Almost launch time...again!

It's time to send More Granny Rainbow out into the world! The launch party is this Saturday; the cakes are ordered, the props are being gathered, the books are in their box...all we have to do is turn up on the day shout 'She''s here!' Well, that and paint some lily pads on a box, find out all my hand knitted socks and make some blue honey... Intrigued? All will become clear in the post-launch blog!

It feels a bit strange this time though.

There isn't the same sense of excitement as I had with the first book launch. Perhaps it's just because there's been a lot of other things to think about recently, and it's just one of many things I need to do? Perhaps it's because I've already done it once before, so it's not quite such unknown territory?

It's certainly not because I'm not proud of the book! I reckon fans of Granny Rainbow will have just as much fun reading and sharing these new stories as they did with the first book.

Perhaps it's because I'm scared? Yep - I'm a little bit scared. Shouldn't be, but I am.

Y'see a friend remarked when I expressed a little concern over how few people seemed to be able to come to the launch party, that they didn't think there'd be a problem because people now know me and are bound to turn up and buy the book.

As an author, as much as I would love to believe that, I really don't feel that I can take that for granted. Perhaps if my name was J. K. Rowling or Chris Riddell or that of any one of a host of other successful authors, I'd feel more secure. They are pretty much guaranteed sales - aren't they?

To date I've sold around 240 copies of Granny Rainbow in just over a year, which I've been told is pretty good for what is effectively a self-published book. (I shan't be living in luxury just yet.) However, not every single copy will have found a fan. And that's alright. Reading is a subjective matter - we all have different tastes and Granny will not suit some children at all. So not everyone who bought or received a copy of Granny Rainbow will want to buy More Granny Rainbow.

But I do know there are some young (and not-so-young) readers who love Granny Rainbow and will want to hear what she's been up to. If that translates into a handful of sales, I shall be happy. If it translates into ten, fifty, a hundred or more, I'll be even happier... But the best happiness of all is having just one person come up to me, having read the stories, to say how much they've enjoyed them.

That? Priceless.

So, I'll be launching Saturday, whether there are few or many present, and we will celebrate the world of Granny Rainbow again, not hoping for sales but for satisfied readers.

I trust they will let me know if I deliver.


(If you can't get to the launch but would like to order a copy of either of Granny Rainbow's books, head over to the website for details. I will send them out as soon as I can after the launch.)

I've been followed...

Last night, I was followed home from the pub.

*cue dramatic music and mood lighting*

It's not as bad as it sounds - honest!

Mr Squidge and I, having packed both kids off to scout camp for the weekend, decided after a day out to see 'A Little Chaos', Alan Rickman's new film. (Film was great - not much chaos in it, but plenty of intrigue and court politics and the most amazing costumes...)

We stopped off at the pub afterwards (remind me to choose my pubs more wisely - I reckon I was about 25 years older than most of the clientele, and had far, far too much skin covered up to fit in) where I was served a small glass of wine, but in a very large glass (Why is that? So they only have to stock supersized glassware for the serious boozers? Or is it one size fits all for small, medium and large quantities?)

Anyhoo - after being totally creeped out by the guy standing at my shoulder, who couldn't wait to claim the shelf we were resting our drinks on when we made moves to leave, we walked home. (Past, I hasten to add, the chippy which was shut. At eleven o'clock!)

We don't have far to walk home from town - about ten minutes or so. Halfway along the main road, we were approached by the most gorgeous cat, who we fussed before carrying on.

He/she followed us.

All the way home.

Looking into every driveway he/she passed, as though saying 'Is this it? Is this the one?'

Now as a cat owner, I know that cats have a territory. I also know, from being accompanied down the street by our Timmy, that there comes a point where they say 'Woah! No further! Alien territory!' For this little cat, there was no such limit; he/she kept following us, invited him/herself into our house when we opened the front door, and made themselves at home.

(Sorry - can't keep up the he/she! It's a he from now on, with apologies of it turns out to be female!)

I decided to persuade the cat - a beautiful grey tabby with orange splashes on his face - to follow me back down the road, working on theory that if I took him back to where he started following us, he might recognise where he was and go home. He did follow us, and after a toilet stop (the cat, not me) he sat down and seemed quite content. I decided to leave him there and walk home.

Four houses further on - I had a shadow. He followed me all the way home again, still checking driveways, seeming more nervous now. He invited himself in a second time, plonked himself at my feet and proceeded to purr whilst grooming himself.

Mr Squidge and I had a discussion. It was far too late to contact a vet/RSPCA to see whether this little beauty was microchipped. So we took a couple of pictures, posted them on a 'lost and found' page for the town, then popped our guest into the garage with a bed and litter tray until the morning.

