Friday 24 April 2009

An Enjoyable Week

Moans over, I'm really enjoying this week. It started off well when I met an old friend I hadn't seen for over 30 years (thanks to Friends Reunited). What a lot of catching-up talking we had to do!

Last night I went to a talk/reading at Waterstones to meet another Accent Press author, Kevin Chandler. His novel 'Listening In' has just come out. He did a really good talk, followed by interesting discussion. It was lovely to meet him.

Today my Yellow Room mag arrived in the post. I can't wait to curl up in front of the fire with a G & T to read it.

I'm looking forward to going to the SOA Authors North Spring Meeting in Liverpool tomorrow. Booking my train tickets online came close to spoiling my good mood (contradictory info about times and availability), but I think it's OK now.

On Monday it's my Speaker Club meeting, and I'm (almost!) getting confident enough to start enjoying these sessions. The editor of 'The Speaker' magazine emailed me a copy of my article as it will appear in the September issue, and I'm even pleased with my photo which they want to include.

And then on Tuesday I'll be back at work but (hey, aren't I lucky?) I love my job.

Friday 10 April 2009

An annoying week

I've had an annoying week. First, I found I'd become unable to receive emails. Senders were getting a 'Delivery Failure' message. How did we manage in pre-email days? For some reason, not being able to receive emails really got to me. I mean, I might've been missing some really important ones, like the acceptances I'm waiting for about my articles/proposals sent to magazines. And then wot about emails from people telling me how much they like my book? The advance review copies have now been printed and (I think) already sent out to a few people, so I'm on those hook things called tenters. My publishers will be taking some (my books, not my tenterhooks) to the London Book Fair.

Anyway, back to my moans. I suddenly got a 'thing' in my eye that looked like a spider dangling from my eyelash, but no spider was to be seen. Now I am left with a big black floater prancing about in front of everything I look at. The optometrist who did various eye health checks can't find anything serious, and he explained that I will just have to put up with the floater. Yes, but it's driving me mad flitting back and forth across the page when I'm reading or writing. I've had floaters before but not a nasty big black one like this thing. I'm told that after a few months my brain will stop registering it and then it won't keep annoying me. Well, what do you know? Clever thing, your brain, isn't it? But a few months?

I'd better stop writing this blog post while I'm in such a crabby mood, or I'll be churning out a long list of my recent annoyances. Maybe I'll feel better when it stops raining.