New Year Review and Resolutions

Ok, now I’ve been reading last year’s resolutions and as I wrote them down I can be a bit more critical about whether I actually made them. This is what I wrote last year on writing.

 

Writing

I’ve been following Susan Hill’s creative writing course on her blog and her last post on the matter for the year was a kind of put up or shut up ultimatum, basically a ‘are you a writer or just somebody who says they want to be a writer?’ and the ultimate thing, what writers do, it submit to be published and that in 2008 has to be my goal. So far in my ‘writing career’ I have submitted unsuccessfully three short stories and three chapters which I’m still waiting to hear on. I am currently working on a children’s picture book idea which needs more research but if I actually got down to doing it wouldn’t actually take that long (it requires some trips to the British Library, so it’s more of a trying to find the time issue), I am also still trying to finish my Egypt project. So those two projects have to take priority in my writing time, no more attempts at short story writing (although I’ll finish my current one that I’ve posted the first half of), I’m not very good at short stories, short stories require a different discipline to writing novels and I prefer writing longer stories. I am also a pragmatist, although I know my chance of making money at this is slim, there is very little money in short stories and alot more money in the commercial fiction I am attracted to. I’m sorry, typing this sounds like I’m trying to ‘debase my art’ or something poncy like that, but I need to make a living, I have a slim hope that I could do it writing but to make a living writing means having to think about money.

I need to plan my time more carefully concerning writing, researching and the all important reading. My experience doing NaNoWriMo this year made me realise that although I may long for all day to write, if I allow myself vast amounts of time I can’t actually write for that long anyway! So I need to stop feeling resentful at the other domestic chores that take my time away, as there is time to do both, I just have to be (and I hate this phrase) more organised about it. Last Autumn I was lucky, Girl Lacer was at nursery and Boy Lacer napped, so I had two hours free each day and what did I do with it? I faffed, that’s what I did. Ok I did use that time to complete a 40 000 word novella during NaNoWriMo, so I guess I did something but I then spent the whole of December recovering! Once Girl Lacer goes back to nursery I will not have the luxury of Boy Lacer napping anymore, as he appears to have grown out of them, so I need to find my time elsewhere and unfortunately I am not an evening person but all I think I need for the moment is an hour each day to read, write or research and that will be progress and my resolution.

 

Ah RIP Susan Hill’s blog, I still miss that, although I have since learnt that she was probably in the minority of writers who don’t feel monumental self doubt about their work and that there’s nothing wrong with monumental self doubt, it doesn’t necessarily mean your work is cr*p.

Well, I didn’t write any more short stories (hooray – I suppose) but I never did find time for the research on the picture book story, the Egypt story is still stuck in research hell and I’ve got myself bogged down on research for my Charles story, see a common theme there?

It was interesting about what I wrote about how given all the time in the world I wouldn’t be able to write all day, I’d forgotten that and the fact that that means technically I have time to do everything else and write. I still fall into the trap of thinking I don’t have hours and hours to spare and therefore I shouldn’t write at all. I need to remember that’s not true.

New Year Resolution 2009: Boy Lacer starts nursery (so five mornings or five afternoons) in September, so that will give me a lot more time, until then I need to stop searching fruitlessly for big chunks of time and concentrate on the smaller gaps. The other writing resolutions is to start carrying round a writers notebook for ideas and to get that first draft done!

On the subject of housework I wrote;

As referenced in my previous resolution I do need to spend more time doing housework and to stop resenting it. I tried Flylady twice last year and it was successful, which annoys me even more know as I know there’s a method out there that works, so I’m annoyed at myself for not doing it. However it is soregimented and that is just not me. I think I need to find my own plan, something that works for me, using some of the tools from Flylady (some of which I still try and do even though I’m officially off the Flywagon). I spend too much time using the fact that we live in a tiny flat as an excuse, we could, in all likelihood will be, here for years, I can not wait until I get that big house I lust after. It is not just me who lives here, my children do to.

At least I didn’t go back on the Flywagon but I do still need to make more of an effort, yes living in this tiny flat is a nightmare but the only possible way we’re moving over the next few years (and years and years) is if the bank forced us out and may that not happen. So no more thinking ‘oh it’ll be better when we’re in a bigger place’ because it ain’t going to happen, so I need to make it better here, so that’s the housework resolution, same year in, year out.

