Keep Calm and Scream Silently

Good heavens, how can it be ten months since I last blogged?  I guess life went a bit bonkers, with days passing so quickly it sometimes seemed pointless getting dressed, because five minutes later it was time to put the pyjamas on again.  Not that I ever went around in my PJs, you understand.  But I reckon I’ve sussed why some women shop in their nightwear –  simply because they’re up against the clock and something has to go.  Like clothes.  In which case, massive thanks to whoever invented pyjamas. Can you imagine what supermarkets would be like without them?
          ‘Mummy, look, there’s a naked woman in aisle two.’
          ‘That’s a mannequin, Harry.’
          ‘I don’t think so, Mummy, she’s filling her trolley with gin.’
          Cue pandemonium.
          This year I’ve somehow published two more novels, had a mega hissy fit over an on-going snagging list two years after buying our house, had ceilings taken down and a roof opened up, held down a day job with a rural internet connection more temperamental than the bull on the other side of my garden hedge, had a computer keel over (no, nothing backed up), then had PC World break the news that they’d lost not just the computer but also the hard drive, but were delighted to offer me a £25 gift voucher as a gesture of goodwill (oh how I laughed…in the unfunny having-a-nervous-breakdown kind of way).  My Italian husband, who had been overdosing on Gomorrah re-runs, took one look at my stricken face, jumped in his car and paid the young manager a visit which involved telling him all about where the £25 goodwill voucher would be placed if he didn’t immediately start looking for the chuffing computer.  Weeks later it turned up in Germany.  Don’t ask.  At this point I was two weeks away from going live with The Woman Who Knew Everything and had to start from scratch with edits and proof reading.  I was so fired-up with adrenalin I could have possibly taken out Kim Go-and-do Un without any help from nuclear weapons.  Stress is not a good thing.  Something had to go.
          I made a conscious decision to give up an unfulfilling day job and write full-time.  If you were the fanciful type (yes, I am!) you’d wonder if the universe was trying to tell you something, and cause chaos to make you stop and listen.  Because once that decision was made, everything immediately calmed down.  Along came WF Howes Ltd with two audio contracts, and then the fabulous Bookouture offered me a two-book romcom contract.  I was gobsmacked.  Thrilled to bits.  And absolutely terrified.  It’s one thing to write novels as an independent (I love writing, I’d do it for nothing), but it’s something else producing eighty-five-thousand words knowing there is an expectation.
          At the start of this week, I sat down in the study and stared at the computer in panic.  It was a bit like stage fright.  I wrote, backspaced, re-wrote, deleted, and after half an hour put my head in my hands.  And then a little voice said, ‘You don’t have to sign anything, just write for you.’  So I told myself I wouldn’t sign, that I’d just carry on as before, being an indie.  Relieved, my brain immediately produced an internal television screen where fresh characters were getting up to no good and acting out drama and mayhem.  My fingers flew across the keyboard noting it all down.  And yes, I went on to sign the contract.  But I pretend, when writing, that I didn’t!
          Which reminds me.  A writer died and was given the option of going to Heaven or Hell.  She decided to check out each place before making a decision. Descending into the fiery pits, she saw row upon row of writers chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they were repeatedly whipped with thorny lashes.
          ‘Oh my,’ said the writer. ‘Let me see Heaven now.’
          A few moments later, ascending into Heaven, she saw rows of writers, again chained to their desks and in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they too were whipped with thorny lashes.
          ‘Wait a minute,’ said the writer.  ‘This is just as bad as Hell!’
          ‘Oh no, it’s not,’ replied an unseen voice.  ‘Here, your work gets published...’