The room for the official reception at Vallalodid reminded me of the Painted Dining Hall at Greenwich Naval College. It was smaller and older - the tenth-century building had played various roles, including tenth century monastry and a twentieth century psychiatric unit. On Tuesday the Minister for Education in Castile-Leon greeted us volunteers for the 'bilingual schools' project.


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I’ve started work on a new book, so naturally my writing partner tries to muscle in on the act.

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*Claps hands!* - I’ve managed to blag an extra hour on the laptop to do homework. Little does Mum know I’m here to write her blogpost. I mean, it’s not like she’ll get around to it herself - *rolls eyes*. She's going through another of her writing crises.

You’d think I’d be the over-emotional one. You know, with boyfriend probs, SATs exams, pressure to binge on cider, do ecstasy (yeah, I read the Daily Mail) or shag (Mum hates that word). But none of that compares to her latest rejection letter or crappy editorial report. And those supportive emails she gets from her writing friends, covered in smilies and kisses… Ugh! I’m never going to be like that when I reach their age. It’s so unsophisticated. You should see the flirty emails she sends to various men at WriteWords… Yeah, okay, I peeked at her inbox. That’ll teach her to read my school journal and spot the detention I forgot to tell her about. Anyway, I left one open on the screen so that Dad might ‘accidentally’ take a look - but all he did was close it so he could Google the football results.


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Every Day Fiction has my flash, Invisible Mend. A funny little story that started life in a writing forum. I do hope you'll enjoy reading it. I've seen the page proofs from PANK for my two stories coming out in the October issue. I'll post links when they're up. Finally, and most exciting of all - LITnIMAGE's editor, Roland Gioty, has nominated my story, A Shanty for Sawdust and Cotton, for Dzanc's Best of the Web Anthology being edited by Kathy Fish and Matt Bell. I'm absolutely chuffed to bits about this. Thanks, Roland!

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Yes, it may seem as though the title to this blog implies that if you give up your day job, many freebies will come your way, but that's deliberately designed to mislead, just so you'll come and read this post. Sorry! So: just a quick roundup:

I was asked by fellow writer and blogger Michelle Teasdale to talk about what it was like to give up my "day job" and become a full time writer, and I have tried to answer as honestly as possible over at her blog.

Now for the free books:...

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n the first of this series of interviews with published writers, I asked Tania Hershman about giving up her day job. Tania is the author of The White Road and Other Stories (published by Salt Modern Fiction), and is a judge for the Bristol Short Story Prize, and next year’s Sean O’Faolain prize. She has also been invited to host the first of a series of new monthly events for emerging Jewish writers, in London on Nov 22nd. If you are interested, please submit short stories or novel extracts to submissions@speakingexperience.com.

MT: Hi Tania. What day jobs have you done?

TH: I moved to Jerusalem, Israel, straight from a degree in journalism in 1994 and worked as a freelance science and technology journalist, reporting on Israeli technological breakthroughs and discoveries in English for magazines in the UK and the US, for 13 years. When I first got to Israel I worked for several months in the department which put together the SAT-type verbal reasoning tests for university entrance. I helped check the English-language tests, which was fun, and eased my entrance into Israeli society since my Hebrew wasn’t great. I also did translation work over my time in Israel – we moved to Bristol two months ago. I loved translating from Hebrew to English, sometimes the news, sometimes more technical documents. I think that’s it!

MT:Was there anything in those day jobs that has inspired your writing?

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On November 1st thousands of people around the world sit down to begin writing a book.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that folk do that every day of the year. What a thought. Someone, somewhere sat at their computer this morning and began the first line of the first chapter of what might be the next Da Vinci Code. Okay, let’s not start that one again.
Anyhow, November 1st is different to all those other days when random people begin writing random books ( which may or may not become best sellers) because it’s official.
November is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo as it’s become known. The idea is that over 100,000 writers sign up on nanowrimo.org and begin work on November 1st. They then write like whirling dirvishes until Midnight on November 30th, by which time they will have 50,000 words.


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Oh boy, what a night! It’s 2am and I just need something to occupy my mind. I keep replaying tonight over and over in my head that it’s making me not think straight.

After work I decided to go to Mother Martha’s. I know I said I was going to head straight back to the hotel but I changed my mind thinking a stroll past would bare no harm. It had already gone ten and was so dark out that I thought I was safe but as I turned onto the cobbled street I saw her. She was outside clearing a table so all my plans went out the window and I ended up going in.

I was just ordering a drink when I saw a young guy, who I now know is Toni’s ex, approach her outside. They got into a heated exchange and he pushed her to the floor, grabbing her. I couldn’t believe it but he was actually going to hit her before I stopped him. I wanted to call the police but Jessie pleaded not to so, and I still can’t believe this, but I let him go although not without inflicting a little anger and pain. I could easily see Jessie was really shook up even though she was denying it. Toni and I took her inside, cleared the bar but it was only when Tom turned up that she seemed to brighten up, much to my dismay.

After a while Tom took Toni home while Jess and I waited for his return and it was then that she crumbled. I held her so close I thought she would loose the ability to breathe but her trembling body clung to me tighter as she sobbed into my chest. When Tom phoned to say Toni had decided to go to the police I decided to get Jessie home. She looked absolutely beat.

Her apartment was just around the corner from the bar and she seemed to relax a little but her vulnerability was so evident especially once she snuggled, child like, into her chair. We talked a little about our parents and like mine both her mother and father have passed. She has two sisters whereas I am an only child and I also found out that Tom is not her boyfriend but her neighbour which works in my favour however there is a bond between the two of them that is so strong.

She fell to sleep in that chair and I covered her with a thick warm throw that had been lying over the back of her chair. She looked so beautiful and peaceful.

And so here I am, awaiting Tom’s return and watching over her like a guardian angel…and it feels so good.

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It has been such a warm and sunny day today, not like yesterday when the rain just wouldn’t let up but even the gloriousness of it all still couldn’t shift the empty feeling I’ve had since waking this morning. It hadn’t dawned on me that she would get a night off and not seeing her last night was weird. Trent and Hope have kept each other busy today which has been good for me because it’s stopped Trent mentioning the other night and also it means I can sneak away without them seeing me. I need an early night. I ache all over from my scenes with Adam; I thought at one point he was going to pull my arm off, and I’ve also decided to give Mother Martha’s a miss tonight. I have a day off tomorrow and then I’m going to a place called Cornwall on Sunday. It’s only for a couple of days to shoot a couple of outdoor scenes but I think a break will be good for me. My head feels so messed up at the moment even though I’ve only been in London for a couple of days.

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