Blogging is not just about unburdening our feelings and whinging. It can also be for a noble purpose, and this is one of those. Author Patry Francis, whose debut novel The Liar’s Diary came out in hardcover from Dutton last spring, was recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. After undergoing several surgeries, her prognosis is good. Today sees the trade paperback release of The Liar's Diary, but, since Patry won't have much energy to promote the release, a large number of blogging authors across the globe are getting together to do it for her. This is the blogsphere at its best! Read more about it on Maryanne Stahl's blog.

And the good folk at Penguin are supporting this initiative: Penguin Group USA would like to offer 15% off the paperback edition of The Liar’s Diary when purchased online from us.penguingroup.com until 2/15/2008. On the shopping cart page, enter PATRY in the ‘coupon code’ field and click ‘update cart’ to activate it.

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Goodness me, but it was an effort to drag myself out of bed and force myself into work today. That in spite of two extra calming pills, a double shot of my happiness-enducing oestrogen gel and an evening primrose/starflower oil pill. Do you think I’m too reliant on my new age herbals? I’m planning for the Rescue Remedy spray later …

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...about the waiting game...
The thing with writing is that you do a lot of waiting. You wait, in many instances, until the muse strikes and then - if you work full time like me - you wait until you get home until you actually have the opportunity to write.
Then you send your book off and wait for your agent to say whether she likes it which, even though you tend to get a response in a week or so, feels like the longest wait of your life.

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Got myself in a flat spin today about the online booking system meeting - I was supposed to know something about it but really didn’t have a clue. And it seemed to be sprung upon me at the last minute last week so I was rather peed off about it. To say the least. My Mondays are bad enough without having to cope with things I know nothing about! Anyway, it was all pretty traumatic and I was so pleased when it ended. As well as being terrorised by the fact that I have another lot of stuff to research into because of it, and once again it’s stuff I know nothing about. Double groan!...

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“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet.”
(Romeo & Juliet, Act II sc 2)

Would it really, though? Consider, for example, the fearless ‘John’ and the Argonauts. Hmm. Not quite such an impressive band, after all, are they? Similarly, one might judge King ‘Roy’ the Lionheart to lack a certain amount of the requisite gravitas. And, one has to ask, would the whole “we will fight them on the beaches” speech have been so well received if delivered by our brave Prime Minister, ‘Wendel’ Churchill? Would ‘Hercules’ Potter have become an international publishing phenomenon? Or the plucky, Dickensian urchin, ‘Orville’ Twist, have tugged on quite so many heartstrings? Possibly not.

Generally speaking, it’s as unlikely that the 19th Century Lady Farquharson at the centre of one story would be named ‘Stacey’, as it is that the genial bricklayer starring in another tale might be called ‘Algernon’.


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If you caught Radio Four’s Broadcasting House last Sunday (Jan 20), you’ll have heard the actress Vera Filatova speaking about further cultural fallout from the current diplomatic problems between Russia and Great Britain. It seems that her Russian directing team were mysteriously denied visas, so that at the last minute she had to revert to a piece she had originally performed in 2006, an adaptation of an obscure Dostoevsky fragment. I happened to be there for the first night at the New End Theatre Hampstead.

Produced by Luminous Arts and Russian Nights, Netochka Nezvanova – Nameless Nobody is a one-woman show astonishingly performed by Filatova. The staging is a simple black set, which at first sight seems sealed on its three sides. I wondered where the performer would make her entrance, which introduced a strange, musing tension even before the play began. But just as there was no obvious entrance point, there was no way out too. Whoever set foot on that stage, however they arrived upon it, would be trapped there. All very Dostoevskyan, I thought.

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A nice, leisurely start to the morning today and then Lord H and I had a wander along the River Wey at Stoke Park to admire the birds. Which included swans, great crested grebes just coming into their spring plumage, a crowd of long-tailed tits and a host of house sparrows. I do have to admit to having a soft spot for the humble house sparrow - I did a project on them when I was at primary school and my poor father sat for hours outside the house trying to get a photograph of one. Needless to say, he failed, but I always admired the determination. These days of course, we'd just download a picture from the web. Not really the Empire Spirit, but there you go ...

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I have long suspected that I am not really a team player, especially when the team is 'doubles'. For example, when I've played doubles tennis the biggest effort has been restraining myself from belting my own partner, and when I was giving birth I screamed 'GET AWAY GET AWAY DON'T TOUCH ME' at The Australian (on both occasions - you'd think he'd have learnt the first time), and when I started to collaborate on a novel with my mother last November I deteriorated into such depression that I aged about a decade and had to invest in copious amounts of Ulay. Olay? Ulay. Whatever. And finally, a few years ago, when a university friend and I decided to write an article together about our chronically low opinion of a book called The Rules, we spent two whole days writing four whole paragraphs - arguing over every 'and' 'but' and 'comma' until we realised our friendship was at risk and ditched the idea...

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Have finished editing The Canal for Mighty Erudite and sent the completed text back to Juli. I really loved it - so dark and such a powerful and strangely uplifting ending. Fab. I've always loved Wagstaff's stuff and this is a cracker.

I've also - shock! horror! - actually had to go into work today to help for an hour or so with the International Open Day. Groan. It was a bit of a pain - no, I lie, it was a huge pain! - having to go in on a Saturday, but at least it wasn't for too long. We didn't have a great deal of enquiries either, but it is the first time the University has held an open day with an international emphasis, so slackness of trade is only to be expected. Still, I'm not great at these meet & smile events, so I was glad to get out into the sun and be home again ...

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