check, check and check again

You see, trying to be a smart alec and publish my posts without checking enough, so stray words get in. Slap my hands. Apologies all round. Annoyed it is, I am though, (just fancied a bit of Star Wars there) because my replies seems to have gone nowhere. How is that? Tried to answer Alice, my faithful follower, and she didn't get it. So who did? That's what I want to know. And if anyone else out there is hanging onto Alice's reply then... then... then... well don't know what I'll do really. Just enjoy, I suppose and think of poor Alice. So Alice, you will have your reply in the body of my blog for now. As you're the only one actually responding. Not that I feel friendless and unloved. No siree. Not me. Though the milk on my doorstep keeps going off pretty d. quick and I keep getting litter through my letter box i.e. stuff I really don't want to know about, such as offers on planet sized pizzas and armies of painters and decorators just begging to gloss my woodwork. You know the thing.

healthy food, healthy living

This week I found myself researching a few final details for Megan's story. And off I popped to the city hospital and sat with my skinny latte and notebook, in what could double as a French pavement cafe area (serving any amount of any kind of food available possible) and watched so many people down so much junk! How can that be? Why are they serving any junk food when we're about to suffer an obesity explosion which will cost the health service millions. Do hospital get paid a kind of bums-on-seats (or rather bods in beds) commission, so the surest way to get new patients is to feed them heart trouble in a bun? I'm bewitched, bothered and bewildered.

Obviously, I could have had a muffin, or a brownie, or a packet of biscuits with my latte but didn't. Later, waiting to see someone I had a cup of soup and a pineapple pot. OK so neither is anywhere near as nice as a double choc chip muffin or full butter shortbread and self congratulation doesn't take the edge off plain greed, emotional necessity or habit, but still I managed it. But why tempt people? It's... a.... hospital... Duh!
Bet they don't sell cigarettes in hospitals!
Hmmm.
Maybe I ought to check that one out.

try though I might

Just a worrying little thought. Being an absolute Luddite at all things technical, and I've said this before, you may remember, I'm not entirely sure what happens to my replies when someone comments. I write them and try to send them and then can't seem to find them anywhere. Alice, help me out here. Did you get my reply re: Chameane?

my kingdom

Now then, here's a to do. What to call the book. What title to give it. What a weight on the shoulders. Not mine exactly (my publisher's), but even so. All important stuff because no-one's going to buy a book with a naff title. Here's the question. What makes a naff title? Anyone out there care to get involved? Is it, too many words? Is it, too sugary? Is it, too dull? Is it, what is it exactly, that makes a title so bad you don't even want to use the book as a door stop. I'll leave that question hanging out there like one of those non-biodegradable carrier bags, those strange fruit which hang on our winter trees. We have one in our garden. It's blue. No name. No title. So I can't blame a particular superstore, though I'd like to blame the lot of them for putting my butcher, baker and candlestick maker out of business. But that's another story. This blue bag emerges like some very confused animal out of summer hibernation and dangles, or is battered by our salty winds, and still it hangs on, every single atom of its make-up, intact and ready to face another decade. The tree is too high to climb. I can't get it down. The bag, that is. I can plot the seasons with this one blue carrier. But it has me thinking. Maybe my title needs to be non-biodegradable. Anyway, I'll keep you posted. Hiya Alice. Bonjour. How're doing? Can't remember that in French, such a bad linguist am I. Fancy some German translation?
OK. So... now I'm going to click on PUBLISH POST and see what happens. Anything can, apparently, in the next few minutes.

Harumph

Guess what? You won't so I'll tell you. I have found a number of unpublished posts. A number!How has that happened when I've completed and clicked on the publish button? And I've been assured that all has gone ahead. I was fond of those posts. They took seconds to compose, seconds out of my life. Can someone out there, who is wiser than me, explain this? If I want to publish them I can, apparently, but they'll be completely out of synch. How festeringly maddening is that! I might be forced to complain. And would, if I could be certain it wasn't my fault.

happy

Alice, Alice, Alice. You have restored my faith in blogging.

thud on the mat?

Contracts are weird and wonderful things. It came, so I know these things. Full of words from another century, but isn't that the way of the legal world? Lots of clauses and one, very simply written, at the end: Bloomsbury, welcoming me to their list. It was worth reading just to get to that bit! And so I can come clean. That's who are publishing Megan and Jackson (title yet to be confirmed) and my agent is the wonderful James Catchpole. I still find it hard to believe that people out there actually like my work. It's a miracle. But I'm perfectly happy to accept it and move on. And here beginneth the work. A synopsis of novel number two by December. Best get a move on. If anyone out there feels like breathing a sigh of relief on my behalf, then do. Sigh away.