Books jackets and exploding toilets!

I sometimes wonder if my lovely editor regrets the day she discovered me. 

Clare and I have been together right from the start of my writing career, approaching eighteen years.  At the time she had just been promoted to junior editor and my agent had just sent my first manuscript to Headline which was lying in the in tray, Clare herself was doing some photocopying, started to read it to pass away the time and before she realised was on page 14 desperate to read the rest of it, so took it home and enjoyed it so much persuaded the management team to put me under contact which I have been ever since.  Clare is now a Senior Executive Editor and I really am lucky to have her as it’s not always the case that writers gel with their editors and successfully manage to have a business but also friendship relationship which we do.  Clare called me yesterday to discuss the very serious business of new jacket design not only for my next book due out in August but also for the very exciting launch at the same time of a new venture for me into far more grittier style of stories labeled fiction miseries.  It’s the story of the daughter of a prostitute in the 1950’s and the poor girl has a right time of it… but that’s another story.  Anyway, there we were yesterday afternoon deep in discussion over the jacket’s, me very aware and appreciative that I am not the only writer Clare deals with and her time is very precious, also that book jackets are as important as the pages inside, if they aren’t striking enough to entice a potential reader to pick it up a sale can be lost, when in the distance an urgent voice boomed.  “MUM, QUICK. You’re got to come now.”  Why is it that your family always decide they need you when you’re taking an important call! 

Over the years this is far from the first time that Clare and I have been rudely interrupted by one or both of my daughters demanding my attention when we’ve been in conversation.  I’ll never forget the most embarrassing one when Clare called me and right in the middle of it my then teenage daughters decided this was the moment they were going to ferociously murder each other using language a navvie would have blushed at… boy did I murder them when I had finished that call…  Some telephone conversations are not interruptible by anything… floods, famine or fire and talking to Clare about the exciting plans Headline have for furthering my career is top of the list for me.  I ignored Lynsey’s summons and carried on my conversation with Clare. The summons for my attention came again, so loud, tone of voice so desperate that Clare heard it too down the other end of the telephone line and we both had no other reason but to believe my daughter was in dire danger, at least at deaths door. Telling Clare I was sorry but would have to call her back, I ended the call and shot through the house, my heart racing, terrified of what I was going to discover. Lynsey meanwhile summoned me again and to my surprise I realised she was in the downstairs loo.  I live in an 1930’s ex farm worker’s cottage and the house has really thick walls but I would have heard an explosion and as I hadn’t knew the toilet hadn’t erupted beneath her for some reason and she was lying in a pool of blood, so what had transpired to her that she was so desperate for my immediate help over my brain couldn’t fathom.  Banging on the door, I demanded.  “Lynsey what on earth has happened?” as visions of a mad dash to the hospital flashed before me along with emergency surgery to her, me pacing the corridor worried beyond belief, praying the surgeon was skilled enough to save her life.  My 30 year old daughter’s response flawed me, speechless.  ‘The toilet paper has ran out in here, so can you get me some please.”

The fact she didn’t need the skills of an eminent surgeon to put her back together was purely down to my self control.

Best regards

Lynda x  

Taxes, Tours and Bicycles!

Just finished book signings for Onwards and Upwards which I really enjoyed meeting readers and the wonderful staff who help sell the books but it is very tiring and it’s good to be back home although no rest for me as I’ve book number 22 to get finished and having my eldest daughter back home who at 30 having lived on her own for quite a number of years has reverted back to a sixteen years old and under the impression that Mum takes care of her every need and as for board money…. What’s that!!!!

During our jaunt a heated debate on road taxing was on the radio. Now I consider myself an intelligent woman and know that mankind is killing our planet and drastic action needs to be taken to revert the damage we are doing if we as a species are to survive but if we are going to be charged £1+ a mile for journey’s by car in future then book signings etcetera for me might become a thing of the past as with all else we are heavily taxed on by this government I won’t be able to find this extortionate extra cost as contrary to belief writers aren’t all rich. I live very rural, have no public transport at my disposal apart from the rural rider bus that comes past the end of my lane once a week on a Saturday morning and only travels into Leicester, returning an hour and a half later, so to take advantage of any sort of public transport I need my car to access it. I am hoping that another solution can be found other than this one as cutting drastically down on book signings, talks etcetera will mean me loosing touch with my readers and book sellers and greatly upset me, although my grandson has come up with a solution for me…. he has offered to lend me his bike and said he will buy me a container to strap on my back to hold my books!!!

