Minutes, meetings, meditations and Maloney

Managed to sort out the first draft of yesterday’s Steering Group meeting and some of what I said even made sense. Possibly. On top of that, I managed at last to circulate the minutes of the month before, which have been on hold as the poor boss is snowed under and scarcely able to breathe. They like to work us hard here at the educational coal-face. Anyway, the big complaint about the previous minutes was that apparently I’d changed fonts half-way through and hadn’t noticed. Well, I like to be creative, you know – but maybe it’s time for another sight test? Really, a Secretary is utterly past it when she can’t tell the difference between Arial and Times New Roman …

I’ve also had a very inspirational meeting with Jo from the Arts Office and Fiona and Marian from the new English with Creative Writing degree programme. Lots of exciting things happening here at the University for sure, and it was a pleasure to meet them and talk about writing and books we’ve read and those we haven’t. Heck, I could do that all day, if given the chance. We all love Murakami – naturally. We’re also planning to run the University Writers’ Group much more closely within the English department, which will be wonderful (thanks for that suggestion, Marian!), and hoping to have regular reading events from external authors throughout the year. Marvellous. And Marian even mentioned that she might well get a copy of A Dangerous Man for her holiday reading – thank you again, Marian, and I hope you enjoy the read!

This afternoon, I had a half-day holiday (hurrah!) and attended another meditation workshop run by the Diocesan Summer School. Great to have a period of calm in my day, plus we did meditation haikus, which was great. Fresh from this experience, I am determined to get to bed at a reasonable time and to make a brave attempt at making this a habit. Ho ho. All these late nights are making my eyes prickle – not a pretty sight, really.

And tonight, it’ll be more editing of The Bones of Summer – I’ve managed to scrabble up to the start of Chapter 22, so there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, Captain. One hopes. Mind you, I absolutely have to watch “Bonekickers” (or “Bonkers”, as the Radio Times are calling it) or my Trash TV fix will be way too low for the week. After the first episode, what on earth will they do for an encore?

Ooh, and Maloney’s Law in the States now has an actual rating after it, which was a pleasant five figures this morning, but is rapidly plummeting downwards as the day wears on and by the time you read this will probably be at least eight figures. And it has even more discounts on the price now, so a total bargain for such a shit-hot story indeed! Not only that, but Amazon UK have now got the skeleton information on, which you can find here. And I'm only £4.73 in the Mother Country, so - as always - as cheap as chips!

Today’s nice things:

1. Creative Writing meetings
2. The meditation workshop
3. Editing Bones
4. TV
5. Maloney’s new rating and an Amazon UK appearance.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website