Christmas Eve…
Cripes! It’s here already!
Mizzle and drizzle. Rain and showers. Fog and mist. Easterly waves and wind.
This has been going on for nearly nine days.
I know I should be glad, being a good farmer’s wife and all, but the truth is I hate it…
Went for a cliffwalk, vertigo not withstanding. Let husband walk on the side closest to the edge. (I’m not stupid!)
My writer’s day, catalogued in the previous post, mentions embroidery which is pretty important to me. It, like writing, is something I will do every day (night actually) without fail. Some women pick up knitting needles or the crochet hook. But me? I pick up a needle and thread.
It’s an odd thing really…
Being An Average Day in the Life of a Writer
(Not including domestic dramas or farm!)
According to the media, the world is a pretty miserable place at the moment and I refuse to allow that to affect my life and how I live it because my part of the world is quiet with breathtaking vistas. It offers a myriad of beautiful things that cosset and nurture.
Life is too short not to be happy.
The most astonishing thing!
I have written seven books and am on my eighth. All since 2006.
One a year.
And published.
And they’ve won awards, ranked continually unbroken for over 12 months in the UK, secured more excellent reviews than not and I have met THE best readers in the world!
All this without sitting in a garrett and locking myself away from the world…
What a week it has been in writing!
Not only have I reached the 10,000 word mark with Tobias, but Gisborne: Book of Pawns was awarded a gold medallion from the Book Readers’ Appreciation Group (B.R.A.G) in the USA.
And today, that same book received an Honourable Mention medallion from the prestigious Readers’ Favorite Book Awards 2014, for Historical Fiction.
When I was young and TV had just begun in my home town, I fell in love with a little show called Tales of the Riverbank.
It wasn’t the animals so much, it was life on the river, a secret life. Little animals tucked away in the long grasses and shrubs of the riverbank and even better, animals that had adventures.
In that once-upon-a-time, Dad would sit and read Wind in the Willows to me and Ratty and Mole became my heroes – particularly Ratty because of his love of the water and boats. I was a child of the water then.
Still am…
And when my own children were young, we became devotees of the BBC TV production of Wind in the Willows.
Those who are my Facebook friends will know that I have become seriously tired of bad news. Of bad news online, on the TV, on radio and in the newspapers.
So much so, I choose not to engage with anything negative that is reported now.
Or anything negative, period.
Yes, it might be ‘head in sand’ type stuff, but I don’t care. And this was underlined when a family member’s LinkedIn account was hacked last night and she received a plethora of images of the beheading. Such trauma inflicted on an innocent woman on the far side of the world – and presumably for no reason other than gratification for the perpetrator.