Boswell Book Festival and More Letterboxes!

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We’ve just received our duty roster for the Boswell Book Festival. Being first time volunteers, we’ve to prove ourselves before being let loose on the big events but what we’re assigned to sounds lots of fun.

screenshotOn the Friday opening night we’re helping out when Nigel Havers is speaking. His blurb describes him as being able to ‘charm the knickers off a nun’! Should be a fascinating evening!

Saturday sees us at the Children’s Festival where there are all sorts of happenings. Not quite sure what we’ll end up being involved with but later we’re at the discussion with Richard Ingrams, Paul Tankard and James Knox. Fake news is bound to come up then!

A different experience on Sunday – we’re in the box office. We’ll need to sharpen our mental arithmetic though I’m sure modern technology will keep us right. And then to Professor Robert Crawford talking about his biography of TS Eliot. I read Eliot for the first time at university so I’m looking forward to this.

And in between, no doubt we’ll be able to be part of the audience at the many other events taking place. I just hope the weather is kind this year. It’s not always done so, but fingers crossed.

And the letterboxes? I’m nursing a sore hand from a very nasty, finger-eating letterbox. I was delivering the last of the leaflets and this one particular brass (and brassy, brass-necked and every other brassy epithet) took a particular dislike to me. Never mind, I’ll heal in plenty of time for the Festival. Hope to see loads of you there.

The New Website Is At Last Here!

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Here it is! You can breath again. It took a bit of work (mainly by computer literate son – I suspect my mobile phone bill will have rocketed)

RonanAndJools

computer wizard and fiancee

but I’ve (well, we’ve) done it – I think, fingers crossed.

I’ve still got plenty of bits and pieces to add but I can do that at my leisure. Now my main task is to publish my collection of stories for children, designed to encourage their imagination by drawing their own pictures for the book. Even the cover has been drawn by a young friend, Maisie, and very good it looks too.Rainbow 2 copy

And I must do some writing of my own. But whether it will be a short story or a travel article or a piece for children, I don’t know. That’s the exciting bit about being a writer. I sit at my computer and start what I think is an article and it turns into a short story or a poem or the beginnings of a novel.

 

An Orkney Saga

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viewNo, I haven’t forgotten about the website. We’ve been travelling again, but this time much closer to home though almost as far away as you can go in Scotland – the Orkney Islands. In just over an hour, we’d left our world behind and flown into a land of seas and skies and roaring winds and the friendliest people you could wish to meet.

We were on an Orkney Archaeological Tour with our guide, Dave, who has so many degrees and interests, he is a walking encyclopaedia of all kinds of knowledge. And over five days, he informed, enlightened and taught us so much about the islands and their history, geology, geography and lifestyles that our heads were fair birlin’ as we say on the mainland!

The islands are covered in Neolithic sites and we soon became adept at picking out mounds yet to be excavated. We visited neolithic settlements, including of course, Skara Brae and chambered cairns where they laid the dead, although only a few bones had been found there

We scrambled into them through stone tunnels or down rickety iron ladders to cairns, some in which we could barely stand upright.

ladder

The way in – and out!

Maes Howe is perhaps the best known but is now so popular that we had to go in groups of 20 with an official guide. We much preferred the lesser known ones that Dave took us to, where there was no-one else around and the atmosphere was decidedly more creepy.

The Ring of Brodgar was also busy, there being a cruise ship in the harbour but it’s so large and impressive that there was plenty of scope for everyone. The day was cool with squally showers as we walked around them, grateful for the occasional shelter those massive stones provided from the wind.

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Ring of Brodgar

The Vikings had also left their mark on Orkney, often in the shape of runes found scrawled inside Maes Howe and in their longhouses, the remains of which we saw at the Brough of Birsay.

I can’t not mention the magnificent St Magnus Cathedral or the remains of opulent palaces built in mediaeval times and moving forward through time, the Hackness Battery on Hoy and of course Scapa Flow with the Churchill Barriers and the Italian Chapel from the second World War,

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The Italian Chapel

This is just a scamper through a great week but I must praise the food – local Aberdeen Angus beef and fish fresh from the waters around the islands, marvellous home baking in some of the most isolated cafes we’ve ever visited and great hearty soups to keep us going through the days.

And of course, there are plenty of settings for stories; a murder in an isolated cairn anyone? Or dastardly deeds in an Earl’s palace? Spies at Scapa Flow? And romance of course – sailors loving and leaving the womenfolk. In fact, we saw a grave in unhallowed ground where a young lass had taken her own life after being deserted by her lover. I’m going to be busy, I can see!

 

 

 

New Website Coming!

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cropped-30-torii-miyajima.jpg

Peaceful scene to keep me calm and meditative while I do it.

I’ve been working on changing my blog to a website to replace the, frankly, very outdated one I presently have. It remains out of date because the CD I originally used to develop it has been corrupted and I couldn’t get in to update it.

And when I did get in with the help of a computer literate son, I found it was way beyond me, having forgotten what I did then and lost the instructions to boot!

