like going along with the crowd, you know. I managed to u-turn gently into the correct tune - or a passable resemblance of it - by the second verse, so I can only hope they didn't notice the join. Hmm, some hope eh.

For the rest of the day I've been typing away on The Bones of Summer and have now nailed that extra chapter with the key scene with Craig's father's church, hurrah! I feel really happy about it too. So I'm about a third of the way through the edit and am even looking forward to tackling the rest ...


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Here's a new one on me: a brand new literary magazine, The New Anonymous, is calling for submissions of fictions, prose and poetry which it will publish anonymously. This gave me pause. I am still pausing. Here is their mission statement:.......

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Anyone who's dipped more than a toe in the waters of creative writing knows that much of the craft (and art) of any writing is in re-writing. But even once you've discovered that writing 'The End' is only the beginning, it can be hard to know how to go about that rewriting which we all know is the making of the piece. I know of writers who re-write each page until it's perfect, then never change a comma. I know writers who write scenes from wherever they fancy in book in their head, then stitch it all together at the end, and writers who do the same without knowing even where those scenes come from. I know writers who revise yesterday's work by way of getting back into it, before continuing with today's, and writers who don't re-read a word they've written till the whole first draft is down. A quick dip into a random selection of the Paris Review interviews, either in the anthologies or the absolute goldmine which is the online archive, will show you that, of even the authors who are willing to say how they work, the possibilities are endless.

I know how I work, and why it works for me, and if I'm asked, I'll tell.

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My writing friend Kuzhali Manickavel has just published her first short story collection, the wonderfully-titled "Insects are just like you and me except some of them have wings". If you like humorous, offbeat, moving and lyrical short stories, then this book is for you. ....


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A DESCRIPTION, WITH PHOTOGRAPHS

The Inspiration Machine is essentially a tube which presents the user with a series of four inspirational stimuli, a combination of words, letters, images - both abstract and figurative - as well as some Egyptian hieroglyphs. These stimuli are revealed through revolving windows in independently movable paper sleeves. To use the machine, the person in need of inspiration may either think of a random number, or roll a die to generate a number. A preference for 'up' or 'down' is also either expressed or randomly generated by means of a coin toss. The first rotating sleeve is then turned the requisite number of times in the indicated direction, revealing the first of the inspirational stimuli. This process is repeated until all four windows have revealed a stimulus. It is then up to the user to interpret those stimuli in whatever way they wish.

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Have spent this morning continuing the edit to The Bones of Summer. I've added in one of the scene additions and its aftermath that the report suggested and I think it's deepened it. So far so good. And hey, more words too, which is a bonus - I'm nothing if not a short novelist. The next move is to add in a key scene with Craig's father's church, but that'll take some thinking about so I may not tackle it today. In the edit, I've also read through one of the sex scenes, and even though The Literary Consultancy were happy with the sex writing, I think I might cut it back a little. I don't want to move too far from my plot for no reason. It's a difficult balance sometimes, but hey I'm not complaining!...


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