Space, surgeons and streams

Book News:

I've started producing a daily paper on Twitter, composed of articles I find interesting. Today's edition looks at pets, poets and fantasy so if you're interested in any of these subjects, do take a peek!

One of my publishers, DWB Publishing, has just started a children's book site so please do log on and find out what's happening there. It's a very exciting year for them indeed.

Meanwhile it's World Space Week and Untreed Reads is discounting all sci-fi and fantasy books all month. This includes some of my own books, so grab a bargain today ... Some are only 50p so you can't go far wrong!

Not to be outdone in the bargain basement, Amber Allure Press is offering 25% off my books throughout October, so there's plenty here you can snuggle up to as autumn begins.

I'm also writing the final scene of my current gay short story, In the Silence of the Heart, which features desire, obsession, faithlessness and religion. Which is everything you could possibly want in about 10,000 words, hey ho.

Anyway, in honour of National Poetry Day (which is today), here's a poem I wrote about my garden:




Scarlet joy
The rose I find
written in red
beneath the lattice
knows its own glory

and radiates the strength
of this dying sun
into a different life,
another story.


Recent meditation poems are:




Meditation 572
Behind this brief list
of jobs and men

lies the need
of one man

to clothe himself
in wisdom again.




Meditation 573
Peace cannot come
from the spilling
of blood.

Fire breeds fire.

There is no answer
that violence
has ever truly given

and war is always a liar.


Life News:

Key excitements this week have included K nobly clearing the stream (AKA drainage ditch, but really I prefer the word stream ...) at the bottom of our garden of all its weeds and overgrown nastiness. What a hero. As a result we now have more general foliage than can possibly be crammed into our composter, or indeed any of our neighbours' composters. I feel a trip to the council tip coming on.

On Monday, we staffed the last of our new students' information points and were kept surprisingly busy throughout the day. In the past, we've taken the decision to shut up shop at about 1 or 2pm as the semester begins in full, but this time we only closed it at 4pm, well gosh. It's proved very popular throughout and I think we managed to help a fair amount of people, hurrah. If only because we are supremely good at interpreting what the room numbers mean. This week has actually been horrendously busy in the office as well - and at levels we weren't entirely expecting, but I think we've managed to muddle on through. I hope! I have to say it's nice to have the campus full of students again - makes it all worthwhile, you know.

Yesterday, K and I paid our first and introductory visit to our new doctor, who seems very nice indeed. Rather sweetly, she has a new application in which you feed in your health and family background data, and then it gives you your percentage survival chance. What fun! Apparently, K has a 96% chance of surviving the next ten years, and I have a 99% chance of so doing. Might be worth treating ourselves to those longed-for ten year diaries in this case. Keep breathing ...

Today, I continue to be the Queen of Busyness. This morning, Tesco have delivered my shopping (hurrah!) and this afternoon, I am expecting (a) the tree surgeons to arrive to give us a quote for removing 2 big hedges, 2 tall trees, 2 round trees, 1 spindly tree and nine or ten stumps (and possibly a partridge in a pear tree as well, but I thought they might throw that one in for free ...); (b) to go out and get my hair cut for the first time in three months (I might even be able to see out, goodness me) and (c) an evening trip to the ballet in Woking, to see Cleopatra. I do so love the Northern Ballet Theatre - I think they're great. Mind you, this does depend on whether K manages to leave work on time as he's been hugely busy this week as well. Here's hoping, eh.

Anne Brooke
The Thoughtful Corner

A Stranger's Touch and The Executioner's Cane

Well, gosh, it's been a wild weekend for writing news, I can tell you! Where do I start?? First off, I have a brand-new web page for my upcoming short story, A Stranger's Touch, plus an extract from the beginning. It's due out in eBook version on 24 January 2010, so should warm the chilly New Year, I hope. Here's the glorious cover art provided by Amber Quill Press:



Ain't it grand? I am soooo pleased with it I am virtually frothing at the mouth (hell, what an unpleasant image ...). Huge thanks to Trace Edward Zaber who produced it! Here's the blurb:

Male prostitute, Red, is given an assignment by his pimp and lover, Robbie, with a very unusual client. Red meets the stranger in a darkened house in London and, during their sessions, he learns more than he ever knew about lust, love and his own personal history. How will his curious and life-enhancing encounters with the stranger affect his relationship with Robbie and his clients, and can love ever be part of a hooker's life at all?

