Storytime

It's up there with one of the most stressful things you can do...and it never gets easier, no matter how many times you do it. I don't know what's worse, the actual moving, or the packing up of everything. But it becomes one of life's facts-----one day you will have to move. You will have to look at ALL of your belongings and ask 'do I need all this?' The answer of course is no...but....yes we have that 'but I may use it one day'...or 'surely it will come back in fashion'....or 'one of the kids will use that racket/scuba gear/ trampoline/ golf set some day'. Chances are, no they won't. But the human race are known hoarders. We keep everything.  Sometimes it's for sentimental reasons, sometimes it's because we fear we may never find that exact thing again (as if we really need a violet foot stool with lion feet---and no I don't). Sometimes we collect things to fill an emptiness inside, or because we ...

Recently I decided, in a fit of creative madness, to make a quilt for a special someone. Now I've never had proper instructions on how to make a quilt of any description. When my children were younger I made them each one for their beds...dark green and black for my son....my daughter had a pale one with pastel hearts...and I remember a fishy one at some stage. Back then I was sewing a lot and really just interpreted what I wanted to make. I don't sew very much any more...at all...so this time round it was a huge learning curve. More along the lines of what could go wrong, what does go wrong, and what I thought would only take a few days turned into almost a month's worth of battling threads and materials. There was a result..thankfully. And if you don't look too closely, it's kinda okay. What always intrigues me is that when you do pick some fabrics, cut them into pieces...any size, any shape...then stitch them back together again...is the variety. In...

I've been busy cutting words. I don't mean editing, which in its own way is a scary ride...this was actually cutting out words. Removing them. Deleting them. Not forever. In fact I do know several writers that keep folders with 'bits and bobs' in it. Those deleted sentences and phrases, even chapters, that no longer fit the work they are doing, but words they are unable to give up. Kill your darlings to them, means just move them to another home. I don't keep such a folder but I did keep a copy of the original story. I've been working on a junior young adult novel I wrote years ago. One that I really like. One that others have told me is good. I've sent it out a few times, Okay, going back over my records, I've found I've sent it out four times. And with my track record that is pretty damned good. One publisher asked for all of it and kept it for months and months, eventually over a year before the 'sorry it's not for us' email a...