I wrote on the subject of the internet

I need to spend less time on it. I am already fairly controlled with it, I know that there are some sites like Facebook, that if I got into that I’d never be off the computer and I have my messenger off most the time as well but I need to be more controlled, use my time more constructively. However on the other side of the resolution I do resolve to continue blogging! But less time on the internet means more time for housework, writing and the kids, which can only be a good thing.

Ooh, at first glance I did not do well with that as in 2008 I got onto Facebook, however I’m pretty much off that now, the novelty wore off very quickly. I still need to remember not to spend too much time on the internet though.

On money and cooking I wrote;

Money

I’m still learning but I need to be in better control of it.

Cooking

I need to use my vast collection of cookbooks a little more often and to stop relaying on Captain Birds Eye and pasta!

 

Money will be a big issue next year, I have to control it now on an even tighter leash and decide whether my book selling is economically viable. I could do with getting more tuition clients but I’m not sure how easily that will happen with the recession. 

Cooking is a fine line, I need to make sure I plan for recipes that aren’t going to be too expensive and aren’t going to leave unfinished jars etc. that won’t be used. I think in 2009 I need to make my cooking simpler.

And finally on crafting I wrote:

I’ve been getting ’sewing urges’ for a few years now and so far it has totalled up to a nearly completed doodle embroidery, a toy dog for Girl Lacer, a scarf for Boy Lacer and a sewing machine I brought 3 years ago and have so far been too chicken to use. I buy books on how to make your own clothes from a vintage handkerchief or how to make a quilt and I have a collection of baby knitting books which are useless now as both my children are too big, although at the rate it takes me to knit something and with the fact that I would in three years or so like another baby, that maybe I need to start knitting now. So my resolution for next year is to be more crafty, I have the urge to knit my own socks (?!?) and Imust get out that sewing machine

Looking at the things I had made up to the beginning of 2008 is a good feeling because I’ve added so much to that list now. I feel that I’m now reasonably ok at embroidery and I’m starting to develop my own style. My soft toys are much better (not hard when compared to my 2007 efforts). I never did get round to knitting again but that will be this year. Oh and as for the sewing machine, I did get it out, managed to thread it up and it does work but I’m sorely in need of someone showing me how to do it properly, instead of a book, so I’m strongly contemplating lessons in January, as in 2009 I would like to start making my own clothes and furnishings.

Finally one last resolution, which didn’t feature last year, I must start running again, my waistline says so!

NaNoWriMo Day 8 – still behind

Currently at 8,209 words, should be at 13,333, so about 5K behind, my excuse, well life is getting in the way, that and CBeebies (how’s that for a novel (huh huh) excuse). You see I have so much less time this year, Boy Lacer gave up napping a long time ago and is only in playgroup twice a week. I am attempting to write every day but I need to be in the same room as Boy Lacer and things are rarely quiet. Often CBeebies is on (actually theoretically the best time to write as Boy Lacer is distracted), so I’ll sit on the sofa with the laptop and Boy Lacer will come and sit next to me and then position himself so that he’s sitting on my arm, so I’m typing one handed, that slows things down and then there’s CBeebies itself, I seem to be one of those writers who needs silence to work (so that rules out writing in cafes, I think I’d find other people’s conversations far more interesting). I was writing yesterday, Boy Lacer was sitting on my arm and Barnaby Bear was on and he was in the Orkneys or the Shetland Islands or somewhere and suddenly much as I’m really enjoying writing this story, watching Barnaby Bear in ‘insert name of Scottish island here’ was far far more appealing (actually I harbour going and living on a remote Scottish island fantasies) and then it was Tikkabilla and they were watching someone make toffee chunk icecream and that just made me want toffee chunk icecream, so I couldn’t win really. Same today, sitting on the sofa in the living room, things are all quiet as Girl Lacer is playing on the computer and Boy Lacer is watching TV, so open up my Word and then suddenly the CBeebies programmes which were all just a background blur to me a moment before become so much more interesting. So somehow I don’t think I’m going to write 50,000 words just based on two mornings a week and before anyone says I should write in the evening when the kids are in bed, past 9pm when the kids are in bed and I’ve eaten, stringing two words together in real life is hard enough (and yet I can blog lol, actually no in seriousness even that is suffering a bit, as time and energy are distinctly lacking).

However I still think NaNoWriMo is worth at least attempting, as I said I’m enjoying writing my story and that’s what counts, I’m at that lovely stage where characters are beginning to do unexpected things, the husband of my main character went and invited his mother in law down to stay, someone I hadn’t even thought of but she’s going to turn out to be almost literally the mother in law from hell.