But I haven’t found this new one easy either. I’ve had to contact various WordPress ‘happiness engineers’ (sounds like something out of Disney) to help and they have pointed me in various directions and shown me what I should do. The person who writes a step-by-step guide for idiots on WordPress websites will make a fortune.

Ok, I know there are a lot of you computer whiz kids out there who will be having a quiet snigger at my attempts (probably all under 20 years old though I know of one very savvy lady of mature years who could knock the lot of you into cyberspace and yes, Chris that’s you). For the rest of us ordinary computer punters it’s a case of getting help where and when we can.

All(!) that I now have to do is to take down the old website and transfer the new one over to that host (which happens to be the afore-mentioned son and he gives me it for free) so watch this space. Don’t hold your breath whatever you do, as I may be some time.

Hopefully, I’ll see you all there!

Boswell Book Festival

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The Boswell Book Festival is held annually in May at Dumfries House near Cumnock, south of Glasgow.

We’ve attended most years and this year decided to become more involved and become  volunteers.screenshot

We could take bundles of leaflets to distribute so I thought I’d kill two birds etc and combine my daily walk with pushing the leaflets through letterboxes in my neighbourhood.

I learned a lot. First, utter respect for all postmen and in particular, mine, who must walk miles each day as part of their job and in all weathers. Having written Postman Pat stories for many years, I should have been aware of that! I had a glorious day with the sun beaming down on the spring flowers and it was a very pleasant, if tiring escapade. What would normally take me twenty minutes to walk took almost three times as long as I meandered up and down garden paths of all descriptions.

You can tell a great deal about people from the state of their front door. The letterboxes, for example, come in all types; some are just a simple flap which makes it easy to poke things through, many others have brushes inside which catch your fingers while the worst are stuck near the ground and require bending and stretching to deliver your goods.

Some front doors are very welcoming – kerb appeal, I think it’s called in estate agent parlance – with highly polished letterboxes and numbers, pots of flowers and welcome mats. One even had mini decorated Easter eggs in a tub of pansies.

Other houses had forgotten toys on the grass or piles of muddy boots and bikes in the porches, evidence of families with children to care for. Some had all their blinds and curtains closed. Well, it was a Sunday morning but not that early.

Cars were a bit of a nuisance, parked on driveways with very little space to squeeze through. Obviously some households have a car for everyone and have parked them on what passes for a lawn. They’re better than a spiky hedge for keeping people away.

Some houses are anything but welcoming. Scruffy peeling doors, chipped steps, even a locked gate stopping you approaching the front door. Signs were common – No cold callers, no charity bags, no flyers (they got one regardless!), no religious groups. One had even gone to the trouble of having a metal sign made repelling all boarders who dared to ring his bell (perhaps press his buttons might be more appropriate).

As I walked along, I found myself creating the characters that might live behind all those doors. Old and young, alone or in a family, tidy or sluttish, busy and rushing everywhere or lonely and keeping to themselves. By the time I’d posted every leaflet through many doors, I had enough characters and story situations for several short stories and a pile of novels to boot! Now just to write them.

But first, there’s the Boswell Book Festival to enjoy. I hope you’ll come too. Tickets are now available and they go fast so don’t miss out.

Competitions, Conferences and Chatting!

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I’m just back from a wonderful weekend at the Scottish Association of Writers conference at the Westerwood Hotel, Cumbernauld.

I was the adjudicator for the Under 7’s story competition – writing a story suitable for a young child in no more than 750 words. I had 27 glorious entries with tales of vegetarian vampires, cows with bad colds, good samaritan midges and dancing centipedes among them. All of them were a delight to read and each had a lot of potential. I tried to give every story some advice and positive and constructive criticism so that the writer would have some idea of how to develop their writing skills. All entries are anonymous so I had no idea who had written what. I had to choose a commended, a highly commended, and  1st, 2nd and 3rd placings and it was very difficult indeed.

All this had to be done before the conference where the winners would be announced. I was the last of the many adjudicators to speak so my entrants had a long wait before I could announce my winners. I was delighted to discover that the first prize winner was a member of my own writers’ club, Maggie Bolton, with a delightful story about a tadpole turning into a frog, called ‘Whoopee! My tail’s come off!’

maggie and winners

The winner, Maggie Bolton, is second right, with other trophy winners

I also ran a workshop for writing for young children, ‘Postman Pat’s Secrets for a Long Life’ (I wrote Postman Pat stories for a children’s comic for five years) and I spoke about how some contemporaries on TV at the same time as Postman Pat have disappeared without trace (The Flumps, King Rollo, Bertha, Pigeon Street – remember them?) while he is still going strong.

I read them one book which exemplified the three Rs of writing for children – Rhyme, Rhythm and Repetition; ‘Oi Dog‘, a very funny book with a feisty frog as the main character. Alex T Smith’s Claude series is very popular with 5-7 year olds while the Children’s Laureate Chris Riddell’s ‘Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse‘ is for older children but is such a beautiful looking book that I couldn’t resist buying it.books

Then it was time for some work with my group. I passed out slips of paper with a place or situation that a young child would know, e.g.the garden, brothers and sisters, going to nursery and they all scribbled down ideas that led from that. Some were very imaginative which was exactly what I was looking for. Then I gave each of them a name, some made up, some really quite ridiculous, and some ordinary and they all decided on who or what their character would be. Their imaginations went into overdrive and stories began emerging even from just a few notes!