Best regards

Lynda x

“A blog? What on earth and why?!”

‘Everyone’s’ doing a blog these days, so why aren’t you?’ a very dear friend said to me as we were driving along the other day during a two day stock signing tour around Yorkshire.  Rob’s a wonderful young man I met several years ago through his working for my daughter Lynsey whilst he was doing his degree at Sheffield University, is a true book lover, and since then somehow he’s became my unofficial tour manager.

‘Blog sounds disgusting,’ I responded, narrowly avoiding driving up a one way street.  We were trying to find a certain book shop where I had a signing to do… the fifth of that day and my advancing years were beginning to severely tell on me.  Actually I’m not that much of an internet dinosaur that I didn’t know what a blog is… well I think I do.  ‘Anyway I haven’t time with all else I have to do,’  I said purposely disinterestedly,  hoping that would be the end of it.

Rob though had the bit between his teeth.
‘That’s what you always say to people who tell you they haven’t time to write the bestseller they know they have in them.’
‘Yes, I know I do, but I really haven’t got time.  I’ve a book half finished that should have been before Christmas, haven’t cleaned my house for weeks, I fear my family have forgotten what I look like and… well  anyway, why would people want to read about what happens to me on a regular basis.  My life is boring.’
‘Boring!  It’s anything but.  Your day to day has more drama in it than what happens to your characters in your novels… well nearly as much, and thousands of people love reading about them so I’m sure they’d like to know what’s happening to the woman who writes them while she’s writing them if you see what I mean.’
‘Do you think?  Are you sure we’re in the right town as we’ve been around this bit three times and there’s no sign of the shop we’re after?’
‘Of course we’re in the right town as it’s me that’s navigating.  So you’re going to do one then?’
‘Do what?’ 
‘Oh, for God’s sake, a blog?’

The shop I was looking for then miraculously appeared  so blog’s and all else but the matter in hand was forgotten about and another  miracle happened as right at the front of the shop was a parking space, miracle indeed considering we were in a busy town centre. Obviously the council planners thankfully hadn’t gotten around yet to full predestrianisation in that particular town.

When we emerged from the shop an hour later me armed with a bag of books I’d bought, doing severe damage to my bank balance, I’d completely forgotten about blog’s but Rob though hadn’t.  Immediately we were on the road to the next venue twenty or so miles away and only ten minutes to get there through rush hour traffic, I was mortified to hear.  ‘So about this blog…’

‘Oh, for f…’s sake I’ll do it, I’ll do it, if it’ll only just to shut you up about it,’  I cut him short.

So under extreme pressure I agreed but still hadn’t a clue what I’d write about.  As I fought to drive amid other’s hell bent on getting to their destinations ahead of us seeming unmindful whether all of us arrived in one piece, my brain started working then.  There was the time when… that would give the readers a laugh.  Then there was…. Oh, they’d relate to that…. And they’d definitely have a shock when I told them about what happened to me a week ago in the snow when I narrowly escaped death…. And sometimes it’s good to air your views on topical issues.  Actually the more I thought about it the more I liked the sound of it. The rest of the journey was spent recounting past incidents during my seventeen years of beavering away trying to write my books, up until six years ago whilst still working full time in an office, some hilarious incidents, some not so hilarious, ones even needing wads of tissues to dry tears and always ending off with ‘That’s one for the Blog.’ 

So here I am.  I can’t promise to write every day or the two books a year I am under contract to write will never get done and then I risk the wrath of my legions of ardent fan’s and possible new ones, and my publishers won’t be very happy and neither will the taxman but certainly as regular as I can… I’ll try for once a week but do promise once a fortnight. 

See you shortly then with the tails of the trials and tribulations of life as a writer, woman, mother, grandmother, friend and all else heaped over this head of mine that I have to deal with.  Sometimes I do question why I was put on this earth and hopefully one day I’ll find out!!!

Best regards

Lynda x