The Kindness of Writers - learning how to blog with thanks to Michelle Whitham

I'm so pleased. What a difference a helping hand makes! A little encouragement made me bounce out of bed this morning and rush to the computer (I didn't have far to rush - like a faithful dog, it goes where I go).

I'm still at the beginning of learning how to blog. I'm doing it, but sort of blindly, stumbling along. I've recently become aware that a blog needs to have followers (forgive my ignorance, all you clued up people). I knew I needed readers but didn't realise that a blog, like Facebook and Twitter, could have followers.

Well, there was an invitation from Michelle Whitham for a blogging exchange so I went to have a look at her blog. It's called Curled Up With A Good Book. It was an eye opener - a marvellous thing full of reviews, links, loads of interesting stuff about books. And crucially - it was easy to navigate.

All the things that my blog so far lacks. But I'm learning. And Michelle sent me a lovely message so I'm feeling joyful this morning.

On top of that, I finished the first draft of my third novel last night The Man from Another Country. My lovely Dani ended up in the park. Laughing. A nice end, I thought - it's still making me smile - I'm in that little space of the temporary high before the hundreds of rewrites and edits kick in.

Happy Sunday to you, dear reader, if you are there and if you ever figure out how to find me. I'll make it easier as soon as I can. I promise.

Lyra McKee - can't get you out of my mind!

The days are dripping past and soon we will have forgotten about your death in the avalanche of others smothering our world. The bombings in Sri Lanka come to mind. And so many more. So many deaths and each one particular. Everyone has their story. But it's your words that I can't get out of my head. The words you wrote in Letter to my 14-Year-Old Self - read Lyra's Letter in The Guardian

We shall miss you, Lyra - the person we didn't know who wrote such moving words about being gay, being human.

The Third Novel

I'm just starting the third book this week of the kind I don't usually read. A thriller, a detective story and finally, a horror story. The first was well written and easy to read, the second was badly written but easy to read, and the third is in a different class. The first one won't sell. The second and third ones will definitely sell. The third one has a chance of becoming a bestseller. What I can't figure out is the 'why'. (yes, I can analyse this, that and the other aspect but it's the magical something that makes the third novel stand out - some kind of special originality....)

The third novel is All My Colors by David Quantick. Will post about it again when I've finished reading it.

I wish I could be as objective about my own novels. It's impossible, but I do have to write them so I'll crack on and trust that I get better with practice.

Concentration spans are diminishing worldwide - what does this mean for books?

According to the Guardian article Got a Minute?, global concentration spans are diminishing worldwide. There are more things grabbing our attention, but less attention to grab.

What does this mean for books? Should they be shorter overall? Dumbed down? Shorter sentences? Shorter words? What does it mean for a person's ability to think and focus on one thing?

Here's the old question back in a different form - should I write what I want or write what I think people might read?

Write what I want, of course, but I do have to take account of how to get and keep my reader's attention. Margaret Atwood said that was all there was to it - just get the reader's attention and keep it.

Hastings Bookchat - Writing about fights and stabbings

The first Hastings Online Blogpost is live - Hastings Bookchat - Writing about fights and stabbings

And the Hastings Bookchat group in Facebook is up and running. Anyone can join - it's a public group. It's for everybody interested in books, writing, writers....

Went to the the volunteers meeting for the Hastingslit Festival today. The festival sounds impressive.

Back to my writing. Dani and Esme have moved to book 3 now. I've got alternative titles - Man from the other side of the World..... or..... The Third Father. 

Blue Rumour - Smile and bounce!

It's Beatles Day at the White Rock today and we're on at 16.40. Have just had our final practice and have decided that the only way forward is to smile and bounce.

Bound to work....... more later.

Wellllll - we got there and I discovered that I should have brought a guitar lead. How could I have thought I didn't need one, I asked myself. But Paul gave me one of his and borrowed another one for his foot pedal. Thank god for Paul!

Elaine and Diego turned up and so did Jill and Mike - I love you all - and there was Nigel smiling at us as well as a heap of other people. So far so good.

But as soon as we started, the sound was like the bells of hell. Paul's guitar was too loud. Mine was inaudible. The vocals were buried somewhere. Talk about smile and bounce - it was the only thing that got us through the first number. Or nearly to the end of it. Lady Madonna ground to a halt in a flurry of feedback. Try again.

