A Killer Queen?

The delightful Rhian at the It’s a Crime review site has today been kind enough to include my suggestion for a humdinger crime book for Christmas which should definitely be on your list if you haven’t read it already – Louise Welsh’s The Bullet Trick – so do have a read of my review and buy it. You know you want to! I also love Rhian’s description of me as the “UK killer queen of the gay novel”. How I would soooo love to use that as the strapline to my upcoming new-look website, but fear that I might have to wear an appropriate outfit for the full effect. Whatever that outfit may be! Anyway, thank you, Rhian – your description has certainly made Lord H chuckle, and his eyebrows are still in orbit …

This morning, I have been rushing around trying to chase everyone up by email for stuff they haven’t yet given me. You know – generic office stuff and the generic office pre-Christmas panic. Happens every year. No doubt all the people I actually need are even now fleeing the campus and everything will still be here to haunt me, come January. Sigh.

This lunchtime, I am nipping to the shop to try to get a few things which we probably won’t need at Christmas. As you do. How many mince pies can two people eat anyway?? I’m really sure we won’t need fourteen, but I like to think I keep Mr Kipling going in these seasonal days.

And this afternoon I have the last meeting of the year to minute – hurrah! However, it’s the Mentoring Advisory Board - groan - which is always complicated, so I only hope my brain can keep up. Not to mention my pen. And that I can get the first draft of the darn things done before I have to leave tomorrow. I really hate things hanging over my head undone over Christmas – not that I’m an obsessive compulsive stressed-out bitch who can’t get things into perspective at all … oh no, missus, I’m the UK killer queen of the gay novel, don’t you know … Or maybe that’s actually the same thing anyway? Who can tell!...

Tonight, I shall pop into the hospital to see how my sick friend is getting on, and then I’m in for the evening, thank goodness. Heck, I might even try to get some writing done – you never know. Though, on second thoughts I'd best have a stab at the Goldenford minutes. Actually I think I’m developing an allergy to going out. How I wish the Government would make hibernation compulsory. Mind you, with all our personal records that they’re now scattering to the four winds, maybe hibernation is becoming the only option. And maybe it would be quicker if they just told us what they hadn’t lost, rather than what they had?

Oh, and, according to the boss, I’m desperately in need of further personal development. Is he sure??? Apparently, I have to make 2008 the Year of Developing Anne, as he thinks I need to stretch myself more at work. Ho ho. Little does he know that this Killer Queen does stretch herself hugely at work – it’s just that it’s not the work that goes on in the office. It’s the work that goes on in my writing life. The office job is what gives me some kind of simple base for survival. Lord only knows what will happen in my head if I’m stretched in both places. Heck, but maybe I should rebook another few counselling appointments now in case the shit really hits the fan next year …?? Though, really, being a screwed-up headcase with a mania for the pen has got me where I am today – it’s a career move, Carruthers. I fear I won’t have anything to write at all if I suddenly become a mature rounded human being … Mind you, probably best not to wait up for that possibility, eh.

Today’s nice things:

1. Being a Killer Queen (oh, did I mention that?...)
2. Getting the shopping over with
3. Being in this evening.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website
Goldenford Publishers