January in the Allotment

Yes, it’s nearly February and I haven’t touched the allotment since last year. But the birds are singing outside, and I’m nearly finished with this horrible bout of tonsillitis which has kept me in bed all week with nothing to do but think about all the things I haven’t done.

According to Allotment Growing which is my online bible for that sort of thing, January is a month for doing nothing much, apart from maybe planting some garlic. Assuming that is that you’ve done your winter digging, which I, er, haven’t. So that’s on my things to do list.

Nothing left to do but shop, then. And look what I’ve found.

An online shop full of gorgeous things: look at this for the chicken keepers amongst us
(and I think Morgan at The Little Hen House definitely needs one of these for her new chicks!)

and this, if you have a child doing a World War Two project, is amazing – my no2 child is in Year 4 and right in the middle of a topic all about World War II:

String. I have been dying for one of these and this year I’m buying one for the garden. And it will not be stolen and used to make dens, and horse fences, and to tie up little brothers and make bow and arrows and – it will, won’t it?

In other news, I’ve updated both my about me and my writing pages. Oh, and there’s a brand new page up there called Sealed with a Kiss which you might just want to have a look at!

10 things I learned whilst writing a book

1) You have to write. A lot. And then write some more.

2) NaNoWriMo works. If you’re a lunatic, and don’t mind eating or sleeping, that is. But as a crash course in discipline, it is amazing. Even if half of what you write is utter nonsense.

3) You will dream about your characters. You will daydream about your characters. You will find yourself standing in the school playground, wondering how you got there, realising you’ve driven on autopilot. You’ll be rude and grumpy and selfish and pre-occupied. (er, of course, all of these things might just be me. You might be more balanced)

4) Joining twitter helps. People on there are absolutely lovely and encouraging. Particularly really famous people, who write books you adore. They will cheer you on and make you feel like you’re A Proper Writer. This is rather lovely.

5) You will fall madly, wildly, obsessively, passionately in love with your hero. If you’re slightly bonkers, this may even lead to a week of not eating because you have such a whopping crush on him. This will result in a 6lb weight loss. This is A Good Thing. Unless you’re really skinny, in which case you should go and eat some cake. Quickly.

6) You will realise that there is something therapeutic in killing your darlings. You will chop away at pages, characters, adverbs and adjectives, until you realise you’re in danger of ending up with nothing more than a haiku. At this point if I was very clever I’d write a haiku based on my book, but I am astoundingly bad at them, so just pretend that I have.

7) You will discover all new levels of procrastination. I cleaned out all my kitchen cupboards, and tidied all the bookshelves, and reorganised the baking equipment, and even did some ironing. All that so I could stay up until 2am writing like a loon, and stagger around with huge black eyebags. (Two words: Touche Eclat)

8 ) You’ll discover there are more websites about writing than you could ever read, even if you stayed awake all night for the rest of your life. Many of them written by people who are procrastinating about writing the thing they’re meant to be writing. If you see what I mean.

9) You’ll discover that there are some amazingly helpful books about writing which will prod you in the right direction.

10) Lots of proper writers (the ones with books on shelves in bookshops) will tell you that their first book was the fastest they’ve ever written, and that the process becomes more, not less painful. Ouch.

11) Beta readers are the best, because they tell you when things aren’t right, and they tell you when they are. And they fall in love with your hero (and sometimes other characters). And they re-read the revised chapters, and the re-revised ones. And sometimes they even stand against a wall so you can try out snog positions to make sure they work. (A big kiss to all of you xxx)

And yes I know that was eleven, not ten. It’s my blog, I can break the rules if I want to. Ha.

the end (which is only the beginning)

go away, I’m writing

I’m not being rude. It’s a belated birthday present which arrived in the post today from my husband, who has been on the receiving end of similar comments. If you haven’t heard of The Literary Gift Company then you must go and have a look! The mug arrived, beautifully wrapped in book-covered paper. Look:

(yes I know, there’s mould on the window frame, shh)

PS – if you would like to subscribe, and get an email every time I write something (More email! Yay! I’m not really selling this, am I?) there’s a little box on the right which will do it for you.

If you’re a Facebook person, you can find the Tales from the Village Facebook page here and if you click like, I will be very happy. You will also recieve even more photographs and odd ramblings. Lucky you.

my food of shame

I’m meant to be editing, which is actually far more fun than it sounds. I am going through the manuscript with the delete button on high alert, removing adverbs, killing adjectives, and hacking out great wodges of hideousness. But all work and no play is not A Good Thing.

Incidentally if you’ve seen The Shining you may snigger if I tell you that after one very long day of typing (for me) and child wrangling (for K) he came upstairs to see how I was getting on and I showed him a word document like this:

only with the obvious substitutions. You may not snigger of course, but that’s what passes for humour in our house. We don’t get out much.

Anyway. The point. I’m getting there, slowly.

My foods of shame. This post was inspired by my friend @JonnyDobby who was appalled by my confession that I was enjoying a lovely cup of instant coffee.

I know. Heinous shame. But look, it’s rainforest certified and, um, I reuse the jar. And, er, stuff.

So. Here we are. I lay myself before you, in my Scottish shame.

It’s a Scotch Pie. It’s probably made from ground up testicle and lip and earflaps in gravy. But mmmmmm, it is heavenly.

I know, I know. Heinz Macaroni Cheese. It’s not even real food. But it’s lying in a feeble heap on a Sunday food. And once a year or so, I have to have it.

And milk bottle sweeties. They have milk in the title, so they can’t be all that bad, surely?

But my desert island food – it’s none of the above.

I am obsessed. You know the way other people have favourite coffees, or are wine experts? That’s me, but with apples. Russets with a cup of coffee, really sharp Granny Smiths with a pot of tea. Nothing shaming about that. Except I eat the whole thing, leaving only the stalk. And then I leave the stalks lying around the house in a really irritating manner.

So there you are. Confession time. Anyone want to own up to anything and make me feel better?