That was the week that was…

Busy this week.  At library working in the day.  Have a collection of poems now which is all dressed up and has nowhere to go.  About half-way through a radio play about some people stuck in a lift – I’ve got the beginning and the end, just need about 20 mins in the middle.  Also getting on with the novel.

Hired a car for a week and will be working up at the chalet next week.  Teacher training tomorrow.

Had a brilliant afternoon at Regent College discussing Holly’s options.  They were great!  Very positive about Home Ed and trying to work with us.  If all goes well Holly will be applying there.  So great to meet some people who are flexible, interested in you and not in making you jump through hoops.

A very positive experience.

Also, breakfast at Tomatoes this morning, a sort of church cafe with newspapers, cooked breakfast (including veggie), live music and chat.  Great!

Stay cool.  Have a good week.

TTFN

Yes! I have a fan-base

Just had three really complimentary comments from someone in Luxembourg.  Finally, I thought, someone gets it!  Someone outside friends and family has read my stuff and likes it.  It felt great.  She is also writing a novel and has found a publisher.

A good afternoon in town today – took Daniel for muffins and planned his 13th birthday party (bowling, pizza and sleepover)

Enjoy fireworks if you’re going

TTFN

PS to the Donkey for live music tomorrow

Update from Library

I need a sub-editor to think of some snappy titles for these posts – I used to be able to do it but the ability has deserted me.

Went to Word on Tues, was deeply unimpressed.  Not only did I not get to read because the list was full, there was a lot of dross (usually it’s mixed with some good stuff amongst the dross) and two people got up and sang songs – not songs they’d written but “Lady in Red” and some Bee Gees thing.  I’m all for inclusivity but that ain’t poetry.  So I think it may be time to be moving on.

Got to go now – I’m at the library and my time is running out.

Writing a radio play – more of this anon.

TTFN

I’m back!!!

Hi guys, I’m back.

Home is the hunter, home from the woods

And the writer home from the hill

 

Had a bit of a mixed week, due to a potential publisher telling me I should go to creative writing classes.  It’s a bit dispiriting when you’ve been writing for 30 years to be told that you are basically a total amateur.  Still, I got some poems out of it, one of which goes thus:

On Rejection

first I cried

then I laughed

then I wrote the second draft

Feeling quite good, tho, considering.  Going to be working at the library for the foreseeable.  I am currently working on a radio play as well as the novel and some poems.

See you all soon I hope

TTFN

PS I have changed my name to Sarada but not in any legal way so you can carry on calling me Liz if you want

Nearly out of purdah

Only one more week to go.  I have planned the novel in outline and more and more ideas keep coming.  I also have enough poems for a book of poetry.  All I need now is a publisher.

It’s all coming on!

Also recieved an unexpected cheque in the post, which will pay the rent for the chalet

All good stuff!

FFNT

or whatever

Busy not bussy

Been a very busy weekend – seems to have taken me all weekend to prepare for and then teach a day of teacher training.  Went well except one student had sciatica and couldn’t come.  I know from personal experience just how painful sciatica can be.  Other than that it was a good day.  We did:

known knowns

known unknowns

unknown unknowns

unknown knowns.

This is a piece of apparent gobbledegook which people often quote as “evidence” that Donald Rumsfeld was cellularly challenged in the cerebral department – but was  in fact one of the few things he said which actually made sense.  It means

- oh, hell, I can’t be bothered.  Work it out yourselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RpSv3HjpEw

Best wishes to all doing the philosophy with Bettina.  Do you miss me?

(“What?  Haven’t you been coming?”  I hear them cry)

See you next weekend

No buses this weekend as we hired a car.  Then ran into financial difficulties as my flexible friend refused to bend any further in the Wholefood Co-op and we had to put stuff back.  Could have been worse – it could have been Sainsbury’s.

As things are tight, we are only buying Xmas presents for the children this year.  Also, Daniel turns 13 in Jan.

Help!!!

Greetings from the wilderness

Back again for the weekend.  Only two more weeks of purdah left!  The planning is coming on apace and I intend to work every day at the library when I get back.  I have a collection of at least 40 poems now and will be looking out for a publisher.

Money-wise, things are crunching.  So glad to hear that the Goldman Sachs bankers are getting their bonuses.  That really makes me feel warm inside.  Just so they know, you can’t take it with you.  Mind you, it’d probably melt, where they’re going.

Not that I’m judgmental or anything….

So: if you have any kind of spiritual faith please pray for us to get some more income from somewhere – and if you don’t, wish us well.

See you all soon when, llke a bad penny, I will be back in circulation

TTFN

PS I am thinking of changing my name to Sarada – not in any legal, deed-polly sort of way, but as a symbol of this new phase in my life

HI folks

Back again for the weekend, and feeling much more positive about everything.  I have a real sense of it being possible to be published now.  I have some poems which I am feeling very good about.  The novel is still at the planning stage – I am getting to know the characters.  It seems important to know everything about them even if it doesn’t go in the novel.  The action takes place in the 1960’s until 79 when Thatcher came in, then goes back to the war, then forward to the 90’s and finishes in the year 2000.

Watch this space!

TTFN

Back to the world…

Hello darlings!  Back for a few days although will not be at home for much of the time.  Things have been going very well  – I have a working title for the novel and have roughed out four sections as well as writing a lot of the first section.  Thatcher, Churchill and Blair (yes, phoney Tony himself!) all make an appearance.  The war is the background to the second section (which gives me a link between this and the last ie the word “phoney”).  I’ve been doing lots of writing and also pruning (of trees not words, though I’m sure that will come) and generally feeling empowered and energised and stuff.

The camp site was lovely today – didn’t want to come back.  But have a student today and DCT weekend tomorrow.  Back Sunday, up to chalet Monday.

Love to all

Liz xx

Update

Hi everyone.  Sorry I haven’t blogged for a while.  We were at the chalet, then had a good holiday in East Sussex (near Hailsham) apart from me being ill one day with a cold.  Then I had a day or two at the chalet and decided that what I really need is to spend time on my own up there writing the novel which, as regular readers of this blog will know, has plagued me for years and years (I wrote one called Seven Days but it was too short).  So I really need to focus and will be out of circulation for a while.

Keep you posted now and again.  Won’t say too much about the novel tho as it’s at a delicate stage.

TTFN