2009 - the balancing entry

As an accountantant I've always been aware of the debits and credits, the fact that a negative is always balanced by a positive. Recent years, and 2009 in particular, seem to be have been full of negatives, many of which I have chronicled on here.

So I sat down to think about the balancing entries, some of the positives of 2009, and this is what I came up with:

1. I completed my 'accidental' Open University degree with a higher classification than I obtained in my brick uni degree *cough* years ago. On the way I obtained the Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing which, if anything, means even more than the degree. It is proof that I have learnt my craft.

2. I have added around 55,000 words to my novel, despite being unable to write for significant periods due to my health problems. The end is firmly in sight now.

3. I have submitted five pieces of writing during the year, of which two were selected for publication. Not a bad hit rate and I am particularly proud to have had a piece of flash fiction selected for the forthcoming Even More Tonto Short Stories anthology.

4. We have raised Son 1 safely to adulthood.

5. I have renewed contact with some very old friends, including my most longstanding friend who I have known since I was four.

6. I have met up with some of my lovely, encouraging writer friends and my faithful local friends continue to be there, offering day to day company and support.

I can only hope 2010 brings more of the same.

Happy New Year to you all.

It had to happen...

Well something had to go wrong, didn't it? But it's an annoyance rather than a catastrophe. Nothing major in the scheme of things.

We got up yesterday to find that our Virgin Media set-top box had died. The usual rebooting methods of retrieval came to nothing. A call to Virgin Media confirmed that the code it was displaying did indeed mean it was terminal. And they couldn't bring another one until Saturday afternoon.

We do still have an aerial so we can receive the basic five channels. The picture on two of these is extremely poor as we live in a reception blackspot, one of the reasons we were early adopters of cable. Because the reception is so bad we probably couldn't get Freeview either, without spending a lot of money on a huge and amplified aerial.

But it's not the end of the world. We actually watched very little TV over the holiday ( apart from the fantastic Lie to Me box set and a few episodes of Bones on Sky). Son 2 has accepted the temporary loss of CBeebies, after all he likes it on in the background but rarely watches. We have DVDs, and laptops to use the BBC iPlayer and its like. Who needs TV?

It's over for another year...

In the end it wasn't a white Christmas, in fact we woke up on Christmas morning to find the very last remnants of the snow had disappeared overnight. But we had a fabulous, very relaxed time. Just the four of us at home, which is how we like it best. It may not be too long before Son 1 is off doing his own thing at Christmas, so these moments need to be treasured.

Thinking about it, one of the reasons I felt so relaxed was that, for once, I didn't have to do almost everything myself. Most of the food and alcohol arrived via Tesco home delivery. I persuaded Hubby to do the wrapping and he hand-delivered the cards and gifts to neighbours and local friends. I took charge of the cooking and, for the first time ever, dinner was ready fifteen minutes before promised.

Son 2, who had been clearly feeling under the weather in the run up to the holiday, had recovered enough to enjoy the day, especially his dinner! For the first time ever we felt that he had some understanding of Christmas, that he actually looked forward to the now familiar festive routines rather than finding them upsetting. He is particularly enjoying a digital photo frame which I had preloaded with family photos and he is gradually exploring the digital camera to go with it.

Christmas was a great success.

Wishing you...

...a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year.

Autism and Christmas - part two

After I wrote here about son 2 and our Christmas tree, I was contacted by the lovely folk at The National Autistic Society, who have produced lots of information this year to help parents of autistic children get through the festive season.

There are three short videos and a downloadable hints and tips guide, all of which can be found at the NAS Christmas webpage.

If you have time, do take a look at the video clip below of Sam and his family, which highlights just some of the issues we as parents face at this time of year. Then please visit the NAS website for the other instalments and more information. You might just learn something.

The mysteries of MS

So I knew that for many people MS symptoms increase in heat. Warm weather and even a hot bath can leave an MS sufferer feeling worse. My own symptoms, even prior to diagnosis, have had a pattern of appearing in the summer months.

I was looking forward to the winter and hopefully some good health. I was pleased with my progress. Over the last few weeks I have been getting stronger and stronger, able to increase the distance I walk and not even needing my stick.