Equally fabulous news is that Amber Quill Press have accepted The Hit List for eBook and paperback publication in Spring 2010, hurrah! Still frothing at the mouth then - sorry ... So I've updated my web page here. No cover art as yet, but I'm very much looking forward to what Trace will come up with.

Finally, on the writing front, I've added in a new web page for The Executioner's Cane, together with an extract, so I'm on the way with that one at last. Hurrah!

Phew! Can the weekend actually get any better? All I really need is for someone to say yes to The Gifting, for Waterstone's to ring me up begging me to do a signing for them (as if ...), and for Mondays to be cancelled everywhere, and my happiness would be complete. Keep wishing, eh.

Earlier in the week, Lord H and I also popped over to the dreaded Car Parking Hell that is Woking and saw Matthew Bourne's latest ballet, Dorian Gray. Hmm. All very clever, but not a patch on the joys and heartfelt emotions of the male Swan Lake, which has to be Bourne's best ballet yet. Heck, I could watch that one loads of times and never get bored. For this one, I thought there wasn't enough colour on the stage or indeed plot, though the dancing was magnificent. You can't ever emulate Wilde's magnificent prose in a non-writing format really. If you see what I mean. And I actually did find myself wishing the menfolk would put some clothes on and stop simulating sex on stage quite so much - they must have been freezing, poor things, and it was putting me off my mint choc ice. The aircon in the theatre packs one hell of a punch. Am I turning into my grandmother after all?? God forbid.

And, mixing religion with sex (as ever), Lord H and I have had great fun sorting out the post-church coffees this morning. Ah, if only they knew what I'd been up to during the week in terms of literary and dramatic eroticism, perhaps they wouldn't be quite so keen on having us smiling like little devils at the back, eh. Oh well.

Anne's website - where sex and religion meet together

Thorns and Bones

Bloody hell, but I've actually done something literary today. Pause for blowing of trumpets and putting up of the bunting. Ah, I remember bunting. Brings back all those glorious '70s moments for me ... Does anyone still use this?

Anyway, I have changed all the names in Thorn in the Flesh that need changing and I'm sure my two secondary characters have grown sparkier as a result of being renamed to David and Nicky (or possibly Nicki - I'm still not decided). Strange what a difference a name makes. Even if only to my inner view of them. I've also added in a couple of phrases about Godalming Museum - well, if I'm going to have the launch there, then I'd better do the decent thing. Never let it be said that I, as an Essex Girl, am too proud to product-place in a novel. And even if the launch ends up being somewhere else, heck at least I'm showing local loyalty.

I've also typed up the Goldenford minutes and sent them out to the Golden Girls for checking. And I've done 787 (ye gods, that's more than 3!!) words to The Bones of Summer, which brings me to about 43,000 words. I think I'm about to go into a descriptive passage now too, so I'd better hang on to my hat and do my mental checklist: Do I have sight? Tick! Hearing? Tick! Taste? Tick! Touch? Tick! Smell? Well, not yet, but there's still time ... And not forgetting the most important ingredient of description: is this from the character's viewpoint entirely and absolutely and does it therefore reveal more of him? Oh Lord, but I hope so ... It's always the thing (amongst the many, many things) I have to rehash in the edit. And the one I struggle with most.

After all that, I have popped into see Gladys, who was quite chatty to start with but soon got tired. Hell, I have that effect on loads of people, so nothing new there.

Oh and I must say that I had a great time at Scottish country dancing last night - I managed to grab a partner rather than having to dance with the tutor, and I'm sure I pick it up quicker that way. I thought my poussettes were wonderful and I was okay on the weaving in and out in a line thing - whose name I have now forgotten - but my stripping of the willow was sadly lacking. Oh well, there's always next week. I think my main problem is the uncertainty under pressure of which is my left and which is my right arm. I think at one point I might even have swopped sexes. It was hard to say. Dahlings, it always is ...!

Tonight, Lord H and I are off to see the Northern Ballet Theatre perform "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at Woking Theatre. So I'd best make sure my tutu is ironed and my pointes are pressed. Ah, it could have been me, if only I hadn't grown too tall ... not that I'm bitter or crabby about my lack of ballet skills. Of course not - perish the thought!!