The rest of it was pretty awful because of the sound balance - very hard to play when you can't hear yourself play or sing (apparently the monitor wasn't working properly) but everyone told us it was fine.  All thanks to the clapping of friends and a little smile and bounce.

I'll post one of the photos that Elaine took. Found out later that Beatles Day raised more than 21K. It's thanks to Pete Prescott for his huge amount of work. This is his last year and he deserves thousands of gold stars.

Back to my writing. Esme and Dani are waiting, impatient to get on with their lives.

Tomorrow. Got it!

They said it would never come, but here it is. My clock says it's tomorrow but I haven't been to sleep yet so I know it's still today.

Well, I've got it - but what shall I do with it?

The truth is

I have no idea how to write a blog.

It can't be like a diary because you can't tell the truth in case the people you know chance to pass by.

They might find a new them or they might see you naked. HELP!

But isn't writing supposed to be honest?

Course it is BUT ...... truth has many faces... and each one alone is a lie....

And it's the little things

that bring you up.

Got a message from my son this morning. He's out in the wilds of Australia in an isolated rural place. It was the usual thing - sorry, haven't forgotten you, Monday blew up.... (I love getting texts from my son.)

And I've drawn a pic of a man with daggers in his back for my Hastings Bookchat blog. I'd been warned that there was no-one to help with pics and illustrations. Oh that's fine, I'd said. I can do it myself. But it wasn't that easy. I looked on google and found a good pic but it cost £7. Then I found a free one but it had a watermark and dubious looking links embedded. So I drew one myself - not a pic, just an outline - and it looked iffy. But then. But then... I managed to digitally enhance it. I changed the black to white and there it was - looking good.

I'm going to cook now. It's my turn. Paul made a sponge pudding yesterday and there's half left! He's a pudding king (as well as a bread king). And after the pudding, we'll have some fruit. Jonagolds and bananas.....

Goodbye Lynda's Mum

Got a message this morning that Norma Burke had died. That's Lynda's mum.

It's the first time I've heard from Lynda for years. She was once my son's partner and we used to sit in that house in Harehills Avenue in Leeds and gossip over gin and tonics followed by walks with the dog in Potternewton Park. The dog was Sheba. Got lost eventually at a music festival and never found again. A lovely dog. So sorry, Sheba.

So sorry, Norma, that you've gone. So sorry, Norma, that I didn't get to know you better. You were always so friendly and welcoming. 'Come and see us when you come to Leeds. Don't forget to come and see us.' But I didn't go. Never went.

Exchanged Christmas cards and that was it.

Norma was a loving woman. She fed my son his Sunday dinner for years when he was together with Lynda and I was overseas. He used to say she was the perfect mother, and once he asked why I couldn't be like her.  Why couldn't I live round the corner and cook Sunday dinner? This thought is like a splinter of glass buried somewhere. Pulled it out and tried to feel better.

I don't think I've got a picture of her. In fact, I'm sure I haven't so I can't post one but the image in my mind is of her smiling face. She nearly always smiled. Goodbye, Norma - you made the world a better place.

If ups the word....

I was going to start my first post with the title of 'Grey Wednesday' but decided against it. Start as I mean to go on I tell myself so I dragged a bit of e. e. cummings out of my brain. Gloriously positive with no punctuation.

Just looked it up and discovered that the poet didn't come first in the google list. No, it was somebody called Quantum Kreilkamp with music named after the poem. Quantum Kreilkamp! An image rises of someone bent over with terrible stomach ache.

Anyhow, here's the first verse from e.e.:

If up’s the word; and a world grows greener
minute by second and most by more
if death is the loser and life is the winner
(and beggars are rich but misers are poor)
let’s touch the sky:
with to and a fro (and a here there where) and away we go

Don't worry. I'm not at all relentlessly positive. More often grumpy and moany without reason, but just for now - let the world grow greener.

Was going to end there with a pic of greenery but as I sit in this chair with my cup of tea, I realise that what I'm looking at is the shop over the road and a grey sky so I'll leave the pic till next time - you have to imagine the greenery. Or look out of your own window.