Then the snow arrived. Now my legs feel stiff and heavy, my back hurts and even my painkillers aren't providing relief. I can only walk a very short distance. Could this be the MS?

A quick investigation on Google shows that a minority of people with MS are affected by cold weather. It appears I may be one of them. Bugger.

In other news, son 2 is at home, on what should have been his final day of term, as the council has suspended transport. He is not impressed. But I would rather he was here than out on dangerously icy roads. How is it that Scandinavia and even Scotland can deal with snow and ice, while the South East grinds to a halt?

The white stuff

So we have snow again, though not as much as in February.

I don't like snow. It makes me want to huddle up at home and keep my babies (OK, my big thugs) safe with me.

Yesterday I rang the council transport department at 7am to see if son 2's school bus would be running. We need to know early as he can't cope with last minute changes to routine. They hadn't yet decided, so although I knew the school was to be open, I made a snap decision myself and told them he wouldn't be going. This turned out to be a wise move on my part, because as the day progressed it became clear that son 2 was under the weather. No obvious symptoms, but he was very quiet and abnormally lethargic, so I think he must have a slight virus. He was quite happy to stay indoors on his computer and eventually go to bed earlier than usual. Perhaps he was still tired from being a dancer in the school play on Wednesday evening.

It hasn't snowed again overnight and the sun is out, so I'm hoping that the icy pavements will melt. I want to go into town this afternoon for last minute Christmas shopping and with my balance problems, I just don't trust myself on snow and ice!

Words to inspire

Do you remember I recently wrote that I would use this blog for an update of the year, that I would direct friends here instead of writing in Christmas cards?

Well, I changed my mind. Because when I thought about it, the only possible title for the post could be 'Misery Memoir' and I don't want to write one of those. After all, if anyone wants to know what has happened to me and my family in recent times it can all be found somewhere here on the blog. Apart from, that is, a very recent breast cancer scare which I didn't write about at the time because a) it was far too frightening and b) I didn't think anyone would actually believe that yet another thing was possibly going wrong for me.

Last weekend I sat down instead to write a mass Christmas email to old friends who I have neglected for far too long. It was a difficult task and as I drafted and redrafted my words, I tried hard not to sound too much like a victim and attempted to show the many positives as well as the negatives. I don't know how many of the emails will actually reach their target, my contacts book may be well out of date, but I was shaking as I pressed the send button.

I can't deny that we have had four difficult years. At the start of this year I thought we were finally moving on, only to be hit by the events of the last six months which may well have changed our future in ways we don't even yet know. But we are not the only people who have had a hard time, far too many of my friends are in pain for one reason or another this Christmas.

Then this morning I read this beautiful post by fellow Novel Racer Mel, which is just so inspirational.

Bring on 2010.

Christmas - autism style

Son 2, like many people with autism, finds Christmas difficult. There are too many changes to routine, both at school and at home. People insist on altering familiar environments by putting up decorations. Receiving presents is confusing. The only interesting part of Christmas Day is the dinner.

This year, because Hubby is at home, our meagre decorations were put up at the start of December. The little fibre optic tree, purchased a few years ago with son 2 in mind, was installed in the lounge. But as soon as we tried to switch it on, son 2 threw a wobbly and insisted we unplug it. So it stayed dim in the corner while he got used to the idea.

On Sunday evening son 2 finally went over to the tree and plugged it in. Last evening he did the same. At this rate it might even be twinkling for the whole of Christmas Day...

The X Factor final

Right winner.

George Michael.

Crap winner's song.

That is all.


(but I did warm even more to Olly and I'm sure Mr Cowell is laughing all the way to the bank at the success of his PR machine)

The man's still got it...

I first fell in love with Billy Joel's music when I was 17 and bought a copy of his album 'The Stranger' in the only record shop of the small town where I grew up. His music has stayed with me over the years, some of the tracks gaining extra resonance as part of the soundtrack of my life. In the 1980's I saw him live at Wembley and he was every bit as good as I had hoped.

I've just found this more recent video of my favourite Billy Joel song on YouTube. It doesn't say when it was recorded, but he can still sing and it still makes me cry.