Today's nice things

1. Editing Thorn
2. Writing more of Bones
3. Ballet.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website
Goldenford Publishers

Highlights and faint attempts at scribbling

Had highlights put in today, in order to get that essential summer sun-kissed look - and very nice they are too - if we actually had any sun ... The lovely thing though was that Lynda (hairdresser) had been on holiday with her husband, and both had read A Dangerous Man (http://www.flamebooks.com) and really enjoyed it. Hurrah! She also said that she'd left it in the hotel library and it had actually been borrowed by someone. Also astonishing. Though I suspect it might have been a member of the American Far Right who will now ritualistically burn it in an attempt to stamp out the sin and evil of the world. Now, that would certainly be some publicity for sure! Though as it also makes for the second straight male reader who's enjoyed the story, maybe there's hope for 21st century tolerance levels after all ...

I've also been attempting to scribble down more to The Bones of Summer, but honestly it's been a hell of a hard slog today. Though I have written an ending, of sorts. I'll probably change it once I actually get there. I just don't have the energy - post-birthday blues, I imagine. Damn it. Just when I needed a bit of emotional get-up-and-go for the horrendously busy weekend which lies ahead. How I long for a weekend where nothing happens, or even an evening in! Though there is tonight - but we have to do the cleaning, and that always puts a dampener on leisure time. Double damn it.

Oh and I forgot to say how much I enjoyed the ballet on Wednesday night - Northern Ballet's version of "Sleeping Beauty". It was great - they set the story on two planets with a political agenda, and had wonderful scenes where the Red Planet visitors would turn up in their space ship and blast off again after decimating the Blue Planet natives. Bliss. A wonderful combination of two of my favourite things - science fiction & ballet. What more could you want? And the scene where the hero and his sidekick were walking through the woods towards the maze was stunning - the trees walked in the opposite direction so the journey looked so much longer. Ace. Oh and I loved the murder scenes and the dance with the knife too. Well, I would, I suppose.

This afternoon, I have to stare at the computer screen again and do a lot of sighing. It's that sort of bollocky writing day indeed. Then, I need to pop into Godalming to get some lavender oil, after which I'm playing golf with Marian - though actually I'm hoping for rain, as I could do with being very antisocial at the moment. Double sigh!

Oh, and I've practised my introductory speech for the Goldenford (http://www.goldenford.co.uk) launch event tomorrow one final time. I might take some calming pills tonight, to try to ensure some sleep - how I hate any form of public speaking; honestly it's a nightmare! - though I've already just now taken a Destress pill, so no doubt I shall soon be completely asleep. Lordy lordy, but I must remember to factor in those afternoon naps I used to have, in the days when I was writing more. I really miss them.

Today's nice things:

1. The haircut
2. Lynda and her husband enjoying ADM
3. Writing an ending to The Bones of Summer.

Anne Brooke
http://www.annebrooke.com
http://www.pinkchampagneandapplejuice.com
http://www.goldenford.co.uk

Backs, ballet and books

Bought cakes on my way to work today, as it’s my birthday tomorrow but I don’t work on Thursdays. So I will be Mrs Popular for a day, hurrah! The office signed a card for me, which was very sweet, and also sang “Happy Birthday” when I’d sat down at my desk, which was also very sweet – if rather disturbing. I don’t think we’ll be entering the next series of “Britain’s Got Talent” in the choir category … Though of course, if you’re reading this at all, Carol, you’re a solo star in the making!...

The car’s gone in for a service & MOT today, so Lord H and I have swapped cars for the day. Must try and remember that his Renault Laguna is built like a tank, compared to my little Fiesta (goodness, how typical boy/girl couple we sound, all of a sudden, at least in our car choices …) so I can’t swerve into the parking spaces as I can with my own. Hope poor little Rupert (yes, I do name my car – don’t you?) is okay, and safe back tonight. I do worry about him.

