World Book Night 2014

I was pleased to receive an email from World Book Night telling me I have been selected as a giver for 2014. This is the fourth year I have been involved and I am looking forward to giving away the books from April 23rd. Unlike the previous three years, I wasn’t allocated my first two choices (A Collection of Short Stories by Roald Dahl and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne) so will be giving away Confessions of a GP by Benjamin Daniels.

There has been considerable controversy about WBN – some people claim that to give books away devalues them and their writers while others believe it helps promote literature and reading. Some givers have not entered into the spirit of the concept and have apparently given the books to their friends rather than reaching out to those who may not be able to readily access books. I have been sorry to see some WBN books in the local charity shop that I support, which is not the intended idea; they are to be given away not sold – even for a small amount which will help a worthy cause. 

But on balance I think WBN is an excellent idea. Some of the books I gave away were received with such joy, that in itself made the world a better place.

One of my patients has been dogged by depression for many years. Unable to work, she lives on a small income, spending little on any sort of luxury. She makes herself get up every day, but admits to having no routine. She knows in theory she could get out and make use of some of the local resources such as libraries and community groups but lacks the confidence and motivation. She describes herself as a total mess. Her only pleasures are her little dog and reading.

On her last session with me, I handed her a copy of WBN’s The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry and asked if she would like to have it. She was thrilled, and promised me she would bring it back as soon as she finished it.

‘You may pass it on to a friend if you like but if you would prefer to keep it, you may. It’s yours.’ I told her.

Her face lit up. It was a picture. ‘This is the best thing that’s happened to me for a long time,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

                                        

This is what WBN says about my book.

Hilarious, insightful and eye-opening, Confessions of a GP is the perfect book to entice people who 'don't like stories' into reading. Told in a confessional and casual style you quickly feel like you're sitting alongside Dr Daniels as dozens of little stories about real people's lives play out before you.
Dr Benjamin Daniels is a GP. That is as much as we can reveal about him and we're sad he'll never be able to show off to his mates or patients about being on the WBN list

 

Will there be good news?

I have recently discovered a number of similarities between going through a period of illness and the process of writing.
 

Both are stressful. 

 

Both involve periods of feeling awful about myself interspersed with bursts of optimism that things are going to get better.

Waiting around for tests (blood tests, MRI scans, CT scans, ultrasound scans, nuclear scans – I’ve had them all) is like waiting around for inspiration to strike. Sometimes the wait is long and can be very uncomfortable.

Then after the tests, having to wait for the results. Some come quickly, some take a while and all the time I’m hoping for good news this time. Just like submitting writing (after inspiration eventually arrives) and waiting for the outcome - a competition win or a sale. Either way - hoping for good news but knowing I have to gear up for probable disappointment.

That last story I submitted – could this one be a winner at last? I feel optimistic about it, it’s one of my best yet. Then I wonder whether it's any good at all. Will this last test show the latest medication is working? Surely it’s doing the trick – I’ve felt a bit better in the past couple of days – but then I feel worse.

Illness and writing can both be incredibly lonely. Fortunately both have supports groups - where people in the same situation get together online or in person and empathise with the disappointments and celebrate the successes. Such groups are life savers offering support when it is most needed. Fellow thyroid cancer patients share knowledge, ideas and good old sympathy and my writing friends are a source of information, inspiration and support too. Thank you to both groups.

A letter lands on the mat. An email pings into the in-box…will it be good news? 

After lots of disappointments I've now had one small piece of good news with writing: my piece Beneath the Arches was awarded third place in Words With Jam shorter story category. You can read it here thanks to judge Polly Courtney: Beneath the Arches 

Onwards and upwards...

 

A New Year - a new start...

It was with enormous sadness that I made the decision to leave Greenacre Writers, the writers’ group I had co-founded and co-organised for almost five years.

The last two years have been a challenge; although I was determined not to let a diagnosis of thyroid cancer in 2012 change my life, it has inevitably had an impact on my energy and that has had an dampening effect on my writing creativity. Perhaps if I wasn’t working virtually full time and wasn’t busy co-organising three thriving writing groups, an annual short story competition, editing an anthology and helping organise a small literary festival, I’d have written a block-buster or a Booker prize winner by now. Although I suspect not.