OMG

Can it really be almost two weeks since I wrote here?

I have no excuse other than that I have been busy with various medical appointments, Christmas shopping ( mostly online, but it still takes time) and catching up with old friends. Oh yes, and I had a horrid cold last weekend and was forced to miss Cally Taylor's book launch party, which was very disappointing.

The medical side has brought all good news. My neurologist is pleased with progress and doesn't want to see me for six months. Indeed my legs have been feeling much stronger in the last week, when I haven't needed to use my stick at all. Other potentially scary issues have been addressed and, all in all, I feel I have had a fairly thorough health MOT over the past six months, though I'm still awaiting some blood test results. I hope it won't take another major scare to make me look after myself properly next time, but I am still debating whether I want to have the swine flu vaccine.

Probably coming up soon: my views on The X Factor final and a summary of the year, because I am too lazy to write letters to go with Christmas cards and will direct friends here instead!

Pacing myself

Today I hit the 70% complete mark on my novel. Now for those of you who know how long I've been trying to write it, that may not seem very impressive. But for me it seemed like a huge milestone.

One of the things I have been most concerned about whilst writing was the pacing of the novel. This is the first time I've attempted a piece of work greater than 4000 words. Although I started off with a rough structure...I knew the beginning, the end and the two main turning points in the middle...I have been having to fill in the gaps as I go along. I prefer to work that way rather than having everything planned chapter by chapter, simply because, as the story progresses, the characters themselves can suggest new routes forward. But in some ways it is also scary, as at times I can't see the way and I get blocked for a while. It also leaves me constantly concerned about the pacing of the story, but I suppose we will only be able to judge if that has worked once I reach the end.

I am also having to learn to pace myself in daily life. One of the impacts of my MS is that I can no longer rush around as I used to. I can still walk, often with the aid of a rather pretty walking stick, but I now find that after a day when I have walked a lot I have to have a quiet day at home. Yesterday I walked a lot, but today, when I went into town as I usually do on a Saturday, my legs and even my arms were quite wobbly. It was lucky that I didn't have much shopping to do, as I spent much of the afternoon recovering in Starbucks with a magazine and a dark cherry mocha. I should have known better than to go out two days in a row...

Children in Need

Love, love, love it!

Just so you know...

...last weekend I finally fell out of love with musical reality TV.

Yes, I'm talking about The X Factor. Now I'm not stupid. I've always known that these programmes are about manipulating the public. Sometimes, of course, the public like to get their own back. Remember Gareth and Will? The first series of Pop Idol produced possibly the most successful reality winner in the UK, but it wasn't the one Simon Cowell wanted.

This year, however, The X Factor has just got nasty. The very personal insults thrown at Danyl by the judges and the press, from week one of the live shows. The whole Jedward phenomenon and the audience heckling of them every week. Simon Cowell's inexplicable actions last weekend.

Sometimes I think the judges (and audiences) forget that many of the contestants are just teenagers. None of them deserve the sort of crap they have been getting. The music business can be tough, but this is a baptism of fire.

Sadly, I bet I'll still watch it on Saturday, though possibly from behind my fingers. What I won't do is vote this year. Not even during the final.

The Berlin Wall

Seeing the television picture yesterday of the celebration to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, reminded me of perhaps one of the most scary and foolhardy things I have ever done.

In 1981 I was 21 and studying in Northern Germany, along with two fellow students, as part of my degree. It was getting towards the end of the academic year and although we had done a lot of travelling, we hadn't been to Berlin. Two of us decided we had to go and booked train tickets and beds in the youth hostel (which was often fully booked). At the very last minute my friend caught a nasty virus and couldn't travel but, wanting to seize the moment, I decided to go alone.

We had often seen the fortified border between West and East Germany when travelling by train, but this would be the first time I had crossed it. The train stopped at a dedicated border crossing and heavily armed East German guards got on. They scrutinized passports thoroughly, with no discernible facial expression, then stayed on the train as it crossed the dreary East German countryside without another stop.