I’m also loving the NaNoWriMo e-mails, there is no one better to learn from than from someone already doing it and doing it well. The first two author e-mails were from Jonathan Stround and Phillip Pullman and having people like that chivving you from your inbox is just the tonic. It’s made me realise how important learning from other writers is to me and its also made me realise that I can be ‘mislead’ by some writers and become a bit blinkered, so it’s important to learn from a wide spread. When I first started taking writing really seriously I followed the advice of Susan Hill quite a lot and she seems it turns out to be of the minority school of thought that writing shouldn’t be hard, you shouldn’t write if you don’t want to and if it needs more than two drafts it’s not ready, things I’m sure work for her (and probably quite a few people) but in reality I need to be told that yes it can be hard, you should make yourself write if you’re serious about it, even just a few hundred words a day because it maintains flow, that it’s ok to write what you think is cr*p, it probably won’t look quite as bad later, that there is a point in every novel where you hate your book. So whether I ever make 50,000 words in a month (doubtful), whether I ever even finish this (I hope I do, I actively like this story), I am learning and that’s what really counts (and who knows, thanks to the author e-mails I may discover another new favourite author, I hadn’t read any Neil Gaiman until his wonderful third week e-mail last year that I still keep and read).

Now why couldn’t I have written the above 764 words in my novel?

Susan Hill’s Creative Writing Group

I’ve noticed in my blog stats quite a few people searching for references to Susan Hill’s Creative Writing Group recently and I think we are all sadly missing it’s presence. I know I’ll certainly miss its forum and having other writers to talk to, so as a bit of an experiment I’ve just set up a new forum called The Writing Room, maybe nobody will turn up and if so fair enough but it’d be nice to talk to some of the old forum members again (NB: this has absolutely nothing to do with Susan Hill) or anyone else who wants to join in!

The address is http://s1.zetaboards.com/The_Writing_Room/index/, it’s currently an open group but I may set it to application only later.

How to Market Yourself as a Writer

I went to the final Alison Baverstock talk at the Kingston Readers’ Festival last night, I feel quite sad that it was the last one, it’s been quite nice to go to something ‘writerly’, makes me wish there was a writers’ group near me but sadly (as far as I know) there isn’t.

Baverstock’s talk was on ‘How to Market Yourself as Writer’ and I suppose really as someone who has yet to properly finish a manuscript it was therefore a topic that was a little premature but useful nonetheless. Although I know getting published is the first big step (actually heck, its probably finding an agent first), I am fully aware (specially thanks to the great advice from Susan Hill and her forum – follow links on my blog roll to the right through her blog) that even when / if you do get published, the battle isn’t over then, your book is just a small fish in a very big library like ocean and chances are there is no / very little money to market your book and in today’s world your first book has to do well to guarantee that there’s ever going to be a second, so you need to be proactive about marketing your book. And it’s not just about your book, it’s about you as a writer as well, the public is fascinated about writers and you need to, to quote Baverstock ‘provide access’. So anyway she gave lots of useful tips, which I’ll try and remember if I ever get that far; have a web site, utilise local links, be prepared to send your books out for reviews yourself, lets hope I do get that far one day. On my personal writing front, it’s actually going quite well, an earlier tip from Baverstock about writing longhand is really helping and a recent research trip to a local historic house for ideas for my work in progress has provided a wealth of ideas, so fingers crossed.

How to Manage Your Time as a Writer – Alison Baverstock

Mrs. Lacer was on night release tonight, i.e. I had a rare night out. I went to an event at the Kingston Readers’ Festival entitled ‘How to Manage Your Time as a Writer’, the speaker Alison Baverstock. It was interesting and a bit depressing at the same time.

Currently, where I am as a writer, is that I’m a writer who doesn’t do much writing (unless you count this blog, more on that later). Prior to Christmas Boy Lacer was still napping, conveniently at exactly the same time Girl Lacer was at nursery, so I used to get quite a bit of writing done then, I even managed NaNoWriMo. Then Boy Lacer stopped napping and I pretty much stopped writing. I have attempted to start a new project in that time and got to 12,000 words but then lost the flow at a key scene (a big problem of mine) and I haven’t touched it since. My problem is that my free time is in the evening, once the kids are in bed and I’ve cooked and eaten my evening meal, which makes it about 8.30pm – 9pm and by then I am knackered and I just can’t write. Baverstock spoke about finding the right time to write (although she did say if you have only a certain time slot to right you should be disciplined, she used that word alot) and for me it would be sometime during the day and that is not compatible with small children. The only solution may be to be patient; Boy Lacer will be (fingers-crossed) at playgroup 2 – 3 mornings a week and Girl Lacer will be at school in September (and the playgroup will be really close by, so it’ll only take me five minutes to walk back home and five minutes to walk and collect him, so that would be ooh about 1hr50min I think). Other than that, as I’m not an evening person, I have been thinking about waking up early and writing first thing. I never used to be much of a morning person either but I’ve recently started a new medication which seems to be having the side effect of making me wake up early, fully awake, I don’t know if that side effect will continue but it might be a benefit!