And I’ve been thinking lately about scaling down the attempts to break into the world of the mainstream published. I’m just starting my seventh book now, and in my seventh year of writing fiction, and there have been no bites from any of the “big boys” so perhaps it’s time to accept that it simply isn’t going to happen. The constant attempts to chip away at the very thick glass ceiling that seems to exist around me have also, particularly over the last two years, been very debilitating and have really taken away a lot of the enjoyment I get from actually writing. I absolutely loved writing my first novel, The Hit List, and though I think it’s my worst one in terms of quality (which is probably better than it being my best – I like to think I’m improving after all), I’d love to get back that enthusiasm and sense of freshness that powered me through it. And yes it’s lovely to have been recently published by Flame Books (http://www.flamebooks.com) but I think they’re finding it hard to sell decent quantities of A Dangerous Man which must therefore be tricky for them too. After my attempts to be smiley and nice to people with ridiculous and surely unjustified amounts of emotional power at the forthcoming Annual Writers’ Conference (http://www.writersconference.co.uk), we’ll have to see.

The same goes for my poetry, which I’ve been writing for about twenty years now. I get accepted so rarely in magazines these days (though I was doing better – perhaps writing better? – a couple of years ago), that I think it’s time to revisit my once a month submissions schedule. I might scale down to trying once every couple of months. Rejections are soul-destroying enough, after all. Why put myself through it more than I absolutely have to? And I certainly won’t be sending collections out anywhere again. In my experience, people have enthused and promised to come back to me, but then after a year or so they just seem to disappear. I’ll stick to the self-publishing route. It just makes me feel a lot happier. Apart from the lack of sales of course. That’s always a bummer.

All this writerly thought and potential decision-making does make me feel sad, I have to admit. It’s hard to win awards for my work and yet get shunned by 99% of the publisher world – with the honourable exception of Flame! And also not forgetting Goldenford though there of course I do have a directorial say. But, for my own peace of mind, I do have to begin to think practically. And number my sales in the tens and fifties, rather than the hundreds or thousands.

Went to my back exercise class at lunchtime – the last of the academic year, at least for me as I can’t do next week’s. I’m hoping to get away with a light regime this session as I’d like to be able to move without aching tomorrow. I’m such an old crock, you know … Though now they tell me that they might put an extra week on, so is there, even in Health, no mercy?! Darn it, eh!

And I’ve just given up on Linda Fairstein’s Death Dance. I lost interest by page 103, to be honest. I think it was all too fast-paced and exhausting, and I didn’t care enough. I also preferred the sub-plot and had no interest in the main plot about the ballet dancer. Sigh.

Talking of which, tonight, Lord H is taking me out to the ballet at Woking – we’re going to have dinner at the theatre and see “Sleeping Beauty”, so that should be great. I love the ballet. I could have been a ballet star, you know, except that I have no sense of grace or balance. Or indeed any kind of skill or talent in that area. Ah well, another vocation cruelly snatched away, ho ho …

Today’s nice things:

1. Cakes at the office
2. The back class
3. Sleeping Beauty.

Anne Brooke
http://www.annebrooke.com
http://www.pinkchampagneandapplejuice.com
http://www.goldenford.co.uk

Mad priests and birthday lists

Went to church today in a fairly neutral frame of mind. Lord H was serving and doing prayers, so I was happily sitting in a pew on my own when our lay reader came to sit next to me. A lovely gesture on her part, no doubt, but actually I would have been happier alone. Still, they're not to know that. And I can honestly say that I did have every intention of going up to communion, but the really appalling sermon the Very Reverend Alex preached was just so bloody inhumane that I decided that no way on earth was I going to take communion from such a out-and-out tosser. Though I probably should have been warned when I saw it was him; I'm sure he's pissed me off with ridiculously narrow-minded and downright cruel sermons before. Anyway, today's effort was a jumbled journey through various terrible things which happen to people, culminating in a story about a young widow whose husband had dropped dead at the age of 31, and when she'd turned to help from the nearest priest, this piss-stupid individual had said that she should be comforted that her husband had been taken as God had work for him to do in heaven. Words fail me!! Apparently these were supposed to be words of comfort which brought hope and a changed attitude to the unfortunate widow in question, and inspiration for us all. Well, bollocks to that is what I say. If any damnfool cleric is ever stupid enough to say such arrant and cruel nonsense to me, I shall kick him in the goolies and stuff his pectoral cross down his throat. What the bloody hell is the church thinking of by giving us such inhumane idiots as the Very Reverend gentleman?? Mind you, perhaps they are trying to promote him out of harm's way where he can do the least damage? I say just stick a red-hot poker up his arse and have done with it. I'll be first in line. And no ambulances. Please God bring us normal priests who know that grief is grief and should be respected - and felt - as such, and not smoothed away (as if it bloody well could be!) with honeyed "christian" nonsense. Honestly, I am getting more and more fed up with the church - and if that's the way I'm supposed to believe and the kind of God I'm supposed to believe in, then frankly I'm not interested in either. Give me humanity any day. And, in my opinion, the Good Lord Himself would probably kick a few arses and feel the same.