On arrival in West Berlin I could have been in London or Paris as I took in the shops, a modern art gallery, and McDonalds. But there was always the spectre of the huge wall, heavily graffitied on the Western side, which divided the city between communism and capitalism. The little museum at Checkpoint Charlie told of the fate of those who had tried to escape from East to West.

On my last day in West Berlin I decided to travel into East Berlin. On my own. Access was via the only underground station on the Eastern side of the wall which was still in use, and once again I had to go through rigorous passport control to be allowed a day visa. A mandatory amount of hard currency had to changed into the East German currency, Ostmarks, and this could not be brought back out of the country.

On finally getting out of the station I was shocked by how drab East Berlin was. Much of the architecture was of modern Soviet design, there were no advertising billboards and I could see no colourful paint. I headed towards the famous television tower and beneath it found a shop. I hoped to spend most of my Ostmarks but could find little to buy except a few dull postcards, because there were few consumer goods on the shelves. I then decided to walk towards the Brandenburg Gate, the big triumphal arch of Berlin which lay right beside the wall itself. But as I walked down Unter den Linden I felt my every move scrutinised by the armed guards patrolling the area. About halfway down the avenue I spotted a tiny bookshop in a side street and thought I could spend some more of my money. But the shop was full of Marxist propaganda rather than the East German literature I had hoped for. I bought a couple of pamphlets and a book of statistics about East German society and fled.

I was too frightened to go any further towards the Brandenburg Gate, so I turned back and headed towards the antiquities museum. On the way I passed soldiers goose-stepping scarily outside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Neue Wache, which was then known as a Memorial to the Victims of Fascism and Militarism. It seemed that as a lone woman out on the almost empty streets I was very conspicuous and, even though I spoke German, I did not want any entanglement with armed guards.

Once inside the museum I felt a little safer. I spent some more Ostmarks on a guide book but still I had not got rid of all my currency. I was too scared to consider going into a restaurant, even if I could find one. In the end I decided I'd had enough. I walked back towards the underground station and found East German citizens outside, begging very discreetly. I handed my last change to one and dived inside the station, ready to go through the border patrol once again.

Getting back to the West was a huge relief, I have never in my life felt so vulnerable as I did that day. But I'm glad I did it, because I've never been back to Berlin and if I did now I would find a completely different city.

I don't have photos from East Berlin, I was too scared to take my camera in, but this blog shows pictures of the Berlin Wall in 1981, the very year I was there, and is almost exactly as I remember it. It also provides some interesting history so is well worth a read.

Guest post: Cally Taylor

Today I am delighted to host a leg of Cally Taylor's blog tour. Here is her inspirational guest post:

Day 17 of the Virtual Blog Tour for my novel “Heaven Can Wait” and I thought I’d write a guest post for Cathy about writing, reward and motivation.

In an ideal writing world the words flow effortlessly whenever we sit down at our computer/notepad, we’re never short of ideas, everything we write gets glowing feedback/published and our self-confidence grows and grows until our internal writing world is one big, happy bubble we never want to leave.

You can see the problem with that description can’t you?

The word ‘ideal’.

If you’re a writer the chances are you devoured books as a child. In fact, you’ve probably read, and enjoyed, books your whole life. A good writer makes it look easy, it makes us (and the rest of the world) think “I could do that!” Only the reality is very, very different.

I don’t know a single writer who hasn’t, or isn’t, struggling with their self-confidence. My debut novel has just been published and I’m still wracked with self-doubt and insecurities about my writing ability. Will people buy my book? Will they like it? Will they publish horrible, scathing reviews on Amazon? But what if people do like it and they’re disappointed by my second book?

So if getting your novel published isn’t a magical salve for writerly insecurities how on earth do you cope when you’re just starting out? This is what I did...

Back in November 2005 I took part in a ‘flashathon’ for BBC Children in Need. We were sponsored to write a piece of flash fiction every hour for a maximum of twenty-four hours (I think I managed about 16 hours, with a nap after the first eight hours!). After the competition finished all the flashes were critiqued by the group and the ‘top 50’ were passed on to Leaf Books for judging. Leaf Books had very kindly agreed to publish a book of eighteen flashes and donate the proceeds to charity. I was over the moon when one of my efforts was forwarded to them but I was up against some stiff competition, my fiction had previously been rejected by lots of publications, and didn’t think I stood a chance of getting into the final book. I was gobsmacked when I found out that “Tom Brown’s Spaceship” had been selected – it was going in!