I carried on as best I could – I took part in the first Greenacre Mini Lit fest, wondering what my consultant would be telling me the following Monday - whether the biopsy a couple of weeks earlier would prove what we suspected. It did. 

I was able to carry out my commitment to run a course for beginners at Swanwick Writers Summer School in between the two operations. My brilliant surgeon actually scheduled a special operating list so I wouldn’t have to miss it or cancel the holiday booked for two weeks later. I recovered from the op on a wonderful holiday in Tanzania with a trip to Zanzibar where I found a place perfect for writing – in theory anyway. I didn’t actually write anything.

Last January, in a bid to make myself write, I signed up to Write One Sub One – I chose the cushier option of one a month and have been true to my aim. I made 20 submissions altogether, from the smallest – a 75 word flash to a fairly big competition.

 

Now here comes the hard part. What became of my submissions? Very little, I’m afraid.  2013 started off on a high with an email saying a piece I had submitted to Café Lit had been selected for The Best of Cafe Lit 2012 and a few days later I received a prize from Writing Magazine for a flash fiction competition, but my 2013 submissions fared less well. My first, a short story, was shortlisted in the Chudleigh Phoenix competition but the next nine came to nothing. One of my stories, Chocolate in Summer, was included Greenacre Writers Anthology Vol 2 but after all, I was a co-editor! I had a flash fiction shortlisted in Flash 500 and a 75 worder published on Paragraph Planet inspired by my two weeks of jury service in June. 

I did manage a bit of writing while hanging around in the jurors' lounge waiting to be called into court and thought my creativity was on the up. But the scans the week before the second Greenacre Writers Lit Fest the previous month indicated all was not well which led to my second round of radio-active iodine the week after jury service. My energy plummeted to zero again. A 100 word flash was accepted by Café Lit then - nothing. The last four submissions are still under consideration so fingers crossed.

Only the flash fiction pieces and one short story have been written in the last year. In spite of meeting submission deadlines my writing has been limited because of lack of energy (a normal outcome of my condition and the radio-treatment.) Stress of any kind now zaps me out so I had to do something drastic. And sadly, because of other issues, one of the things I have had to let go is Greenacre Writers.

I have met some wonderful writers through the groups and the two lit fests, made many friends, and my writing has (I think) improved so now I have to get down to it and prove it.

 

I wish you all a very happy  New Year - and great writing success.

 

My Best Reads of 2013

My 2013 top ten reads, in no particular order, chosen for enjoyment as much as literary merit are:
 

Flight Behaviour - Barbara Kingsolver

Island Songs – Alex Wheatle

A Virtual Love - Andrew Blackman

On Holloway Road - Andrew Blackman

The Best of Everything – Rona Jaffe

Infinite Sky – C.J. Flood

Bring Up the Bodies – Hilary Mantel

Honour – Elif Shafak

The Road to Urbino – Roma Tearne

The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared – Jonas Jonasson

The Night Father Christmas Was Confused

As Father Christmas clambered into the sleigh he heard an ominous creaking.
‘Bloomin’ elves haven’t oiled the sleigh properly,’ he muttered before realizing it was his knees that were protesting. The horrible truth was Father Christmas was getting old. He’d been doing the Christmas rounds for over a hundred years now and he should be thinking about retirement. In spite of having to work so much harder these days, as children expected so much more in their Christmas stockings than when he began the job, he was reluctant to give up.

It would be his nephew, Nicholas, who would be taking up the reins, and let’s face it, Nick just wasn’t mature enough for the job. Only two weeks ago when Father Christmas asked Nick to take the reindeer and sleigh out for a run to get the deer limbered up and ensure the sleigh was in good working order, what did he do? Had them tearing along at top speed like some boy racer, careless of not only his charges but endangering the elves in the delivery sleighs coming in and out of headquarters with supplies. Luckily there hadn’t been a nasty accident, but the reindeer were exhausted and needed double rations that night to keep up their strength, which was a waste of fuel. Mrs Christmas had had to lecture Nick on the concepts of eco-Christmas, this year’s theme, and not wasting the earth’s precious resources.