And when they chose to match their characters with the situation I had given out first, well, I hope they will eventually turn into some cracking picture book stories.

The rest of the conference was just as busy and enjoyable, meeting up with old friends and making new ones, attending other workshops on all sorts of topics related to the business of writing, including one on marketing where we were all given sweets (thank you Wendy!) an excellent marketing ploy and one I’ll remember, and of course all the wining and fine dining throughout the weekend. Our main speaker was the actress Helen Lederer, whom I was lucky to sit next to at dinner, and I can tell you she is just as funny and attractive in real life as she is on TV.

Exhilarating and exhausting at the same time as the weekend is, is it any wonder I was tucked up in bed very early last night when I arrived home!

 

 

 

 

Take a Leaf out of my Book

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It’s a while since I posted here but I’ve not been lazy, just busy and one of the results of that busyness is my collection of short stories, Take a Leaf out of My Book.

These are 12 stories that have all been prizewinners in various competitions in the last few years. I haven’t published them as they don’t fit into the usual woman’s magazine style of story (I do write for them too) and I’ve always wondered quite what to do for them. Publishing them myself makes perfect sense and I hope that you and the other readers enjoy them.

Three of them, the title story and A Man’s a Man for a’ That and The Darkness before Dawn were all winners and runners-up in the Imprint Writing competition run by East Ayrshire specially for Ayrshire writers while the others were similarly placed at the Scottish Association of Writers conference, the title story winning there too, or in club competitions.

They’re all different; crime, or perceived criminal behaviour, seems to feature in quite a few of them from the inept gumshoe in Dougan’s Last Case to Secrets, Bramble Jelly and Knitting for Joyce  while Half a World Away is historical and set in Australia and Some Things Never Change starts there before returning to Glasgow. Ped Xing and Are You Listening? are psychological thrillers and the last story, Peach Melba was inspired by my experiences of having a loved one in a nursing home.

Its available for Kindle here and the paperback version will be out shortly too. But enjoy them and please let me have your feedback.

Deadlines, Dreadlines

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The deadline fast approaches....

The deadline fast approaches….

There’s a great quote from Douglas Adams on the Ayr Writers’ Club website:

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”

I love deadlines too but for different reasons; I need them. I do very little writing unless I have a deadline of sorts. It can be a date for a competition entry, an editor’s request (whoopee do!), something to finish before we go off on holiday/go into hospital/start a different piece of writing or whatever. If I have a date which I know I have to finish the piece by, then I will make sure I do.

But the deadline can’t be too far ahead. Too far and I leave it till it comes looming nearer. There comes a point in the calendar when I know that if I don’t start the piece almost immediately then I won’t do it well or get it finished to my satisfaction. I have to wait till then before I start though I will be thinking about it as I go about dealing with weeds or making a meal. (That is not to be recommended; too many burnt offerings and odd flavourings.)

I’ve had two deadlines recently, one for a local competition which I always try to support by putting in an entry, and one from an editor giving me the go-ahead for a pitch I submitted a while ago.

Deadlines scare me too. I don’t like being late for anything and I don’t like sending off pieces at the last minute. I always try to get them in well ahead of that date circled on the calendar, so the two pieces have been sent off in plenty of time.

Being ahead of a deadline has given me some nice extras – editors don’t like last-minute, unreliable contributors. They like writers who can produce the goods well within the time frame and  matching what they asked for. So if there’s a rush job (usually because one of their less reliable writers has failed to complete the remit), who do they turn to? Someone they know who can do it.

I’ve been asked to write scripts and articles with a very short deadline simply because the editor knows they can rely on me to do it.

Many years ago, I was asked to try out for a children’s comic for which I had been contributing stories. They were looking for someone to take over writing the Postman Pat stories as John Cunliffe, the originator of the character, wanted to concentrate on the TV work. I had to write two trial scripts and submit them by a deadline. I sent three well before the due date and got the job. That resulted in five years of a weekly income and over 300 stories about Postman Pat in the weekly comic, the holiday specials and the annuals.

And what did I write about? What my family, including my two young sons got up to. So if we went to the library or planted seeds in the garden, so did Postman Pat and his friends. My husband shaving off his beard was the stimulus for one of Pat’s friends to do the same! I have actually a record of our day-to-day activities when my sons were in primary school.

However, I learned one salutary lesson from it all. Obviously I was excited about getting the job of writing Postman Pat stories, so when my eldest came home from primary school, I told him the news. His face fell. I realised then that he believed in Postman Pat the same way as he believed in Santa and I had just disillusioned him. He never read any Postman Pat stories again, dismissing them as ‘just Mum’s stuff.’

And as for that children’s story I was drafting several blog posts ago….. well you see, there isn’t a deadline for that……

Excuses! Excuses!

Must do better. Somebody set me a deadline, please!