Other than finding the time, Alison Baverstock also spoke about finding the space, another thing to depress me. Now (any) regular readers of this blog are probably sick to death about me whinging about lack of space, but all four of us do live in a really small flat. There is no permanent space for me to work in the living room, unless you count the sofa. There is no room for a desk in my bedroom. I quite liked Baverstock’s suggestion for a shed, a la Phillip Pullman, but ours is full of junk and about to fall down.

Baverstock also spoke about surrounding yourself with the right supportive people and avoiding the negative ones, the ones who are full of disparaging remarks about writers. I tend not to tell too many ‘real-life’ people that I write, so I don’t have that problem but I don’t get the ‘real-life’ support either. I have found Susan Hill’s Creative Writing Forum and her blog invaluable though.

Other interesting points included finding creativity in your everyday life, that is filling your life with creativity, not just necessarily writing, this actually made me feel better about my other hobby; embroidery and softies, whereas I can’t write in the evenings, I do have just about enough brain power to be able to pick up a needle and thread and it massages my creative ego, as whereas a novel can take months – years to come into fruition, a softie can take a couple of night’s work and the feed back and appreciation is so much more immediate (from Girl Lacer, who’s my biggest fan, biggest commissioner and (can be) my biggest critic). I was feeling a bit guilty that I ‘should’ be writing in that time.

Baverstock also spoke about how hard it is to live with a writer, someone who is perfectly happy to live within their own heads, which was interesting and I can see that. One of my time issues, is that I need / want to spend time with my husband and in that 8.30pm / 9pm to bed time slot, what do I do, totally ignore my husband or write?

She also spoke about finding creative inspirations, actively doing things to inspire you. Me, I find a walk in the woods, a trip on the tube (for some reason, particularly Tottenham Court Road Tube Station), a good episode of Doctor Who / Torchwood / anything by J.J. Abrams / a Indiana Jones movies (guess who’s rather excited about the new one?).

She also talked about using longhand, when I write I use a word processor, my fingers flying away at the keys, which to be honest probably not as much thought as there could be, as Baverstock described it, when you use a computer you tend to be more verbose, whereas if you write long hand, there’s more thought going into it. Switching to longhand may solve quite a lot of my problems; when I use my computer I’m too easily distracted, e-mail, facebook, forums, my blog stats (lol), are all too distracting. Part of my problem with getting stuck in projects is I get so far through the project and then I have a massive crisis of confidence and think what I’ve written is complete and utter cr*p because of the whole fingers flying thing, with a little bit more thought would I be more confident? My computer is also old and failing, with a faulty screen (it goes all Matrix with great frequency), sticky keys and a bulging hard drive making it slow, it does not lead to a relaxing writing experience. Plus if I wrote long hand I’d be able to indulge in my love of fancy notebooks and nice pens! And if I wrote longhand, would it make my work more portable, even more portable than my laptop and more easy to pick up for a few minutes work even when my children are around? It’s all very tempting, unfortunately I”m currently mid project on two projects and I don’t like the idea of switching from a wordprocessor to longhand half way through.

Also talking about distractions or ‘displacement activities’ as Baverstock described them, I think you could describe a blog as a good one. I am aware that the time I spend writing this, I could be writing some fiction, like right now for example. Thing is, it requires slightly less thought to write this, I can sit here on the sofa, next to my husband watching a horror movie, my gaze can get pulled onto the TV screen every now and then and it doesn’t matter, whereas if I was writing, I couldn’t write properly like that, I suppose it goes back to finding a place to write. Also with me not writing ‘properly’ at the moment, at least with this I feel like I’m writing ‘something’.

Finally there was also talk about juggling the world of work and writing and how it’d be hard to write and have a high powered job. I quite liked the quote she used (and I’m probably paraphrasing a bit)

If you want to achieve something significant in life, it’s important to be slightly underemployed.