I was so delighted that something I’d written had been published I called my closest friends and invited them round for a champagne celebration in December. My friends all bought a copy of the book (all proceeds to charity) and asked me to sign them! I felt like a superstar! To me the tiny little yellow book I held in my hands was huge! I didn’t care that I didn’t receive a penny for that story – I was thrilled that I’d written something an editor thought was good enough to make it into print. Maybe, just maybe, it meant I wasn’t a terrible writer.



I went out and bought myself a clear plastic folder and put a copy of the book in it. The folder was huge and the book rattled around but that was okay, it gave me something to aim for – I’d fill the folder with more published stories.

A month later Aesthetica magazine contacted me to let me know that they’d accepted my flash “Odd Socks”. There was no payment but when the magazine was published and I was sent a complimentary that went in the folder too.



I continued to write, I continued to receive rejections, I continued to receive stinging critiques of my stories that made me wonder whether or not I was good enough to be a writer, but I kept that folder close at hand. Two pieces of flash fiction published, I couldn’t be that bad. Maybe, I wondered, if I could get my work published, I could get paid for it too.

In February 2006 I was! It was a piece of flash fiction again – and I won £30 in a small online competition. I held that cheque in my hands for a long time. I couldn’t believe someone had actually paid me for something that, essentially, I’d made up! It would have been easy to chuck the cheque in the bank for it to be instantly gobbled up by some bill or other that needed paying. But I didn’t do that – in my eyes being paid for a piece of writing was a pretty damned momentous occasion in my writing career and I wanted to buy something I could hold in my hands, something that I could look at and think, my writing bought that.

I went on ebay and bought this silver bracelet. I still wear it. And I still remember.



I also kept the email I’d been sent, informing me that I’d won the competition. I put that in the folder too. I continued to push myself. I’d been published in print and I’d been paid for my writing but everything I’d had success with was flash fiction. Could I do the same with short stories? I started entering them into competitions. Lot and lots of rejections followed and I didn’t even make the long list. In April 2006 I almost fell off my chair when I received a phone call from the Bank Street Writers competition to say that my story “Under the Waves” had won. £100! I couldn’t believe it. I continued to set myself goals – to get a story published on X ezine, to have a story published in Y magazine, to place in Z competition. Some of my goals I hit, some I didn’t, some I knew I’d never hit (like placing in the Bridport Prize!) but I kept on trying. My folder full of published stories got fatter and fatter and I had to buy a second one, but I still kept them close at hand to reassure me during inevitable dips in self-confidence.



When I sat down to write “Heaven Can Wait” I felt daunted. Most of my stories were about 2,000 words long – how the hell was I going to manage 80-100,000? I’d have to reward myself somehow. I plucked a figure for my first draft – 90,000 words – out of the air and decided to reward myself with a paperweight for every third of the novel that I managed to write. It sounds silly now – buying myself a paperweight for 30,000 words – but I’d attempted a novel twice before and hadn’t finished either of them. I needed all the motivation I could get!

The first third of the novel came and went, then the second, then the third. Finally my novel was finished and the three paperweights, lined up in the window with the sun glinting off them, was a daily reminder of what I’d achieved. I had no idea, back then, if my novel would ever get published but I was damned proud of myself for doing what so many people talk about but don’t do, actually finishing a novel.



When I got my book deal I rewarded myself again. I’m not married and don’t have a lovely sparkly ring on my finger to signify that special moment in my life so why not buy myself something pretty to represent a different kind of special moment? I went back on ebay and bought a white gold ring, studded with teeny, tiny diamonds. I wear it on the third finger of my right hand.

Why does she keep buying herself things, you might be asking. Isn’t seeing her novel on the shelves reward enough? God yes! But I got my book deal a year ago and a big part of me didn’t believe it was real. I thought it might be snatched away from me at any second. The ring couldn’t be!