Still, there was no time to waste pondering – he must get on. This year the first round (every child worth its salt knows the whole lot can’t be done in one go) was both his favourite and the one he disliked the most. He decided to call on Happyton first to put him in a good frame of mind before going on to the dreaded Greediville. He loved the village of Happyton, where the Victorian houses had proper chimneys that he could get up and down with no bother. Even the houses that had been divided into flats and had boarded-up fireplaces presented little difficulty. Greediville was a newish town with mean little boxes for houses, full of new-fangled gadgets and not a chimney in sight.

The Happyton children always asked for good old-fashioned toys: Lego, dolls and footballs. Puzzles and board games were still popular and Father Christmas’s favourite; books. Of course these new-fangled e-readers and smartphones appeared on the older children’s lists but the girls still liked the pretty silver jewellery and silk scarves that Mrs Christmas sourced from Traidcraft workshops. The boys liked traditional sports equipment as well as new technological things that Father Christmas didn’t really understand. Chocolate – always Fairtrade from Ghana, Belize and Cote d’Ivoire – was still an enormous hit with all ages. It was so different in Greediville where the kids demanded their own computers, endless computer games, I-pods, I-pads, and who knew what else. They needed new models every year. Goodness knows why, Father Christmas had had the same mobile for about ten years and it still worked absolutely fine. Mrs Christmas had hinted that he should upgrade but so long as she was able to check he was alright, she wouldn't press the issue.  

The elves used much more up to date gadgets and lately had been using strange things called Apps – it did make things easier now the goods could be ordered online, meaning he could avoid the tiring incognito reconnoitring trips he used to make. It saved fuel but he put his foot down at the idea that it could all be delivered to headquarters by air-freight and insisted on the traditional methods.

As the sleigh flew over Greediville, Father Christmas’s heart sank. The place was blazing with lights. Each house seemed to vie with its neighbours for the gaudiest display. Many of them were crude depictions of himself and the deer. Last year Blitzen had been most upset and handed in her resignation. Still, Happyton would be the same traditional scene. But wait… what was going on here?

Coming in to land Father Christmas could see the usual Christmas tree outside the church. It was shining brightly – those low-energy bulbs were jolly good – but the houses were all in complete darkness. It was quite irresponsible to keep tree lights blazing all night, both on counts of energy and safety but it was a bit of shame not to have a few of those twinkly lights. He wondered if people who had pet hamsters could rig up their little wheels to generate enough electricity to keep low-watt bulbs glowing. The only other light he could see was from a cluster of six flickering candles in jam jars near the church door.

He negotiated the first chimney and what was this? There was the decorated tree but no presents lay beneath it. This house belonged to a large family who gave generously to each other. Every year the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all came to stay and lovely parcels always lay beneath the tree in anticipation of the special day.

Had they all gone away and forgotten to tell him? Or worse, had he made a mistake? Had he come a day too early? He was getting a bit forgetful lately. No, Mrs Christmas would never let him make an error like that. Then he spotted a plate of home-made mince pies – one for each of the deer and one for himself. He popped one in his mouth and placed his presents in the stockings hanging up and made his way to the next house. No brightly wrapped gifts in recycled paper here either. Every house was the same. What was happening – was Happyton no longer the generous, loving community he so admired?

Feeling rather shaken he pulled out his phone and dialled the number of the elf responsible for Happyton orders.

‘Is that Albert? What’s going on in Happyton?’

'Simples!’ said Albert. ‘Look out for the candles in jars. Must dash.’

Father Christmas made his way to the candles by the church door. Above them was a notice from the NHS Blood Doning Service. “Thank you, Happyton, for your gift of life. We collected 153 units at the special Christmastide session. Thank you also to those who gave drinks and refreshments for the donors, saving us money.”

He spotted the next cluster of candles a few yards away. Above them was another sign. “Thank you Happyton for your donations of bedding, toiletries, clothes and food. We will now be able to keep our town shelter for the homeless open for ten days over the Christmas period. Additional cash donations went to Crisis."

