Enough rambling. Focus on last week. A quiet week full of resolutions that didn’t get fulfilled (send off some short stories, start painting the living room, do the darned ironing…). I did get as far as looking at ‘The Noontide Owls’ my half-finished YA fantasy, but the mood didn’t grab me, ie my head was empty of inspiration.
On Wednesday and Thursday I did some book selling/signing along with the rest of the gang of Four (YT, Jackie, Jennifer and Anne). We pitched camp at the Guildford Institute. Here it is.
Its future is a bit rocky at the moment due to the inability of Surrey University to fund it. But it’s a gem of a place. For a small annual fee you can use the facilities it has to offer. Guildford Writers’ Circle holds its meetings there fortnightly, and we’ve given the occasional afternoon talk there. Most important of all, on weekday lunchtimes it turns into a divine vegetarian restaurant, totally scrumptious with puddings that make you fat just eyeing them. So despite indifferent book sales, lunch was a treat (and somehow I resisted the puds!) We did sell some books, and a very nice lady came across and told me that she’d read ‘The Moon’s Complexion’ and thoroughly enjoyed it. That was really great, ‘cos she didn’t know I was the author!
Today I thought I’d take a spin to Newlands Corner and get some autumnal pictures as the light was so good. You must be joking! Got stuck in a traffic jam in the car park for 20 minutes and even then I couldn’t find a parking spot. So drove back home and went for a walk up the garden instead. Wondered whether there were any ‘Birkenpilze’ under our young birch trees. These are really delicious edible fungi, familiar to me from my fungi-collecting parents. Fungi collecting is not without its dangers but I’m still here. Sadly, there weren’t any Birkenpilze, but the lawn was covered with little toadstools.
The editing of Moon for Virtual Tales continues and has highlighted some differences between ‘English English’ and ‘American English’. Since Virtual Tales is an American publisher and my editor, Betty is in Canada, Moon is being ‘translated’ into American. It’s sometimes annoying, often amusing. Luckily VT are sensitive enough to realise that the dialogue should be left in ‘English English’ (or occasionally Hinglish) as this is appropriate to the speakers. But some of the narrative has been changed. So, for example, aeroplane has become airplane, ‘out of the window’ changes to ‘out the window’, ‘come and see’ is now ‘come see.’ It will be fascinating to compare the finished US version with the UK one. We’re over halfway there now.
And finally – another Dragon Dictate gaff. I phone up Graham the plumber to rant about the non-materialisation of the new bidet plug. I am faced with having to leave an answerphone message, which always sends me off into a tizzy of panic-stricken errs, ahs and ums. I take a deep breath and leave my irate message: "where the hell is the ruddy plug??” Or words to that effect. I'm on a high, pleased with myself for overcoming answerphone-phobia. And what do I do at the end of this tirade? "Full-stop," I shout at the ruddy machine. Which sends me off into a fit of giggles and apologies to the darned thing. (Sorry forgot I wasn't dictating etc etc) I guess I'll never get my bidet plug now.
