Free Book Friday: Focus on Health

This Friday, I have two FREE books to offer, focusing on health issues:

Period Pain: Please Make It Stop:

Period pain: it can be the most excruciating agony and can really ruin your month, every month. Here then, from someone who has suffered from exactly the same problems as you do, is a list of tips and tricks on how to ease the utterly debilitating symptoms. 

The wisdom in this little book will enable you to manage the agony of period pain and diminish any future bouts as they occur. It will help turn your miserable months into magical ones!

Download this book for FREE here.



Atishoo and Bless You! The ABC of Mucus Management:

Sinusitis? Catarrh? That awful feeling of nausea? Yes, you've got the dreaded problem of mucus. It's nasty and debilitating and nobody seems to want to talk about it, but don't worry, as you're not alone! Written by a fellow-sufferer, The ABC of Mucus Management takes you through a series of suggested remedies, tips and tricks to manage your sinusitis and catarrh issues. It will help ease your discomfort, shorten your period of illness and prevent your next attack. Atishoo and bless you!

Download this book for FREE here.


Have a great and healthy weekend!

Anne Brooke Books
The Gathandrian Fantasy Trilogy
Gay Reads UK

The pain of thanksgiving

First of all, I must wish all our US friends and contacts a very happy Thanksgiving Day - hope it's all going swimmingly for you. Here at the other side of the water, however, I fear I have been overtaken by a determined wave of period pain (garrrgggghhh ....) so my day of pootling about and novel-writing has turned into a day of rolling around on the bed clutching a hot water bottle, groaning and blinking myopically at the TV. Loose Women was much-needed - aren't they always?... It's a long while since I've had a bout like that - I hope it doesn't mean I'm going back to the old and rather nasty days, as I thought my various operations, pill cocktails and New Age remedies had got the whole dang thing under control. Deep sigh. Or maybe it's the onset of those menopausal years? Ah, Lordy, even deeper sigh. Hey ho, what fun life is.

Anyway, the good news is that I'm feeling much better now and have even eaten some lunch. Still feel utterly shattered and as if I've been put through a mangle twice, but hell that's how I usually feel after a normal day, so no difference there then. I really must get rid of that pesky mangle.

More interesting things that have happened this week are that I've sent in Thorn in the Flesh to Lulu Books ready for republishing that one. I hope it will be fully on the online markets again next year, but really with Amazon, who can tell? They're not known for speed. Have also enjoyed my online poetry course on Wednesday. We had to write a poem which included the Ted Hughes' line: Not a leaf flinched, nobody smiled. Here's my effort:

Night

I carried the darkness on my skin
down to the lake where the air was still.
Not a leaf flinched, nobody smiled
and the swans sailed by as I took my fill

of the deepest blue in the water’s calm.
I gazed at the point where the elements meet –
the pond and the breeze, the flood and the wind,
decisions that lapped at the path by my feet.

When the sky darkened, I drifted away
back to the place where the people are bright.
But a smile is only one kind of truth
and I hold in my heart the knowledge of night.


It's amazing what a depressed lunch-hour slumped on a bench at the University lake will do for you really, and Lordy but some days are like that. I'm also surprised by how much I enjoyed working with a rhyme scheme. Not something I do often, but the course is taking me to places I hadn't anticipated on visiting, and that can only be a good thing.

I've also finally finished my book trailer for A Stranger's Touch, but I've decided not to upload it anywhere until after Christmas, as the book isn't due to be published till the middle of January. So I fear you'll have to wait. All I can say is I'm very pleased with the pictures and music I've managed to find, and I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

I've also been musing on the terrible scenarios in flood-devastated Cumbria - I can't imagine what people must be going through up there and - though it's useless to say - really my every good wish goes out to them. I'm also shocked by the fact that the Government isn't going to be able to mend any of the ruined bridges until Christmas. What the hell sort of a country are we living in??? Lord H says why on earth don't they ask the army to fix the bridges - after all the Royal Engineers can run one up in 18 minutes in a warzone whilst under fire, and their bridges can take the weight of several tanks. It seems like the ideal solution to me, but perhaps the ruddy red tape is just too much for us all these days?? Bureaucracy is truly the death of action.

