When your book comes to life...sort of

 In just the last week, I've seen pictures of two things that could have come straight from Tilda's world. 

The first is this amazing picture, posted by a friend of mine 'Down-under'. 

Ronnie does tours of her local area, and this is a shot of the ruins of a guest house - Chateau Napier, in Leura - which was destroyed in bushfire, 1957.

But I looked at it and - assuming you've read Tilda and the Mines of Pergatt - I saw the doorway in the forest that I'd imagined and written about. Admittedly, my invented doorway also has a door within it, but it was exactly how I imagined the setting...

The second time Tilda's world came into sharp focus was when the National Trust magazine dropped through my letterbox. Mr Squidge was flicking through and I nearly jumped out of my chair when I saw this inside;

Now, I don't know about you, but my first thought was - Lady Duska! Pergatt's colour is green, and the dress is covered in gemstones...

I read the article about this dress and, it's even more impressive than gems - all those glittery 'gems' are the wing cases of irridescent beetles. And it was made for a theatre production of Macbeth - this is Lady Macbeth's gown.

I do so love it, when you find something real that could fit so well into the fantasy... Don't you?

I have publication dates!

When you read the next line, imagine you're playing a trumpet.

Pom-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-paaaar!

Delighted to let you know that I have publication dates for not one, but TWO books.

Squidge's Guide to Super Stories (and how to be a better writer)  is set to be published in June. It will, I hope, give anyone who wants to start writing the confidence to get going, and show those who are already writing some of the things they can do to become an even better writer.   

On top of that, Tilda's third adventure - Tilda and the Tombs of Kradlock - will be published in August! 

I'll update you as and when I get more information, because there will be online (probably) launches for both, and I'm already racking my brain for competition ideas.

I am one VERY excited Squidge.

Watch this space!

What I've been reading...

 I don't usually post book reviews on the Scribbles, cos I never feel I'm very good at them. I do post over on Goodreads, but my reviews tend to be quite short - definitely not the 'here's the whole premise for the story, plus everything good the author did/n't do, and what I thought of it' variety.

Don't get me wrong - I admire reviewers who write that kind of thing about books. I've been on the receiving end of some really lovely ones myself, like this one for StarMark, or this one for Kingstone, and I really appreciate them. But I find writing that kind of thing myself quite hard. I tend to stick at what I liked about a particular story, or how it made me feel. 

(Plus, as a writer, it's hard to read a book without being overly critical of what you're reading. If I find a book that I get lost in, then kudos to its author!)

Last weekend, I did A LOT of reading. I wasn't very well. Nothing covid-related, I hasten to add, but the fatigue kept me in bed for two days and all I could manage for most of that time was pressing the next page button on my aged kindle. I know, I know, ebooks...but I couldn't bear to hold the weight of a physical book, so kindle seemed like the best option.

Thought I'd share with you what I read, cos there were some absolute corkers. 

Loved this - so many twists and turns, and some beautifully drawn characters. If you want a masterclass in character voice, look no further! 

Atmospheric Icelandic mystery. Beautifully descriptive, to the point where the land is as much of a character as the people. 

An almost ninety-year old in an Antarctic penguin research station? Sounds far fetched, but when you meet the redoubtable Granny V, you'll believe anything is possible. Laugh-out-loud funny, yet also very poignant in places.

Another fun one; Queen Elizabeth II, a behind the scenes sleuth? Again, beautiful voice for her Maj, so much so I pictured Olivia Colman in The Crown all the way through. Kept me laughing. 

This one is a children's novel, up for review on the Everybody's Reviewing blog. (That's a local review site - the StarMark and Kingstone reviews I mentioned earlier were posted there) As a child of the 60's, growing up in the 70's, there was a lot of this that resonated with me. 

You can read my review for Marmalade Skies by following the link, and any of my Goodreads reviews here. 

So what's next? Well, after watching the Netflix series Bridgerton (the duke...swoon!) I've also started reading the first of the Bridgerton books - The Duke and I.  Can it possibly be as steamy as the TV adaptation...? I'll keep you posted.

Finding out you're a social writer

I've realised that I'm perhaps a rare breed - I'm a social writer. 

That doesn't mean I like to write in a roomful of people. I still have to be alone pretty much of the time, scribbling in notebooks or tapping away on the laptop to actually get words and ideas down and work out what's going to happen to Tilda while she's in Nargan (Book number 4 of the series - making slow but steady progress). 

What it does mean - for me at any rate - is that actually, I think what I enjoy most about calling myself a writer is having the opportunity to talk about writing and books and helping people with their writing, based on my own experiences. 

Now, as we all know, the coronavirus restrictions have prevented much of that kind of opportunity from happening; it affects the everyday, not just writing. I haven't been into the school library to talk books with students since last March, haven't been into any schools to do a creative writing day, and I miss my little writing group with all the different prompts we used to challenge ourselves with. 

There have been moments of interaction of course - the virtual zoom launch for Tilda and the Mines of Pergatt, for example. Dropping off signed copies of the paperback to local readers or the Post Office for another. But on the whole, my motivation to write, on my own and within my own four walls because there are simply no other options for venue in a covid-riddled world, simply isn't as strong when I don't have the opportunities to interact with other writers and readers. 

It's made me wonder what I like more - writing stories, or meeting the people who read what I've written or who I might be able to help? 

Thing is, I wouldn't have one without the other, would I? 

So on that note, I'd best get back to Tilda. I left her in a coach, on the way to Nargan... 

Now where did I put my pen?

And so it ends... So long, 2020.

 2020.

The year no-one expected. The year where the only certainty was uncertainty. 