I can fully understand that. I am coming to terms that my dream of being a full time writer by the time both my kids are in school is probably not going to happen and I will have to rejoin the world of work, however for more reasons than just writing, I do not want something ‘taxing’, my dream job would be a part time job in Waterstones actually!

Anyway, there are two more talks from Alison Baverstock if you’re in the Kingston area;

6 May, 7.30pm Borders, Kingston – Writing from Home (about using your own life as a starting point for fiction)

20 May, 7.30pm Borders, Kingston – How to Market Yourself as a Writer

The Sunday Salon – Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell again

Unsurprisingly, considering I started to read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell last Sunday and that it is a 1006 page book, I am still reading it. This was my third attempt and I think finally this time, I will see it through to the end. I am on page 218 (I feel like I need some sort of progress widget in my sidebar!) as I didn’t have much reading time this week, the majority of the 168 pages I’ve read since last week were read yesterday at the mother-in-laws and today. So I daresay I’ll be reading this next week to (and the week after!).

Anyway so far I am mostly really liking it, I’m still continuing with my policy of not reading the footnotes in the text as I think they detract from the story (although I live in fear that I’m going to miss something important) but other than that I think for a 1000+ story, it so far really well paced and not dragging at all. I keep finding myself comparing it to another book I’ve read recently, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by G.W. Dahlquist (review contained near the bottom of this very long post, scroll down, you’ll find it just under the picture of the orangutan), a book that I did not get on with. The two stories are similar in that they are both very long (Glass Books is 700+ pages), both set in the 1800s and both written in a style similar to work from that period. But whereas my chief complaints with The Glass Books being that it dragged and was over-described, Jonathan Strange does not suffer (so far) from either of these points. I love the narrator of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, he (I assume it’s a he) has a certain all knowing-ness and can be quite dryly funny, with some comments that seem to echo 21st century life quite perfectly, for example, I liked this -

The Foreign Secretary was quite a peerless orator. No matter how low the Government stood in the estimation of everyone, when the Foreign Secretary stood up and spoke – ah! how different everything seemed then! How quickly was every bad thing discovered to be the fault of the previous administration (an evil set of men who wedded general stupidity to wickedness of purpose). As for the present Ministry, the Foreign Secretary said that not since the days of Antiquity had the world seen gentlemen so virtuous, so misunderstood and so horribly misrepresented by their enemies.

As I have probably said here before on the Salon, I followed Susan Hill’s Creative Writing Course and one of things she taught us was to learn from other people’s writing and I’ve found (so far) Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell to contain excellent examples of telling and not showing, courtesy of the book’s excellent narrator. The chapter introducing Jonathan Strange’s childhood is mostly telling and is consquently far more entertaining and far reaching and opposed to probably even more chapters that would have been required if the author had chosen to show the reader instead Strange’s background. I’ve also enjoyed some brilliant set scenes so far, the statues coming alive in York Cathedral, the rain ships and the scene where Norrell is talking to the green coated fairy in the blackened reflection of his study window, excellent stuff.

Holiday Lacer Style (aka books, TV and a little bit of visiting)

Sorry for my absence, the Lacers’ have been on ‘holiday’. I say ‘holiday’ as it’s only at my dad’s in North Wales but that’s about as much holiday as we can afford these days. So be prepared for a very long catch up post, including Doctor Who (series 4, episode 1 spoilers), a Londoner faces a snow storm, down sizing, fussy eaters, The Sunday Salon, overcooked veg, soft toys, Dexter, freezing at the zoo, more books, the London mayoral race, Russell T Davies, a train trip and shouting at the telly.

 

Anyway we travelled up on Saturday, after the usual morning of packing everything including the kitchen sink and then trying to squeeze it into the car.

 

 

Squeezing everything into the car (and onto my lap)

  

An uneventful (bar a hair greying incident on the motorway just outside Oxford involving a car whose break lights weren’t working (not ours) and the sincere thankfulness that our car has ABS) if very long journey. Poor Boy Lacer hates being in the car, as soon as he realised what Saturday’s plans were he stood on the pavement outside the house screaming. Boy Lacer, as I’ve said many time before has the physique of a little miniature rugby player, short legs and a very broad chest and the broad chest means that it’s a bit of a squeeze in the car seat, so generally when he wasn’t asleep he wasn’t happy.

