Jane Eagland's Blog, page 7

Grow Your Novel

If you are setting out Generic pharmacy on the path of writing a novel, and feeling a little uncertain, there is plenty of advice available in books and on the internet. But here's a fresh approach by L.K. Madigan whose YA novel Flash Burnout has recently been published in the UK.

Fun but wise advice, too!

High Jinks in Haslingden

Recently I was invited to lead a workshop with Hasiwriters a group who meet in Haslingden Library.

I've taught in various venues over the years and I like to arrive in good time, knowing that very often there might be something to sort out before the session starts. This time the 'something' was a room full of young people enjoying a drumming workshop next door…

Fortunately Joan and Joan, two members of Hasiwriters, were on hand Online Generic pharmacy to sort things out and we were able to move to the Reference room – very convenient for us but perhaps not so convenient for the poor people trying to work in there.

This was my first workshop with the group and I was delighted so many people turned up. (I was also delighted with the very superior chocolate cookies on offer.)

The first task was to write about a famous person in an unlikely place and situation.

This seemed to capture people's imaginations: Janet had the Queen shopping at Haslingden Tesco; Jim imagined Sir Alex Ferguson taking up floristry; Gordon wrote a lovely piece about Nelson Mandela on St Kilda and Barbara put Queen (the group) on Mars – including a playful line about Freddie Mercury.

The other task concerned a marriage breaking down on account of the wife's excessive fondness for a pot-bellied pig. Joan, Gail and Theresa entertained us with their responses but the prize for naughtiness went to Irene who read her piece with gusto, amid gales of laughter.

The evening concluded with a photograph:

And the huge box of chocolates? Ah yes, I forgot to mention that. Just a little something for me to take home…and I got a bottle of wine!

Thank you, Hasiwriters, for your enthusiasm and very generous gifts!

The Writer's Life 1

One of the good things about being a writer is that you work from home. Good because, among other things, you don't have to dress respectably or indeed at all, if that's your preference. It also means that to some extent you can be flexible about social arrangements.

Today for example I was happy that some friends I haven't seen for ages were passing and would call in during the afternoon. Fine. I just needed to run the hoover over the living room carpet. Then I could get on with my work for the rest of the morning and feel OK about seeing them.

To save time I didn't attempt to clean under anything – I just went round the bits that showed. But I wasn't paying enough attention and the next minute the hoover was making a nasty noise and sucking in a length of wool. I managed to switch it off before it ate the few inches of the scarf I've been knitting. Then I inspected the damage.

Yards of wool were wound round the brush-roller thing. I started pulling it out but it jammed. I tried pulling at bits of the mechanism. Nothing budged.

It would have been easy enough to cut the wool off the roller. But as you can see…

…it's one of those balls of wool that changes colour Generic pharmacy whithout prescription every few inches – so you end up with subtly blending stripes. If I cut a chunk out of the middle, the effect would be spoilt.

I searched for the hoover instructions which were in a box on a shelf in the cupboard under the stairs. As I lifted the box down the basket of dusters balanced on top of it slipped off and set off a domino effect of cascading objects. I left them where they fell.

Armed with a screw driver I started to wrestle off the bottom of the hoover. Then I read 'Unplug appliance before removing this plate.' I unplugged. Two screws came out successfully, one resisted. I applied brute force. I don't know if you've ever tried to disembowel a hoover but I can tell you it dislodges a surprising number of lumps of fluff and gunge that have happily sat there undisturbed for years. By now little washers had also mysteriously appeared on the carpet.

Some time later I'd managed to unwind the wool, though it was still snarled up. I shoved it back in the knitting bag. I re-assembled the hoover, sticking the washers where I thought they might go and tried to clean up all the mess. But the hoover wasn't picking up very well and there was a kind of a hot smell coming from it.

I abandoned everything, put the hoover away for investigation another day, and finally got to my desk. I looked at the clock. It was lunch time.

With a sigh, I left my room and headed for the kitchen…

The Ups and Downs of Rome

Things were going so well. On the first day of my holiday I was having fun seeing some of the lesser known sights of Rome:

An ancient Roman contemplating a large ice cream…

A 'living statue' of Tutankhamun assembling himself…

…and even when posed, what with all that gold plastic not likely to fool anyone. And what is Tutankhamun doing in Rome anyway?

A felt chicken…

A stray cat in the ruins where Julius Caesar is supposed to have been assassinated.

I couldn't resist him as he was the spitting image of my dear old cat Theo who, whenever he was on top of a wall, would roll over to have his stomach tickled and fall off. And he couldn't catch mice but once he proudly brought a jam sandwich to lay at my feet…

This striking sculpture which I later found out was of the poet Carlo Alberto Salustri who wrote under the pen-name Trilussa.

I'd never heard of him but one of his poems was carved on the plaque:

It's written in Romanesco, the dialect of Rome and a friend has since translated it for me as:

     While I read my newspaper

     lounging in the shade of a hay-rick

    I see a pig and I say to him, 'Goodbye, pig!'

    I see a donkey and I say to him, 'Goodbye, ass!'

 

    Maybe these animals don't understand me

   but at least I have the satisfaction

   of being able to call things what they are

   without fear of ending up in prison.

Salustri was a satirist and this was written in the nineteen twenties when the fascists were in power – a brave criticism of the ruling powers and their suppression of free speech.

 

And finally in my sight-seeing I came across this large stone foot:

 

Which I should have taken as an omen because, on the second day of the holiday, five minutes after arriving at the Colosseum, my friend fell over…and couldn't get up again.

There followed an exit by stretcher from the amphitheatre, a spectacle enjoyed by all the tourists queuing to get in, but not by my embarrassed friend; a ride in an ambulance with flashing blue light and siren; a long wait in whatever is the Italian equivalent of A& E…and the result?

A broken ankle…

…and the end of our holiday.

Eventually we were 'repatriated' – a complicated business involving a nurse, a wheelchair, a flight to an airport miles away from the one we set off from, more rides in ambulances…but we made it.

So here I am home earlier than expected. Sadly, we didn't get to see Umbria or hear any of the lovely music. And I didn't Generic pharmacy even have one ice cream.