Avoiding the crowd

I spent yesterday being a tourist. My first stop was Mother Shipton’s Cave to see the petrifying well and make a wish, then on to Fountains Abbey to see what was there. I decided as it by then the afternoon, it wasn’t worth the £9 entrance fee, so went on to Grassington where the whole town seemed to be out celebrating the Royal wedding. After that, a walk round Bolton Abbey, and finishing with fish and chips in Skipton. The weather, apart from one short, light shower stayed dry.

Mother Shipton’s was fascinating. There was a really strange, calm atmosphere, possibly boosted by the fact that there were few people there. I bought a hematite crystal bracelet which is meant to help fight stress. A lovely lady sold it to me. She radiated positive energy.

It’s only now, a day later that I realise why I wanted to avoid the wedding so much. Back in 1997 I was in Exeter, three weeks after Princess Diana died. For some reason they decided to hold a three minute silence and everything stopped. This distressed me greatly. I feel that grieving is something that shouldn’t be controlled. If people are made to do something, it’s not always real. I also wanted to scream and shout and tell the world that I’d had my own tragedy, that two weeks after Diana died, my husband died, but of course, I didn’t say that.

This morning, there’s a plant sale/coffee morning at St Mary’s Church, so I’m going to see what I can find.

Green eyes

The sun’s shining, the garden’s looking like a garden, I had a break at the crossword group, but I still can’t seem  to shake off a feeling of gloom. I’ve been trying to avoid it, but the sad fact is, this business with Mum effectively cutting me out of her life, has hit me like an express train. I wish I could get some decent stories written, but I feel so full of emotion, trying to get under a character’s skin is proving difficult. It’s as though I’ve only got a certain amount of emotion to work with and I’m using it all.

If the weather’s fine tomorrow, I’m heading for Skipton and the Dales. It’s not that I don’t like the Royal family because I do, I just hate the way this wedding has saturated the media. I guess I also feel a bit jealous. I’ve been on my own too long.

Terrible typos

The man who runs the cryptic crossword group, proof read my writing guide, and did the corrections for me, so I’ve just uploaded the new content to Lulu. I was amazed at the mistakes he found. I’m very good at spotting typos in other people’s work, but pretty much useless when it comes to my own so I’m so happy he did this for me.

Now I can sell the book without having to apologise!

In half an hour a boxer dog is coming to see me. After the problems with the last paying guest, I’m feeling a bit dubious. I CAN say no if I want to. Anyway, I’ll see what she’s like.

BREAKING THE RULES

This morning, I typed up a story I’d written in pen some weeks ago. It came out well, funny for a change, so I’ve broken one of the rules of writing and sent it to two places at once – a competition and a magazine. After that it was my last volunteering session at Good Neighbours. Since it switched to Wednesdays the board games part has just died, so I’m glad I won’t be going any more. Next week on Wednesday it’s Heydays at the West Yorkshire playhouse  and I’m hoping that I’ve been given one of my first choice of classes. I love painting )pictures not walls) but rarely allow myself time to do it at home, so if I get on a class, I’ll have an excuse to indulge myself. Fingers crossed.

As Wednesday is classed as a day off, I spent the rest of my time in the garden, putting in more potatoes, some strange Italian beans (the seeds came free with a potato planter) and some courgettes. Then it was time to water everything. I’m on  a meter so I water as little as possible but it’s been so dry I’ve had to use the hose.

Now to shut down and assemble some bits of path – the pieces click together.

Windows and wallpaper

Mum phoned early this morning just as I was having breakfast, asking if she could come and stay. I asked her to phone back. So far she hasn’t.

I try not to let her calls upset me, but it doesn’t always happen that way. Now the holidays are over, the social workers and day centres should start work again and I won’t get as many calls.

I’m waiting for Molly’s owners to come and collect her. I won’t be sorry to see her go. I love dogs, but…..