Meanwhile, back on safer land, I fear that Strictly Come Dancing is buckling under the weight of all those leg & foot injuries. Is it something they're putting in their coffee? Really, this series - despite the joys of the lovely Chris & Ola - is becoming something of a disaster zone in itself ...

Anne Brooke - mangled, mean and magnificent

Candy and Catharsis

Am hugely pleased to say that Candy and Catharsis, my comic short story about the loves, tragedies and traumas of living in a dictionary (well, it's a hard life for a working word ...), has now been published by The Oddville Press and can be found in their free Issue 3 magazine download here. It's the first story you scroll down to and I hope you enjoy the read. It should at the very least raise several laughs on this bright and bubbly afternoon.

Keeping on matters literary, I've been in poetic mood and have written a couple of poems over the last day or so - one came to me while I was doing my back exercises and the other while I was driving home from the shop. Whilst paying due care and attention to the road conditions, naturally. I was also thrilled to be asked by the marvellous Nik Perring to contribute a haiku to an upcoming book of photographs and words that's being produced for charity. More information on this exciting new project can be found at today's entry on Nik's blog. Do have a read and admire the photograph - it's great! And have a go at the competition if you feel so inspired too. Oh and yes, I've sent him my offering already (for a different picture), so thanks again, Nik.

Apologies though for the lack of meditation poem today - I was sent skittering frantically from my bed at 6am with a rampant bout of girly pain (say no more - oh, actually, I'm going to anyway, sorry ...), and so any concept of Bible reading went out the window while I was searching for a hot water bottle, painkillers and the Deep Heat cream. I wonder if this unexpected onslaught (usually my monthly pain levels are far more under control than that these days ...) might have been partly caused by the fact that I forgot my HRT gel last night? If so, it's certainly taught me my lesson, I can tell you. Anyway, Lord H rubbed my back while I groaned for a while (what a hero!), but thankfully all is now well. I can never find the words to say how utterly utterly wonderful it is when the pain stops. Complete heaven indeed.

Back to the literary life, I have written another 1000 words of Hallsfoot's Battle and I think I have more ideas about the battle scenes. Thank goodness. I've got rid of one secondary character too - rather too harshly, I suspect, so I may have to revisit the handling of that in the edit. So I'm now at the 111,000 range and back into Simon's viewpoint. He's not a happy man (or rather half-Gathandrian), believe me. After all, he's a scribe, not a soldier - as the good Star Trek doctor would say. I feel he's going to have to learn fast however. Ah well.

Meanwhile, never say TV is not inspirational: as a result of last night's programme on the building restoration projects updates, I've finally become a friend of our local Watts Gallery. It's not open again until 2010, but friends are allowed to have tours around the site as it progresses, and that's way too tempting an offer ... A building site! Builders! What more could you want?? Anyway, tonight, our viewing pleasures include My Family and Graham Norton (I've recently become hooked on this), which are of course inspirational in their own special ways. Not to mention unique.

Today's nice things:

1. The publication of Candy and Catharsis
2. Writing poems
3. Writing a haiku to order, hurrah!
4. When the pain stops ...
5. Getting more of Hallsfoot down
6. The joys of television.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website - a refuge for troubled words ...

Paper planes and publishers

As one of Lord H’s Christmas presents, I excelled myself and bought him a block page-a-day calendar which when finished each day can be made into different types of paper plane. My, what fun he’s getting from it. Fun which is doubled when you realise that the office also bought him a similar paper plane calendar (what does this say about Lord H??), so he gets the chance to make and play with not one, but two planes a day. Different ones as well. Hurrah! It’s giving him hours of pleasure, and actually I quite like them too. So the long winter evenings in the Lord H & Brooke household are simply flying by, m’dear (pun intended) … But where the heck are we going to keep them all?

