Presents, Bones and Maloney

Was rushing to get to work today, and I’m a little late, dammit, so will have to make up the time over lunch. Or possibly tonight. Depending. I have managed to post my stepfather’s birthday card and present though – but it’s not the present I sent off for, double dammit. I’ve had to improvise so, as and when the other one finally arrives, I’ll have to save that up for Father’s Day. I’m also not entirely convinced the package I’ve made up will get there – my present wrapping skills are pants, so most of the sellotape ends up in my hair and on my nose, and there’s an awful lot of swearing. Still, one can only hope, eh.

I’ve also sent off the whole of The Bones of Summer to The Literary Consultancy and so now I’ll have to wait and see what they make of it. Goodness, what a busy morning I’ve had already!

And I’ve taken my medical questions about Bones to the wonderful Steph in the Health Centre once more to get some understanding of what would really happen in my various scary scenarios throughout the novel. I do think my questions, and indeed my plots, are getting stranger – goodness only knows what the poor woman thinks, but she does keep smiling bravely. Equally interestingly, we postponed our meeting a little as she emailed me to say she was at home waiting for a log cabin to arrive – really, there are some things one daren’t ask. UPDATE: Thanks, Steph – you were wonderful and I now know what’s supposed to happen when. You’re a star!

Back in the office, we are now all really concerned about Carol – last year she went to Cuba and when she came back Castro died. This week she’s just come back from China – and now we have a substantially more terrible event. I don’t think we’re going to allow her to go abroad again – the Carol Effect is more far-reaching than even we had anticipated … Or at least in places beginning with “C”. Croydon had better beware then. Seriously though, a terrible thing – we really don’t want any more disasters this year. The world has had its fill of them.

And I’ve been doing bucket-loads of work to the Project Welcome website so that people can know roughly how Freshers’ Week is going to be. It always takes at least six months planning and we’re already well into that period. I think it will be a lot better this year – I hope so anyway!

At lunchtime, I wandered round the campus, but not too quickly bearing in mind the heat, and watched some ducklings. Here’s an untitled poem about them:

Three Japanese girls
pause by the lake

take snaps on their mobiles
of a family of ducklings.

I wonder what they'd think
if the ducklings

took snaps back.


This afternoon I’ve been flicking through the Faiths in Higher Education Chaplaincy report – good to get up to speed on this sort of thing, you know. Could have done with more pictures however.

Tonight, I should have been going to Guildford Writers, even though I’ve got nothing to read out – but instead I’m dedicating the evening to more of the Maloney’s Law edit, as I’m in the zone now. Sort of. I managed six chapters last night, so will be starting from Chapter 12 tonight.

Today’s nice things:

1. Sending off Bones for its first editorial
2. Getting the medical know-how from Steph
3. Editing Maloney.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website
Goldenford Publishers