 

We eventually made it to dad’s, actually in time for tea and in time to watch Doctor Who, we didn’t think we’d see that. Ok, not ideal watching circumstances, I was supervising the consumption of pasta by small people at the time (that jarred pasta sauce Delia keeps going on about, actually not bad) but I managed to watch most of it. I thought it was a little slow going at the beginning (Doctor Who, not the pasta) but it soon warmed up to be absolutely excellent, I loved the scene where Donna and the Doctor finally meet again, very well done and very funny, specially when they cotton on that they’ve been spotted and the Matron goes “Don’t let me interrupt”. I thought that Catherine Tate was actually rather  good, I couldn’t stand the character of Donna in the Christmas special but I think I’ll warm to her. I loved the scene where Donna is begging the Doctor to let her come with him and the Doctor says that he just wants “a mate” as his last companion kind of fell in love with him (and there he was in the last series obviously pretending that he hadn’t realised) but talking about companions, oh my god when the blonde haired lady turned out to be Rose! I knew obviously that Rose was going to be in this series but I had assumed that it would be just at the end and ooh she didn’t look pleased did she? Overall though as I predicted from the trailers I’d seen I thought the little baby adipose aliens were very cute and I loved the shots of them going up to their mother ship, very Close Encounters.

 

Boy Lacer had his first night in a ‘big boy bed’ as no way would he tolerate the travel cot now and he did rather well. Girl Lacer was right next to him and he had his Iggle Piggle, UpsyDaisy and obligatory copy of a Charlie and Lola book, so he was happy.

 

Although not too happy at 6am Sunday morning, he woke up early and probably didn’t know where he was, so he woke everyone else up to. Luckily though there was some early morning entertainment of a light blanket of snow, the most snow we’d seen all winter, so the kids had fun in the garden, specially Boy Lacer who last time we were here wouldn’t have been walking.

 

  

 

 

 

Other than that not much done on Sunday, a nice breakfast of proper bacon and sausages from the butcher. Without the great distractor of the internet (so 1980s) I actually felt the urge to write (been lacking that a bit recently) and rewoke an old children’s story that I had written two-thirds of a while ago and did a spot of editing. The story is based on my dad’s house and garden, which is a lovely old Victorian pile, so definitely more inspiration when I’m there.

 

As a distraction I walked into town on Sunday morning to get some supplies (aka coke and chocolate). Although it’d been snowing lightly all morning it wasn’t too bad but boy did I feel like a Londoner walking through the country lanesin my inappropriate shoes and loud blue and white Boden coat. It got colder and colder, so by the time I got out of the small local supermarket (which surprisingly this time had goats milk products, although only UHT goats milk, which we’d brought with us for Boy Lacer and which it turns out he hates) it was a full blown snow storm, cue Mrs. Lacer feeling even more inappropriately dressed.

 

 

Once I’d got back and defrosted, I spent the rest of the day reading in the true spirit of The Sunday Salon, okthe first thing I read was this month’s copy of Junior which I only succumbed to buying because it had a childrens’ book freebie. The rest of the magazine was the usual, there was an interesting article on ‘Life’s simpler pleasures’, about down sizing and the Compact Movement, something I’m increasingly interested in, living life more simply means more time, less expenditure and it’s better for the planet and I’m all for all three of those things. The article seemed a little out of place though in a magazine whose pages feature £105 kids designer jeans. However there was another interesting piece on a cookbook I hadn’t heard of before, ‘Deceptively Delicious’ by Jessica Seinfeld (yes, the Mrs. Seinfeld), a book of recipes where it seems you get your kids to eat their veg by sneaking in veg purees into more fussy child acceptable dishes, like oatmeal raisin cookies with banana and courgette and burgers with cauliflower. My kids, like a lot of kids are not good with veg, although thankfully good with fruit and I do worry about it, so I may go down this route as apparently sneaking veg purees into their food acclimatises their palate to the taste of the actual veg eventually, worth a try I think. I’m also trying the getting them to grow the veg this spring and summer, so a two pronged attack.

 

Then on to some actual reading, I’m still trying to clear through my ’to be read backlog’, I’vebeen a good girl and I haven’t actually brought a (fiction) book for over a month now, even though I was extremely tempted by the new Phillip Pullman novella in Borders the other day, heck when I was in Borders I was tempted by an awful lot of books (as usual) but like I say I’m controlling myself. So I’m now getting the dregs of my ‘to be read backlog’, basically books that have been brought for me and were not quite my taste or books I brought on a whim and shouldn’t have. Before the holiday I was reading a Karen Rose thriller, which I had received as a secret santa present and was so clichéd I was tempted to stop reading it within the first 20 pages, then the first bodies (or at least their effects) turned up and that piqued my interest. However it still wasn’t gripping my attention so I wasn’t devouring it at my normal rate and therefore I had mislaid it when it came to packing. So it was with some slightly despondent starring at my ‘to be read’ pile whilst I was packing I decided what to take with me. I ended up bringing The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters which I still haven’t finished and The Time Travellers Wife which I brought a long time ago as part of a 3 for 2.