However, there is some good news about today: Lord H has finally succumbed to marital pressure and given me a birthday list (his birthday is in February) so I can actually buy something he wants. Each year, I have to chip away with my special nagging tools until I get some kind of an answer, but this year he has surpassed himself; instead of leaving the list on the dining-room table without talking about it in the usual manner, he wrote two items on a post-it note and stuck it in the doorway of the spare room. I walked past it several times, thinking it was some theological note with a phone number of someone he needed to call - until taking a closer look revealed it as a list in his usual undecipherable handwriting with an ISBN number at the top. Marital communication is indeed a complete mystery to us both. As you can see. It also worries me that the second item he wants is an origami kit. Oh Lord, is he going to start making a model of St Paul's out of folded paper? I sincerely hope not ...

Have written a poem about our night out yesterday - obviously it's such a rare occurence that I was moved to verse. Nothing deep here - it's basically just what I saw while we were eating, but here it is anyway:

Night out, The Seahorse, January 2007

At the neighbouring table,
framed by wood and window,
a family browses through
an Eyewitness Guide
to somewhere.

The man gets drinks,
collates supper orders
while the woman smiles
at her children.
They do not notice:

the girl, long hair
flicked back,
writes slowly in a blue notebook,
perhaps describing her trip
or imagining the one to come;

meanwhile her younger brother,
frowning over his mini chess-set,
dark eyelashes quivering,
ponders the future
in black and white.

Another Saturday night
in Surrey,
a good weekend
this time.

Most of this afternoon, I've spent reading and finishing off Lisa Gardner's "Gone". Great thriller stuff. Firmly based within the genre, yes, but still a good read as the characters were very well drawn. And a great page-turner. I'd recommend it, and I'll look out for more of hers in the future. Have to admit also here that I had planned to watch "Swan Lake" on the TV this afternoon as it seemed an ideal Sunday activity, but when push came to shove it just seemed way too worthy and I couldn't be arsed. No changes there then. In the meantime, Lord H is burning incense in preparation for the jamboree next week when St Peter's welcomes its new vicar. Yes, sadly, we do have church incense in the house. The winter evenings fly by. God, I hope the new boy isn't another VR Alex. Lord preserve us all indeed ... but I'm not holding out much hope.

Tonight, we're going to slob in front of our video of "Midsomer Murders", whilst eating Gingerbread Men (bought of course). Bliss. Rubbish detectives kick ballet into touch any day.

And this week's haiku (in honour of my first dance class) is:

While we waltz, music
whispers to our skin, gentles
us into rhythm.

Today's nice things:

1. Coming home from bloody church
2. Reading
3. TV.

Anne Brooke
http://www.annebrooke.com
http://www.goldenford.co.uk

Christmas survived!

And, hey, it wasn't too bad actually. I even managed to go to church with Lord H and it was all right. Mind you, we sang "Oh little town" and, as I think that's got the most profound first verse of all the carols, we couldn't really go far wrong. And the visiting preacher was quite human too and didn't blow a gasket when I said how much I hated that famous beginning to John 1 and isn't Christmas ruined by the fact that we have to have it each ruddy year? To my mind, a little sensible editorial work would in fact have either cut it entirely or at least placed it at the end of the whole book. Start with the action is what I say. Other highlights of the service were the new utterly adorable, round woolly sheep that have been added to the manger. I nearly pinched them for home but Lord H raised his eyebrows and groaned a little too loudly. But I filched two chocolates from the Christmas tree - hurrah!