So what now? How do I deal with writerly wobbles now I’ve had a novel published? Mostly I do what I’ve always done – grit my teeth and write my way through them – but I’m still collecting things to make me feel better on ‘I can’t do this’ days. I’ve got an email folder where I keep ‘good news’ – emails from my agent, my publisher, feedback from people who’ve read my novel, and I’ve got a copy of all the magazines that have reviewed my novel or featured an interview with me.



Set yourself goals and reward and motivate yourself but more than anything else, keep believing, keep dreaming and keep writing. If you’re a writer you’ve got no choice.

Cally Taylor is the author of “Heaven Can Wait”, a supernatural romantic-comedy about a woman who dies the night before her wedding, refuses to go to heaven and returns to earth to try and return to earth so she can be reunited with her fiancé Dan.

www.callytaylor.co.uk
http://writing-about-writing.blogspot.com
www.twitter.com/callytaylor

Heads up

On Sunday I will be hosting a leg of the very lovely Cally Taylor's blog tour.

If you haven't already read her debut novel, Heaven Can Wait, then I suggest you get down to the shops now. I don't often read chick lit nowadays, and I've never before read supernatural chick lit, but I devoured this book in two days. It's a beautifully written, light read which made me both laugh and cry and has an ending I didn't see coming. I'm now looking forward to Cally's second book...

X Factor update

This week I was loving Jamie. I always judge my favourite performances by whether I seek them out on the internet to view again and this was the only one.



I felt desperately sorry for Rachel, I don't think she has been given decent songs or much TV coverage. I hope that will be remedied for next week because actually she is a good singer who doesn't deserve to be in the bottom two so early.

The twins, well what can be said? They shouldn't still be there, yet they will probably survive until somewhere in the middle of the series because they make us laugh. Not in a good way.

PS. Whitney. Wardrobe fail and was she on the same as Robbie last week? Eek.

Hateful journalism

I never was particularly a fan of Boyzone. Like Louis Walsh's other band Westlife, they were wallpaper music to me. Never offensive, I liked a few of their songs, I even knew the names of at least some of the band members, but that was as far as it went. So when I heard of the sudden death last weekend of Stephen Gately I was sad, not so much because Stephen Gately himself had great meaning to me but because any death at the age of 33 is a tragedy.

So I was disgusted on Friday to be led, via lovely Twitter friend Keris, to the most odious piece of journalism I think I have ever read, written by Jan Moir in The Daily Mail. I was not the only person to feel disgusted by this piece of gutter journalism. Over 1000 complaints were made to the Press Complaints Commission (including mine). The PCC website crashed. At some point during the day the Mail changed the title of the piece from the original wording 'There was nothing 'natural' about Stephen Gately's death' and advertising on the web page was removed, presumably at the request of the advertisers who included Marks and Spencer.

So what was it about this piece which offended so much? Well it was clearly homophobic (though Jan Moir, in a subsequent statement full of self delusion has denied this). It was inaccurate. Yes, apparently healthy young men can just die suddenly, it is medically recognised as Sudden Adult Death Syndrome and such heart problems apparently ran in Gateley's family. It gratuously brought in the recent death (by suicide) of another young gay man who had been in the public eye but whose passing had nothing to do with Gately. The whole piece intruded on the dignified grief of family and friends and was even published the day before Stephen Gately's funeral.

I've been thinking a lot about journalism recently, because I am considering dipping my toe into the water of that area of writing. I know that writing for a paper or magazine is not as straightforward as it might look and opinion journalism must be particularly difficult. The challenge to find, on a weekly basis, something that will grab the attention of the public and sell papers, without offending a large minority must be difficult. But this piece managed to offend in so many ways and this was recognised by so many people. It is even being reported today that a complaint has been made to the Metropolitan Police.

We do, of course have free speech in this country, but the flip side of that is that those who express strong opinions in such a public fashion must be able to take the consequences of others also expressing their views by putting in formal complaints. This was no organised internet campaign, as Jan Moir suggests, but the result of a large number of people who were offended by her column taking action and discussing the issue online. The result of free speech in the digital age.

Let's hope it makes a difference. But don't hold your breath. One of the leading lights of the PCC is Paul Dacre, none other than the editor of The Daily Mail...