Inner bitches, writers’ errors and a little bit of dancing

Dark rain clouds over the south today, m’dears. Plus lots of rain. Darnit. And I’ve planned to walk into town at lunch today to get a few bits and pieces, so I’d better dress up warm and not forget the brolly. UPDATE: actually it wasn’t raining and I had a nice, if brief, chat with one of the old Guildford Writers bunch whom I hadn’t seen for a long time. So that was great. I also bought the “Getting in Touch with your Inner Bitch” block calendar, as I thought the office would appreciate it. I was right … I particularly like the look of the “Niceness Detox Tips”, one of which is: Start a revolution in your life. Say “I don’t think so” at least once today. Fabulous! I hope to put it all into practice next year.

Ooh and the big shock of the day is that I’ve discovered that the last line of my Maloney’s Law blurb is almost exactly the same as the last line in my Thorn in the Flesh blurb. Arrggghh!!! I am now wearing a Writers’ Dunce hat as punishment but am too humiliated to provide pictures. The one good thing that can be said is that at least it shows that – even if I don’t stick to the same genre – my themes are similar. Ho ho. Which is surely one in the eye for all those publishers who object to my lack of predictability – hey there, I am predictable after all!! In the meantime, I have changed the last half line of my Thorn blurb so the glaring error is less glaringly obvious. It now reads:

“Can she overcome the demons of her own personal history before time runs out?”

Whereas before it was: “Can she overcome the demons of her own personal history and protect those she loves before it’s too late?” Way too similar to Maloney indeed!... Ye gods, I am starting to plagiarise myself. Should I sue?

Anyway, I shall run it by the Goldenford Girls to see if they’re happy. There’s still time, thank goodness. And all this existential angst of course assumes that the same set of people might read both – well, you never know …

In the meantime, the mystery of the strange outside table continues to puzzle us. This table which has been on the courtyard/walkway outside our office window for a few weeks has now been joined by a chair. Perhaps it is indeed one of the new faculty offices who simply can’t afford a roof? We’re thinking of placing one of our old phones on it and seeing if anyone makes a call. We could also make it pretty and put a plant on it – well we don’t want the poor hard-done-by admin bod to feel unloved.

Tonight, I’m off to Scottish country dancing – I’m hoping I can pick up on whatever I missed last week without too much embarrassment and confusion as I was too busy editing for Britain to go then. It’ll probably do me good – even I can tell I’m getting way too twitchy and anxious about stuff. I was panicking this morning before work about double the items I usually panic about: the iron, the hairdryer, the heater, the oven, the kettle, the computers: are they all off? To this obsessional list, I also added checking the book covers, checking the blurbs, worrying about not writing enough and staring at the computer screen whilst hyperventilating until my eyes imploded etc etc. I also did all of this twice, just in case I hadn’t panicked to the appropriate level of mania. I seriously need to reeeelaaaaxxxx. Maybe it’s time for a calming pill.

And later I’ll be glued to “Heroes”. How will it all end? It won’t be the same without my weekly dose of Hiro.

Today’s nice things:

1. The walk into town
2. Dancing
3. Heroes.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website
Goldenford Publishers