 

I opted to read The Glass Books and I’m still not overly enjoying it, it’s heavily over-described, to such an extent where a character will be racing through some hidden corridors and I’d be so invested in trying to take in all the detail being thrown at me, the walls of pipes, the hooks with vials on, the barred prison doors etc. etc. ad infinitum that I’m not getting immersed in the story as I’m concentrating so hard on trying to get the picture in my head as exactly as the author seems to want me to see it, so I was very aware of just seeing the words and not the picture. Thinking back to Stephen King’s On Writing that I read recently, where he talked about the reader doing a large chunk of the work in creating the picture and therefore it not being necessary to over describe, I’m more of that school of thought. I’d much rather have the character fleeing through the corridor accompanied by a few words of choice description, so that I’m fleeing with him. Having said that, I realise that the author, G.W. Dahlquist is emulating a certain style that is over described and although it’s a style I don’t like, that’s not to say others wouldn’t. Personally I think this book would make a fantastic film or even just an audio book, something sumptuous, taking away the effort of world creation being forced upon the reader (more on Glass Books later on in this very long post).

 

Now one of the hazards of visiting my dad is the food, these days I get around it as much as I can by bringing my own food and doing the cooking but we have to let dad cook at least once. Sunday night it was chicken and veg and put it this way he put the vegetables on way before he put the chicken in the oven, I think it’s fairly accepted these days that the vegetables don’t need much time and therefore can go on the stove last thing for 5 – 10 minutes, not 40! So we were all presented with a plate of chicken and veg, the chicken was just about ok, the veg on the other hand, well I tried the mashed potato, you surely can’t do much wrong with mashed potato? It’s pretty flavourless to start with, but this was grains of starch suspended in a watery solution, I didn’t eat the rest and hid my uneaten food with the remains of the kids plates, who had eaten even less, Boy Lacer had been using his fork to suck the tomato ketchup!

 

Sunday night was finishing my latest softie, the ha ha rabbit from Aranzi Aronzo and catching up with some Dexter, I have a theory about who the ice truck killer is; Dexter’s sister, now no one tell me if I’m right or not but whoever the ice truck killer is knows a lot about Dexter obviously and if the ice truck killer is someone who has absolutely no link to Dexter, how come he/she knows so much?  Specially with the episode earlier about the ice truck killer depositing body parts in places from Dexter’s photo album, how else would the ice truck killer know that these random shots of Miami meant something to Dexter?

 

Anyway on the subject of the rabbit it was my first softie with proper limbs and it was tough sewing the seams up of the body up straight as the limbs were pushing the material out of alignment, I also ended up sewing the legs on the wrong way, I think I had initially pinned them the right way but had unpinned them as I was having problems with keeping the two pieces of body together, so when I put the legs back I think I did it wrong. However Girl Lacerloves it, even if it’s legs and ears are a little crooked. Above is a photo of it and a vintage toy rabbit (on the left in case you can’t guess) I remember from my childhood that I found in my dad’s house. I’ve been trying to remember whose the rabbit was and it’s origins, I’m pretty sure it was ‘vintage’ back when I was a kid. It’s absolutely gorgeous, even though it’s dress skirt is starting to come off. I’ve been looking at it closely and I think it’s hand made and I would love to make something similar one day, the level of detail, right down to the rabbit’s old fashioned drawers under it’s dress. My dad had also dug old my old Sooty puppet, now that was new when I’d been playing with it, but even that’s vintage now!

 

Monday was zoo day, a very cold zoo day. We went to Chester, which has a lovely zoo which we’d been to before. Their enclosures are fantastic, nice and big and they have a great selection of animals. We saw the elephants which Boy Lacer particularly loved.