Today, we've had a couple of possible leads for the cat, but none have borne fruit. We have been good hosts - offered breakfast and dinner - and although after 24 hours the poor puss is very keen to get out, we've decided to hang onto him until tomorrow when we can get him to the vet to have him checked for a microchip.

I know how hard it was for us when Timmy went missing (a whole week, shut inside the house of a neighbour who had gone on holiday. Apparently he only ever pooed in her bath though.), so I hope we can reunite this little one with his owner soon.

I'll let you know how I get on.

UPDATE: 'Misty' went home yesterday - he must've been looking for company and food as his owner was unfortunately taken into hospital. He lived about four houses down from where he started following us...

New Project Blues...

*sings* 'I got the neeeww pro-ject bluuues' *blows mournfully on a harmonica*

It's a long time since I started a new, big, writing project; probably four years or more. That's when StarMark and Rurik were really rough versions of their current forms.

But with Rurik now on the editing trail, StarMark due for publication later this year and More Granny Rainbow due for launch next week, that means I can get on with starting something fresh and new. I've got some ideas in the pipeline, but have focused recently on Ani's story as my novel project, with something for another RASSSA anthology and a collection inspired by a couple of Word Cloud competitions on the side.

Ani's story. I think it has great potential, but it keeps getting so far and stalling. 

Because I'd forgotten just how hard it is to start from scratch on a longer project; I ended up feeling quite down about it.

After an email chat with a fellow writer (you know who you are!), I realised that Ani's story was stalling because the theme I wanted to portray is too close at the moment to something I'm struggling with in real life. My friend also told me - very wisely - that this story will be written at the right time if t's meant to be, but perhaps now is not the right time. As a result, Ani went on the backburner.

Instead, I looked at Puzzle Piece. I reckon there's a fascinating story to be told after that starting scene, so I gave it a go. In three days, I wrote three chapters. 

And stalled. Again. Why? It was getting too complicated, too quickly.

I've often said that I have problems when I can't 'see' the complete story. StarMark began life as a definite idea - I could see Irvana and I could see where she started and where she would end up. I didn't plan everything out in detail before I wrote it, but I could see the stepping stones to get Irvana from A to B. Whereas with both Ani and my first attempt at Puzzle Piece, I don't seem to have any stepping stones at all - just a yawning chasm between two steep banks.

What I've written for both, I'm unsatisfied with. I know I'm supposed to allow myself that s****y first draft, but seeing myself write rubbish in this first instance is frustrating the heck out of me. I can't sustain the distinctive voice of Puzzle Piece. I can't figure out the motivation for certain actions Ani takes. I can't see the woods for the trees...

So what do I do?

I could fall back to writing short stories again, but that's not helping me to practise the complexity of a novel storyline. Or I could plough on with one of the novel ideas, getting more and more frustrated because neither is turning out how I want it to.

It all feels terribly daunting at the moment. I am writing literally pages and pages of words each day - scenes, conversations, twists and turns - but with no real idea of how it is all going to hang together. Or if it will really become something worthy of calling a novel.

And I keep asking myself 'How the heck did I do it before?'

I have resigned myself to simply playing at the moment - exploring the world of Puzzle Piece and capturing random scenes with a view to seeing what they add up to eventually. I have pledged with a couple of other writing buddies to write something every day for 100 days, so I'll have plenty more words by the end of that time.

They just might not make much sense...

Hoovering Angels' Wings

Yes, you did read that right. Hoovering - not hovering - angels' wings. That's what I've been doing today.

Let me explain...

A couple of years ago, the church I worship at went through a time of reordering. We took out the old organ and choir stalls to give us a much more flexible front worship space, as well as giving the entire church building some much needed TLC after over 125 years of hosting a community.

Before the reordering, we had various hangings in church; these were taken down and stored until such time as the stonework dried out (it was all power-washed to show off the beautiful colours of Swithland stone) and they could be effectively cleaned. One of the hangings was always referred to as The Three Angels.

Three Angels

Now, there is some dispute about exactly who is on the banner. The central figure is holding a lily, so it has been assumed by some to be a representation of Mary, after whom the church is named. (Although again, we're not sure which Mary the church is named after...mother of Jesus? Magdelene? Mary of Mary and Martha fame?)

Anyway, I've always taken it to be a tapestry of three angels, because there are four wings; one for each of the figures standing side-on, next to the central figure who has two wings.