Today I’ve been staring at the screen at work, feeling glad beyond belief that there’s not much on so far – as I am laid low by women’s troubles again (of the more regular variety this time). Goodness me, life is indeed a veritable medley of song. Or it would be if I wasn’t feeling like a used-up sponge that’s been through several traumas without appropriate counselling or a convenient source of chocolate. Still, thank goodness for hot water bottles and Deep Heat cream. Two items made entirely for women, I’m sure.

Heck, I had to wake myself up by thinking about holidays. Lord H and I have – I think – decided against Sardinia after all, as it seems to have only one plane a week which goes from somewhere obscure like Luton at the dead of night. Does anyone actually know where Luton is? No, I thought not … Instead, we’re leaning towards Madeira at the moment, possibly via Jules Verne Voyages (http://www.vjv.co.uk). If it comes off, this will be one of the few times Lord H allows me to go on a holiday that doesn’t involve seeing eight museums and sixteen art galleries (at least) every day without the help of any lunch breaks – though he does sometimes allow me an ice cream at around 4pm if I’m lucky and if there’s time. In fact sometimes I think he has an evil and manically active twin who is switched at the last minute onto the plane so that the real Lord H actually stays at home doing what he likes best – playing Sim City on the computer and reading about theology. Hmm, that would also explain why he only ever drinks tea on holiday and at no other time. Either that or I am actually married to two husbands after all. The plot thickens …

And, talking of plots, I’m half-pondering on my closing scenes for “The Gifting” – maybe a nice battle, or at least a psychological one. That always ups the ante. How I love a big finish. After all, isn’t that what fantasy is all about? On the other hand, what do I know? As it’s my first fantasy novel, I’m writing blind here. Maybe I’ll give it a pink lizard and a time-travelling wife. That’ll slay 'em on the shelves. Might even start writing some of it (the end stuff, not the lizard – trust me …) tomorrow, depending on what mood I’m in and whether my sponge mentality has livened up a little. You never know. Not, I must add, that this means I have actually finished the darn book, nor indeed am I anywhere near – as I merrily dot around in whichever section I’m writing at any given time. Though I think that when I do finish, I might host an online non-launch party, on the assumption that I can look forward to the usual responses from the powers that be ...

In fact, maybe I’ll enclose my own set of reply slips with my submissions which publishers can use to save them the effort, comprising (a) We love it but it’s not marketable; (b) We love your character but hate your plot (c) We love your plot but hate your character (d) You are a straight woman, therefore you are not deemed suitable to write in this genre. (Tick whichever is applicable). And, yes, these are all replies I’ve received over the years, sometimes all in the same letter. And I’m not even mentioning the rejection I received for a novel I hadn’t written from an agent I hadn’t actually submitted to. Hey ho, I must be such a stalwart on everyone’s reject listings that they send me a “no” on an annual basis, just in case. Still, good to think that they know my name for something … Maybe, on second thoughts, I should produce a book of rejection replies (though no doubt it’s already been done …) – which would be a damn sight easier if I didn’t ritualistically spit at said replies, tear them up into unhealthily small pieces and mutter pre-Christian curses in their direction whenever they turn up. There’s a lot to be said for routine.

Which brings me to another problem. Why aren’t I writing any poetry except my weekly haiku at the moment? I had something of a surge just before Christmas, but now the patterning muse seems to have deserted me for warmer lands. Perhaps it’s true that poetry is only for the summer. In which case, there’s no ruddy hope for me at all, as I don’t think we’ve had a summer in the UK for about a decade or so. Ah well. Maybe I’ll write something about booking a holiday, or Lord H’s strange tea habits. We’ll see.

Today’s nice things:

1. Paper plane folding
2. Holiday thoughts
3. Novel plotting.

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