 

 

giraffes (including a very cute baby),

 

 

a glimpses of jaguars,

 

 

chimpanzees

 

 

and orangutans, which were very cute and very clever, it was freezing cold and they were grazing from the bushes in their outside enclosure covered by blankets,

 

We spent Tuesday inside, the weather has been truly awful this holiday, so I attacked The Glass Books of the Dream Eatersagain, in desperation just to finish it if anything, it’s a long book (753 pages) and it felt like I had been reading it forever. As I’vesaid before on this post I wasn’t getting on with this book but I kept reading as it did have it’s occasional good bits and I was just sure it would all come together in the end in some gripping climax which would make the previous 700 pages all worth it and oh it so didn’t happen. Actually some of the scenes just prior to the big climax scene weren’t bad but the final scene was so “Argh just hurry up and finish this will you!”. Having said that every cloud has a silver lining, it was Susan Hill’s Creative writing course that encouraged me to read more in order to develop as a writer and I think sometimes it is easier to learn from a book you don’t like as opposed to a book that you love because it can be sometimes difficult to pin down why you love something but a lot easier to pin down why you hate it. Reading The Glass Books has made me appreciate how difficult it is in particular to write fight scenes convincingly, particularly ones involving a crowd of people, to be honest a lot of the larger fight scenes in this book lost me I was so busy trying to keep track of who was doing what to who, like I wrote earlier up the post, I think this book would havemade a far better film, either that or had 200 – 300 words lopped off it. But in the end to summarise my feelings about this book, I was disappointed, the reviews plastered all over the cover screamed out at me as a book I would absolutely love “Gripping gothic rollercoaster” said Scotland on Sunday, “Harry Potter for grown-ups” says the Metro and the London Paper described it as Sherlock Holmes with the production values of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, absolutely perfect for me as a reader and potential inspiration for me as a writer as I lovewriting adventure stories (so the lessons learnt from the fight sequences were particularly valuable). So maybe my negative reaction to this bookwas not completely due to the book itself, just my disappointment due to the over-hyping on the book cover, maybe I should hold my argument with the reviewers instead?

 

Tuesday night was more TV (I know, my holidays are soooo exciting), I caught up with the London mayoral debate on Newnight, please why would anyone vote for Boris? I’m sure most of Boris’s potential voters are just leaning his way because they’re either fed up of the Labour government and ok Ken is Labour but he’s not exactly new Labour is he? I’m a big Ken supporter but I’m no fan of Labour. Other potential Boris voters I think are leaning towards Boris just because they don’t like what Ken has done with the congestion and emission zones, which ok aren’t pleasant but the time is coming where the people in power have to do unpleasant things to protect our environment, you do not have to drive a gas guzzling Chelsea tractor! Oh and us for Bendy Buses, so many other cities across the world have bendy buses, yet London somehow doesn’t like them?

 

Tuesday night TV was also a Mark Lawson interview with Russell T. Davies. I love watching RTD interviews, that man has been intwined with the TV I’ve been watching since I was a kid ranging from Why Don’t You, to the ground breaking Queer as Folk which I adored as a teenager and of course there’s Doctor Who and Torchwood, heck I even watch Sarah Jane Adventures sometimes. Anyway an interesting interview, I liked how he described how he oversaw the Doctor Who series, ensuring an overall vision. I also found it interesting how he said he knew when he was leaving and when David Tennant was leaving but of course he didn’t say when, I know everyone reckons it’ll be 2009 for both of them (after the three specials) but I like to think (hope) that it’ll be at least one more series after that.

 

Wednesday was a trip on the train, an old 1950s (I think) diesel. Boy Lacer is a typical boy and loves trains, so he quite liked that. The way back was good as we were at the front of the train and there were glass windows at the front allowing us to look through to the driver’s compartment and then out of the train.

 

 

 

I love the lines of the old carriage

Then Wednesday night was of course more TV (I know, exciting) but Wednesday night TV is getting good, classic shouting at the TV viewing, with Property Ladder followed by The Apprentice. It’s nice to see the Property Ladder back and as usual it full of the same old entertaining idiots refusing to listen to Sarah Beany’s advice, that must be something the researchers on that show check, probably the first question they ask potential applicants, something along the lines of “If Sarah Beany, the very rich and very successful property developer, who knows what she’s talking about, criticises a part of your newbie mad as hatter property developing plans, would you listen to her?” and if the answer is “No”, they’d go “Yes of course you can come on our show!” This week’s episode featured a couple knocking down an existing extension to replace it with an extension of pretty much exactly the same size and redistributing their room layout to accommodate a massive hallway, shame about the tiny living room then and another family quadrupling their house to a £1 million plus mansion, shame it’s outside looked like a care home then. The Apprentice was the normal car crash in progress, watching these guys make me feel like a business guru!

Anyway Thurday and finally back home, not particularly amazing how spending nearly a week in a large house makes our small flat seem even smaller!