A reason for blogging

Some people blog to promote their writing and I’ve mentioned before that I wouldn’t have got the commission to write my Children’s History of Leicester had it not been for this blog.

Some people blog because they’ve got something to say and want to spread their words far and wide and you only have to check your stats to see how well blogs can do 'far and wide'. Here is a copy of my stats graph showing the location of this week's visitors:

United Kingdom – 264

United States – 203

Germany – 39

Russia – 36

Netherlands – 16

Canada – 13

France – 13

Australia – 8

South Africa – 5

Japan – 4

It’s pretty much the same each week, give or take a few countries, and I often wonder who these visitors are, why they came, and whether they found what they were looking for.

I did have a specific reason for setting up this blog and it wasn’t to promote my writing. It was to see if I could find others whose lives have been affected by Amyloidosis, by chemotherapy treatments and stem cell transplants. It’s not that we never meet other Amyloidosis sufferers. We go each year to the Amyloidosis Awareness Day run by Myeloma UK and Mr A has to have a two-day check-up twice a year at the specialist unit at London’s Royal Free Hospital so we get the chance to compare symptoms and treatments but I still feel the need to talk with others who understand when I ramble on about Lambda and Kappa Free Light Chains, Nephrotic Syndrome, Amyloid loads, not to mention all the drugs.

Mr A was diagnosed with Amyloidosis in 2008. I began my blog in 2009 and my first ever blog post says it all really. My blog writing style and presentation may have changed but unfortunately the Amyloidosis hasn’t. The levels were knocked back by the stem cell transplant in 2010 but we’re anxious that they’re starting to rise again. Maybe it’s a blip. Maybe things will stabilise once more but if anyone reading this is having similar experiences, we’d love to hear from you. Somehow, every now and then, it just helps to share the load.

... And that's my reason for blogging. What's yours?

What fun - a break from writing!

Last month was an exceptionally heavy writing month. I'd reached the point where my brain had gone fuggy so today I took a well deserved break from the coal type-face and went with Mr A to the Malvern Flower Show.

We admired show gardens:

We browsed and bought plants:

We were quite excited to see Monty Don with BBC cameramen and big booms:

We were even more excited to bump into my friend/critique partner/blogger Alex Gutteridge from Alex Gutteridge Writes:

Bad weather is only bad if you're not dressed for it. We were all well wrapped up.
[I took my hat off for the photo or you wouldn't have recognised me!]

Without a doubt the highlight of my day was buying a heron. [Thanks, Alex for encouraging me to get him!] He is now standing proud in our garden.

And now it's now time to get on with some work. I'm revisiting a number of picture books that have been languishing in my pending file for far too long. My outing has given me a few story ideas, some writing inspiration. What's more, I've got a feeling that a heron might well appear in my next manuscript because...

Y I am now in love with herons!Y

...and a Groundhog came to visit

Phew! What a month April was! *presses back of hand on forehead* A to Z blogs every day! All that nostalgia! I've really enjoyed the memories but, goodness, the schedule was gruelling, a two-week stint of flu, and right in the middle of it all I had an unusual visitor...



A groundhog came to stay!

Phyllis is a friendly little groundhog and she'd travelled all the way from the US to be with me. This was part of her world tour and to find out where else she's been click on the World Tour Badge. Having travelled so widely, Phyllis was very keen to see what Leicester was like so...

I took her for a drive round our lovely City...

We stopped at Victoria Park but I was surprised when she refused to go for a walk.
      "It's going to storm," she said. "We'd better go home."

Knowing Phyllis as well as I do, I believed her and sure enough, as soon as we got home...

To find out more about Phyllis and her uncanny weather-forecasting skills which come to light in her latest book April Fool, Phyllis! pop along to Susanna Leonard Hill's website. It's where Phyllis lives.

As for me, Phyllis has gone home, the A to Z is over and I'm going to get back to my work-in-progress. It's been badly neglected. I might even blog about it some time soon.

Generation... What's that about then?

Plus thoughts about Mum

When I was a child I found the concept of generation difficult to understand. I knew that older people were once young because they were always telling me so, but I didn’t believe that they really used to run round and play like I did. I wondered how you moved from one generation to the next and then when I reached my 50s and my Mum was approaching her 80s the full significance of generation hit me. Older generations die. This rarely happens in one go and so inevitably one member will be left after all the cousins, brothers and sisters have gone. Yesterday was the sort of day for thinking about this because it was my Mother’s Stone Setting and Memorial Service.

I’m typing this now with the sun streaming in through the window which is a bit annoying because yesterday it poured incessantly. We didn’t let the weather put a damper on things. This was our opportunity to celebrate Mum’s life. My sister sadly wasn’t well enough to be with us but other members of our family had travelled from all over the country. Some had arrived for the weekend. Others had driven through the rain from Manchester, from Devon, just for the day. I have a lovely family.

I have lovely friends too. They knew how anxious I was and several weeks ago they presented me with a fait accompli. They were ordering, preparing and serving all the food for a buffet lunch. So while they worked at our house we went to the cemetery. I unveiled the memorial stone and, after a short service in the Prayer House, I read a eulogy to Mum. It would have been easy to ask someone else to do it but I had been so close to Mum and I had things I wanted to say.

I wanted to tell the congregation about the four generations of family that mourned her. There’s only one family member remaining from Mum’s generation. There used to be so many of them. She told me recently how sad she was to be the last. It’s a lonely, and no doubt frightening, place to be.