We've been fortunate, Chez Squidge. Of course life has been different. We've had disappointments over scuppered plans, had to attend funerals online, adapted to restrictions on everyday life like everyone else. Our situation could have been much, much worse.

And because of that, at times, we've felt guilty. Sitting at home while others went out to work in keyworker roles didn't feel...enough...to help make things any better. 

I took to posting (almost) daily positives on facebook - forcing myself at times to look for something good to set against the relentless doom-mongering of the press, the conspiracy theorists, the ill-informed naysayers... 

I discovered Pet Portraits by Hercule; Foil, Arms and Hog's sketches; binged on Battleship Galactica and Bridgerton.

My street developed a stronger sense of community as we all made sure everyone was OK, had a street party for VE Day, put up Advent windows, and sang carols.

We discovered the joy of growing food, watching the birds, spending time without rushing from one  thing to another because we were forced to stop and take stock.

I knitted socks. Over thirty pairs of them. And taught someone else to knit them too. I also knitted 45 stars to hang on my fence in the run up to Christmas for people to take - and they did.

I wrote a creative writing book, launched the second of Tilda's adventures and finished writing her third. I helped to edit a friend's anthology of short stories. 

There's other stuff too - like a short holiday to Wales in October, family homemade pizza Fridays, making musical pipes... 

In one way, there's life BC and there's life AC. But we haven't got to the AC yet. We're in a strange period of inbetween-ness, where the virus is still here, still impacting dreadfully on life, and we're not yet seeing the benefit of the vaccines (which are nothing short of miraculous, given the time scale in which they've been developed) although my dad has had the call to get his next week...

2021 is fast approaching. There'll be no resolutions from me, only the steely determination to get through this awfulness by being kind to myself so that I can reach a point where I can hug my parents and distant family members again, and life returns to something approaching what it used to be.

I don't know what kind of 2020 you had. I hope that you got through it, whatever it threw at you, and that you're able to face the new year with at least some hope in your heart, and raise a glass tonight to better times. 

Coronasocks - the sequel

 I knitted a lot of socks in the early days of the lockdown. It was the only thing keeping me busy when my brain felt like it was in turmoil from all the strangeness of those early days.

Over the summer, I gave them a rest - partly because I have so many socks of my own, I couldn't justify knitting myself more.

But of course, the nights are drawing in. The weather is getting colder, and coronavirus is rearing its head again as England prepares to move into a new, national lockdown for a month, possibly longer. 

Seems like a perfect time to start knitting socks again, actually.

This time, they are for other people. 

I bought the wool (lots of it!) and have a variety of sizes to knit for - from a size 1 to an adult size 12! Most are bigger than what I knit for myself, so they're taking longer, but I'm OK with that. Two pairs have already gone to my mum, and two pairs are ready to be posted. 

I've also given a sock-knitting lesson to a neighbour - she picked it up really quickly (most people struggle to start with when they're trying to handle four pins at a time) so I'm looking forward to seeing how her socks turn out. 

I also seem to have set Squidgeling J off on sock knitting too, although she's found a rather novel way of knitting two socks at the same time on a magic loop, combined with a much more technical approach to making her socks fit perfectly, which takes away all the guesswork. She might have to give me lessons the next time she's home. Assuming of course, that's possible with the new lockdown.  

Great, eh? 

Only problem now, as we head into November, is that I've now lost count of how many pairs of coronasocks I've knitted to date! I haven't been taking pictures of them all, so I think - THINK - that I'm currently on my 23rd pair!!! I have one more gorgeous colourway to knit for myself at some point, but that will have to wait as I still have about four pairs to knit for other people first.

At least it'll keep me busy...

Fenced off

 Mr Squidge and I were hard at work the other week, replacing the fence in part of our garden. 

The fence was put up about seventeen, eighteen years ago, so it's lasted fairly well. It did have a few adventures though...

The gentleman who used to live next door used to be very much a DIY kind of person, so there were a lot of assorted pipes and slabs and bricks in his garden, often leaning or fallen against the fence. So various bits got a bit...broken. 

Elsewhere, the fence had a bit of an incident with a couple of policemen; Mr Squidge recounts the tale of how, one afternoon, several polica cars pulled up in the street, and the officers were moving up and down the road and trying to look over gates in driveways. Realising they needed to get into the back gardens somehow, Mr Squidge let them into ours, and the officers had a bit of a Hot Fuzz moment, and leapt over the fence. It never fully recovered.

Then there was the badger. There are several badger setts near us - some on nearby allotments, the others disturbed after houses were built on what used to be the cricket pitch. Badgers aren't stopped by fences...they just...push. (Mr Squidge did his best to barricade them out with old slabs, roofing tiles and railway sleepers, but the damage had been done.)

So yeah, we needed a new fence. Thanks goodness none of the posts had rotted - they were still really sound.

After discussion with our new neighbours - and a lot of skip-filling on their part, bless 'em! - we bought replacement panels and trellis to put on the top.

The old panels came out easy enough, but then we had to dig up all the brambles growing along the fence line, and cut back overhanging branches etc. The first few panels went in easy enough - I stood one end, Mr Squidge the other, and we hammered them down into position. Fab.

Only problem was, we made the mistake of starting at one end of the garden, then moved to the opposite end to fit a panel that needed to be cut down, leaving a gap in the middle. And of course it had to be that the last panel we fitted needed to be cut down - on both ends - to make it fit the gap. 

We got it done though. Took us the best part of two dry days. We filled two builder's bags with brambles and branches, plus two trugs, a compost bag and a bucket with weeds. 

It looks fab. 

And we've even left what we're calling a 'wildlife gap' underneath it. 

*wink wink, could've hammered it down further but didn't*

Now all that's left is to fill in the empty spaces in the border with bedding plants the rest of my family gave me earlier in the year...