As a child, the tapestry captivated me. I wasn't interested in the remarkable needlework of Stella Edwards, the lady who made it in the 1960's. And it is remarkable needlework. The base fabric, a sort of black/green satin depending on the light, with gold and silver lurex threads running through it, measures roughly 5' x 6' (1.52m by 1.90m ...ish. I work better in imperial than metric!) and the stitching covers a vast amount of that area. The base of the lily is felt, but everything else is embroidered with tapestry wool in shades of green, gold, orange-brown and off-white. The stitches are so even - just take a look at these close-ups...

The little 'flowers' are the patterns made by the
lurex threads in the base fabric

I always loved the angel in the middle, because I thought she was beautiful. Still do. The angel on the right came a close second, especially as she had a lovely face (shame about the green hair) and a patterned dress. The poor angel on the left - the one with the wonky face and dodgy hairdo, who always seemed to be admiring the other two - always got my sympathy vote. I can remember thinking, as a short, black-haired, bespectacled 8 year old, that she'd ended up with a bum deal in the looks department. But I was slightly happier that she'd been given a decent dress to make up for it...

See what I mean? 

I love this banner so much, I took it as my inspiration for a flower arrangement back at our 'Fabric and Flowers' Flower Festival in 2008...

Three lime-green 'angels', 'holding' a central lily,
with glass and gold nuggets on a black background

Personally, I have missed having the angels hanging in church - though you do get used to the fact they're not there, if that makes sense? They've been a part of St. Mary's almost as long as I have.

Anyway, today I hoovered them. Sixty-odd years of accumulated dust and a few cobwebs sucked up by the vacuum... Unfortunately there are a couple of problems; I noticed some small holes in the base fabric and a handful of stitches which have perished, but the banner is in remarkably good condition otherwise.

I reckon it's good to hang for another sixty years at least...

A Rainbow Jumper

A while back, in a lovely little craft shop (Crafts Cornucopeia) where my sister lives in Belper, I bought myself some wool. Not just any old wool - this was rainbow wool. King Cole 'Riot' Double Knit, in the shade 'Fab', to be exact.

Such a gorgeous blend of colours

I'd got a lovely pattern in mind - a ballerina cross-over cardy-style jumper (so it didn't have that fiddly belt you used to have to thread through a hole in the seam) - but the sizing kept going wrong. Now I'm a loose knitter usually, but I could not get the tension right on the pattern I was trying. And unfortunately, this wool is a bit of a pig to pull back; it's got quite a smooth, shiny finish but the wool content means that it goes fluffy when you unravel wrong knitting.

So I found a new pattern. A short bolero jacket with cabled neckline. (As well as a wrapround cardy waistcoat and a circular waistcoat...when I see a pattern I like, I buy it!)

It's the strangest construction I've ever knitted before - but I like a challenge. I can't wait to see how it looks when it's finished...I don't think it'll be ready for the launch of More Granny Rainbow, but I'll do my best.

Haven't got lots of time for knitting, y'see.

I have the launch to organise of course...also a dining room to decorate (although finding a colour and the respective new curtains to go with is taking me longer than I'd hoped)...a couple of short stories to bash out so that my idea for an adult short story collection might bear fruit...Rurik to edit (picked him up recently and saw SO much I can do to improve that book)...and Ani to get to grips with (as she's causing me some headaches and I can't seem to push through them).

Oh - and life. All the normal, everyday stuff that has to be done to keep house and family ticking over...

Thank goodness I'm not knitting a sweater dress.

She's here!

More Granny Rainbow arrived this afternoon - all 300 of her! Even the cat was interested...

Roll on the 26th April and launch day!

A little bit of flash - A Sixpence, Shells and Champagne

Just a little piece of flash, created when I selected a sixpence, shell and champagne cork from prompt items used for an exercise at a NIBS session. 


They'd insisted she put a sixpence in her shoe.

For luck, they said.

She'd need it...She'd done everything else.

Old was the dress from two-years-ago season. A little frayed at the cuffs, but still sharp at the collar. New, her shoes. Sturdy and stout, for the miles she needed to walk. Borrowed? Her sister's fur coat: mangy fox and smelling of mothballs. Blue: her fingers, thanks to the thick snow. Snow, in May. Who'd have thought?

It was as unlikely as this match.

The tiny chapel, barely big enough for the two of them and the priest, coated with seashells and stones from the coast. A labour of love...and she wished, from the bottom of her heart, to feel something of that for the man standing beside her.

When it was done, his ring hanging loose upon a finger shrunk with cold, they toasted their new future with champagne, the cork exploding like a bullet from the bottle, lost in the gooseberry bushes.

Married. At sixteen, to a man ten years older than her father.

As she eased the sixpence out of her shoe, moist with sweat, a perfect circle imprinted on the sole of her foot, she hoped - wished - yearned for it to be true.

For it to bring her luck.