I talked about my generation… although I didn’t mention that we will soon be that 'Oldest Generation'. I talked about the third layer of generation and how, just before Dad died in 1977 he wished that he could live to see his grandchildren grow. Mum was fortunate. She not only saw, she helped them grow. She did love her grandchildren.

As for the fourth generation, he’s not yet two and will sadly grow up with no memory of Great Grandma. My son brought him to see Mum two days before she died. The baby put his hand out to Mum. Mum put her hand out to the baby and they stayed like that for several long minutes. He may never remember it but I will never forget.

What does generation mean to you?

About Picture Books

I’ve been thinking a lot about picture books recently. I’ve been trying to analyse what works and what doesn’t. I’ve treated myself to some books on the subject but more about that in a minute. 

First of all I want to remind you about The Picture Book Den. It’s hosted by eight successful children’s picture book writers, including Pippa Goodhart, and there’s always something there to inspire. Today Pippa's blog post is called Pick a Book, Any Book! Do pop over and have a read.

While I’m on the subject of Pippa Goodhart, her latest picture book has just been published.

Little Nelly’s Big Book illustrated by Andy Rowland  

It’s about an elephant who thinks she’s a mouse. Pippa blogged about this book in a previous Picture Book Den post here where she talks about the importance of pictures in books.

It may not be obvious to anyone buying copies of the amazingly successful Winnie the Witch books that these too are written by Pippa Goodhart. The original character was created by Valerie Thomas but Pippa has been writing them for several years and very entertaining they are too!

Winnie Goes For Gold with illustrations by Korky Paul will be out on March 1st.

If you can’t wait until March then you can get any of her other Winnie stories including Winnie Shapes Up and Winnie Takes the Plunge on Pippa's website here and they’re all illustrated by Korky Paul.

I recently bought myself a fascinating reference book. It's called Children’s Picturebooks – The art of visual storytelling. It’s by Martin Salisbury and Morag Styles and it’s packed with information and inspiration about writing picture books. Right now I’m looking at its analysis of word and image interplay. Pictures can be used to either illustrate, to fill in the gaps or as a counterpoint like the well-known Rosie’s Walk where the fox never gets a mention.

I knew about these different styles. We’d discussed them when I went on a course about Writing for Children many years ago but I needed reminding and they’ve helped me to make some drastic changes to one or two manuscripts that are about to go out so I’m keeping quite a few things crossed because it’s almost a year since I had a book accepted for publication.

Maybe some of Pippa’s magic writing dust can float down upon my fingers!!

Springtime and a Good Read

It feels like spring is on the way. I know it’s only February but the sun is shining this morning. There are flowers struggling through... 

I photographed these Hellebores this morning in our garden.

...and the birds are singing in a slightly different way. I can’t quite say how, maybe a higher note, maybe more cheerily. You know what I mean, don’t you? Anyway all the bushes have new buds appearing and they’ll soon be opening and talking of new things...

[apologies for a truly groan-worthy DJ link] 

Annalisa Crawford’s new book, Cat and the Dreamer, is out this week on Kindle and as a pdf. Here’s the blurb:

Cat and the Dreamer 

published by Vagabondage Press

As a teenager Julia survived a suicide pact while her best friend, Rachel, died. Julia’s only escape from her guilt, and her mother’s over-protection, is her imagination. When Adam arrives in the office Julia’s world takes a startling turn as she realises reality can be much more fun than fantasy. Finally she has someone who can help her make the most of her life. But can she allow herself to be truly happy?

Annalisa told me that her book is now on Good Reads. I’d never been to that site before so I clicked the link and had a prowl around. It seems like a great idea, getting suggestions of books you might enjoy based on the books you've recently read, but when I tried to join up, it wanted to know a lot about me and my contacts. Maybe I’m just being super-cautious but has anybody had a bad experience through joining Good Reads? Or would you recommend it as a the next best thing to having your own personal librarian?

My Cats are Fat

It’s official. 

The vet has declared that both Mabel and Charlie are overweight. I knew that Mabel was a big girl but, in comparison, Charlie looks like a dot. Apparently she’s not.

It’s almost a year since we adopted them from the RSPCA and so it was time for their annual jabs, or MOT as daughter calls it. We discovered something about the girls even before we arrived at the vets. They miaow in harmony. [They usually purr and brrrp at home.] Mabel, being the larger cat, surprised us by having a higher pitched miaow to little Charlie who has a thick, double-cream voice. We had to smile at them even though we knew they weren’t happy girls.

Once at the vet’s they fell into a sullen silence. They must have known what was about to happen. It wasn’t the flea check. They passed that without a twitch and the heart check and neither of them noticed their jabs. They weren’t even concerned about the news that they have a bit of tartar and may need some dental treatment at some stage, but to be told that they must go on diet was not what they wanted to hear. They do love their food.

Over the years I’ve had many cats, all rescue and usually with delicate digestions and food fads as long as your tail. These girls are solid [according to Mr Vet, Mabel is 5.75 kg and Charlie is 4.69 kg] and they’re almost always hungry. I’ve bought a large bag of the light version of their usual dry food and we’re slowly moving them over to it plus we’ve reduced their wet food, just half a sachet each a day. They’re not happy. In fact, they’re furious. So I now have a problem. How do I survive my cats’ new diet regime? Any kind-to-cats suggestions gratefully accepted.