A third group of candles gleamed not far away and Father Christmas found another sign. This one proclaimed that Happyton’s energy saving drive throughout December had enabled the residents to Send a Cow to a family in Kenya along with several smaller gifts.

The fourth notice said “Thank you Happyton! The Time, Skills and Services Auction has raised over two thousand pounds for DEC's Ongoing Appeals. Your babysitting, gardening, computer trouble-shooting, cleaning and cooking will enable people to start rebuilding their lives in the face of disaster."

A fifth group of candles outside the school showed a poster of children from all around the world. Under the picture large multi-coloured letters spelled out “Happy Christmas and Peace on Earth to all. By not having Christmas presents from our parents this year we have funded five Shelterboxes for people in places where disaster has struck."

Father Christmas climbed back into his sleigh with a creak of his knees. He patted Prancer and Comet.

‘I’m a silly old fool,’ he told his faithful reindeer. ‘Of course the people of Happyton haven’t stopped giving. Not all gifts come wrapped in bright paper tied up with tinsel. The sleigh lifted off and Father Christmas went on his way calling his usual greeting,

                         "Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth to you all."

This an updated version of the story first published in The Greenacre Times December 2007. 

 

 

Is November NaNoWriMo or NoWriNoMo?

For me it's the latter. November is Not Writing a Novel in a Month. How anybody can even contemplate this is a mystery to me. I have always presumed these intrepid writers send the kids to Grandma, take the month off work and train partners to do all the housework and shopping and keep the caffeine coming at regular intervals.

But then I discover that plenty of these NaNoWriMo writers do have other things to worry about; they get the kids to school and do the shopping and many of them go to work for at least some of the time. And they still manage to bang out over 1,000 words a day.

They must be super-organised. They have probably filled the freezer with nutritious brain food meals and have organised stocks and supplies for snacks so they don't need an emergency trip to the supermarket for teabags or light-bulbs half way through chapter 3. Perhaps friends and grand-parents have been roped in to do a bit of childminding, but even so many writers are balancing on a tightrope between life and writing. They have my admiration and I wish them all success.

So, while I may not have aspirations to write a novel during November, I have set myself the goal of writing a short story in the next month  Not 50,000 words, 2,000 will do so that's 66.6 (recurring) words a day. Should be easy peasy. Except I'm taking ages to navigate my way round a new keyboard, to say nothing of Windows 8, which I didn't even know existed until 2 days ago, and Word 2013 (which will be out if date in 2 months' time). So it might have to be a very short story.

There's also a pile of washing, another of ironing and a fair bit of dust but I bet even NaNoWriMo writers don't do that, do they?

My second novel.

During a recent de-clutter, I came across my second, third and fourth novels. Unpublished, they have lain in the loft for many years. The reason why they are unpublished is because the writings of a 10, 12 and 15 year old tend not to be publishable! The first novel, written a year before this one, may still lurk in the attic. It was illustrated too, and received an excellent review from its only reader.

The second novel featured here was my first English project at secondary school. I began and completed it in the two weeks before my 11th birthday. At approximately 1,500 words calling it a novel might be stretching reality a little, but that was the task and the given subject was life on a desert island.


 




The third novel, written during my pony-mad phase, was about a girl in her first job at a riding stables and falling for one of the boys who also worked there. There was plenty of drama including a riding accident which in those far off days involved someone galloping off to phone the local doctor to attend the injured rider in a the middle of a moor. Now, of course, someone would just phone the air ambulance.

The fourth was an epistolary novel about a girl who went to work as a mother’s help in a large disorganized family and of course she falls for the oldest son. Inevitably there is a misunderstanding and she thinks he’s no longer likes her so goes out with a guy she’s known forever which makes the other one jealous! Containing a smattering of 15-year-old angst, it's riveting stuff.

After these crackers, it was a mere 45 years before I attempted the next one and that has taken a lot longer than 2 weeks. A lot longer. My writing has improved a little (although I think my hand-writing was better when I was 10) and I hope that it just might be publishable.

So all you novelists out there - when did you write your first masterpiece?