The big Christmas pleasure though was at the African waterhole which we always visit whenever we can via webcam (http://www.wavelit.com/index.asp?ch=Wildlife&sh=africam#) there was a pride of lions having a Christmas meal of (dead) wildebeest. Marvellous - nature red of tooth and claw. I love it! Oh and we saw a green woodpecker in the garden, so that was grand too. If not quite as blood-thirsty as the lions.

Other Christmas pleasures - Lord H buying me a ballroom/Latin American dancing beginners' book and a DVD to go with it. I shall have twinkling toes indeed when I start my classes next year. Something to look forward to indeed. And "Doctor Who" and "The Vicar of Dibley" on TV were first-class.

Which brings us to:

Boxing Day

Which has included a morning's (rather cold) golf, an afternoon snoozing in front of "Giselle" on TV and another evening's slump ahead. Bliss. Though I really ought to make a shopping list for tomorrow before the week gets too set in.

I have to admit that I'm enjoying the hols, but - being me - it will be marvellous to get back to our normal routine next week. I'm nothing if not a party pooper ...

Oh and I've just finished another marvellous book from Taichi Yamada - "In Search of a Distant Voice". Another Murakami in truth, and highly recommended. And I gave up on Andrew Martin's "The Lost Luggage Porter" at the end of Page 5: the hero has to be the most boring man on God's fictional earth. My advice is: don't bother. Stick to the Yamada instead.

Christmas' nice things:

1. Hungry lions in Africa
2. Dancing books/DVD
3. Golf.

Anne Brooke
http://www.annebrooke.com
http://www.goldenford.co.uk

Writing

Did more to "The Gifting" today - and I think I may have got over one of the "humps" in the plot I've been worried about. Thank goodness. It does spark off other potential problems, but at least I've gone part-way to surmounting it. And 65,000 words now, so that's good news. I'm aiming for 120,000, I think, as fantasy novels are always longer. So they say.

Should have gone golfing with Marian in the middle of the day, but torrential rain stopped play. So I stumbled on with "The Gifting" for a while, but I'm stopping now to laze around and watch TV. Hell, I have to get my ideas from somewhere.

Still no news on a publication date for "A Dangerous Man", but I know Flame (http://www.flamebooks.com) must be bloody busy with everything right now, so I'll just have to be patient. If I've learnt any damn thing over the years in this game, it should be patience - but still it doesn't come easily. Ah well. At least I've not been feeling quite as depressed recently as I've grown accustomed to feeling. Which is something of a relief, though I'm not sure how long this "light zone" will last, to be honest.

Oh, and last night's ballet - "The Three Musketeers" as performed by Northern Ballet Theatre - was absolutely stunning. The first few minutes of the Prologue might have been a tad on the camp side of camp, but once they got started, it was bloody marvellous. Great and very exciting dancing, great characters and wonderful swordfights/scene choreography. If you get the chance to see it, then do!

Today's nice things:

1. Writing
2. Not feeling quite so depressed
3. Yesterday's ballet.

Anne Brooke
http://www.annebrooke.com
http://www.goldenford.co.uk

Goldenford and ballet

A slow start to the morning - hell, we all need a lie-in sometimes. Typed up the Goldenford (http://www.goldenford.co.uk) minutes from Tuesday's meeting, practised my readings for the three Goldenford and Guildford Writers (http://www.guildfordwriters.net) events we have coming up in October, and did another thousand words to "The Gifting". It's funny how painfully slow the process of writing is for this particular novel, but how much I'm learning from it. It's as if I'm pulling Simon into the world very very gradually, and the more I see of him, the more I realise he's me. It gives me a lot to think about, but feels real.

Visited Gladys in the afternoon - lively but vague today, I think. At home, I uploaded my two available novels and one poetry book onto the new Writewords (http://www.writewords.org.uk) bookshop site. This is going to be a brilliant idea - there are about 5 or 6 books there at the moment, including mine - and it's going to be so much simpler to have this sort of place where quality work is guaranteed. Of course!

Tonight, Lord H and I are off to the ballet in Woking - "The Three Musketeers". Hope it will be good, but I have to say the new Woking icecream is rubbish. They just don't offer Loseley any more - shame, we cry.

Today's nice things:

1. The writing
2. The new Writewords bookshop
3. The ballet.

Anne Brooke
http://www.annebrooke.com