She doesn’t do what she’s told, she jumps up at everyone and sends them flying, tries to eat everything from stones to plant pots, and this morning, I came down to find she’d started eating the kitchen wallpaper so there’s now a large patch missing by the larder door. Fortunately, the wallpaper is horrible and I’m planning to get rid of it as soon as I can muster some energy (I still have the bathroom to finish). I wouldn’t mind if I could give her a cuddle but she’s not into hugs.

The man from the Window Doctor came this morning to look at my French door which leads out to the conservatory from the living room. It’s so stiff, I simply can’t open it when it’s locked. He reckons it will need a new lock. I spent the rest of the morning going through my stories sorting out a few to send to The Weekly News and other magazines. It’s a boring, irritating task. I can never remember what my stories are about so I end up having to read loads of them before I find something that might do, then I may have to shorten or lengthen it. It’s one of those jobs that has to be done though, so now it’s time to switch off the pc, pick up my pen and draft some more short stories.

Not enough stories

I sometimes think that Norah, of Take a Break fame, saves up rejections to that she can ruin people’s holidays. On Saturday, a wad of stories came back, just in time for Easter, and she almost always sends a batch back at Christmas.

I changed two of them round a bit and sent them off to Womans Weekly, then came across a competition with a decent prize and a closing date of April 30^th – Unbound Press. So I went through my unpublished stories, looking for something suitable and sent one off. That made me think of the Bridport Prize. I vowed, in my Writers Forum column, that I would enter this year, so I downloaded an entry form, and set about writing a piece of flash fiction, so I’d have that ready to send off.

Molly’s owners called again, that’s three times so far, to check she was OK. No calls from Mum today which is odd. I usually get calls on bank holidays and weekends when she doesn’t have day care to go to.

This afternoon, I drafted a letter to send to everyone involved – her doctor, her solicitor, Social Services, and my aunts. I have decided to send this by May the first latest, drawing a line under the business of the Enduring Power of attorney. I need to tell people that I have done everything I can, and that the ball is now firmly in their court. There really is nothing more I can do. I have to get back to work.

Doing my tax return, led me to look back over the past year. I was shocked to see how much my output had fallen. I’m meant to write eight to ten stories every month, but in the past year I have only written fifty four which is less than half the number I  need to write to bring in enough sales. To make a living, I aim to sell one story a week, and as I have absolutely no chance of selling everything I write (it’s normally around 30 – 40 %) a drop in output spells trouble ahead.

That’s the problem with writing, everything happens in slow motion. A bad spell of writing now and I won’t see the effects for several months when the rejections, rather than sales, start coming in.  

In the first three months of this year, I sold eleven stories, placed three more in short story collections and won second prize in a competition so I’m more or less on track. Sadly in the same period I’ve only written sixteen new stories and I can tell that some of them are not as good as they need to be.

It’s such a shame the speed dating thing keeps getting cancelled. They’ve rescheduled again for May 21^st. If it ever happens, I  have a feeling it will give me at least one good story, even if I don’t meet the man of my dreams.

A frog in the loo

I began today by working on the book which currently stands at 44000 words. 

I keep wondering how it’s going to end. I’ve had some strange conversations with Mum this past couple of months. If I wanted to read between the lines, I could draw all kinds of conclusions, but as I never know when she’s telling the truth…… 

This afternoon, I found a young frog out of my downstairs loo. How it got there, I have no idea! I can only think that Molly had something to do with it, although I don’t see how. I’m now firmly of the opinion that I’m too old to have a puppy. She tries to eat anything and everything she can find, I have to keep watch on her. If I take my eyes off her for a moment, I find her eating stones or lumps of wood. Once it got hot, and I had to leave the conservatory door open, I had to leave the computer and work outside instead. I did some reading, then bounced some ideas around before writing the first draft of a story, ready to get to work on when Molly goes home. She LOVES everybody. When my neighbour leaned over the hedge to see her, Molly practically climbed through the hedge to get to them. I had to distract her with toys and a bonio. So far, she hasn’t appeared to miss her owners one little bit. I wondered if she would cry or get upset during the night, but she was fine.

Now, I’ve had enough of working so I’m going to crash out in front of the TV, maybe watch The Walking Dead or a film.