NOT A PROMISING START 

Because I promised I'd blog on some aspect of writing on a monthly basis, today seems as good a time as any to begin.

One of my most frequently asked question is, "Can anyone be taught to write? My answer is, "If you have a sensitivity to words you can be helped to write better and to avoid some of the obstacles witrh which those of us who have gone before have had to struggle.

I would love to say that I was a literary child prodigy who read and wrote veraciously, but I wasn't. I have hazy recollections of picture and pop up-books being read to me by my mother. I loved Enid Blyton and adored boarding school books about girls with posh names and with titles such as "Felicity of the Fifth', even though I would have died if I'd been sent to one. My mother's reading matter was limited to the popular classics such as Little Women etc; What Katie did etc; Anne of Greengables and the like, which she read over and over. She never got round to Pride and Prejudice or Jane Eyre, so neither did I. My father's reading was even more limited. On the small table by the side of his armchair was a book entitled "Rommel, The Desert Fox", which I can never recall him touching. On the other hand, he did pretty well devour the Evening Star every evening and the News of the World (which I wasn't allowed to read) and the Pictorial every Sunday.

What I did possess was the ability to scatter adjectives throughout my stories. which, in those days earned me good marks at school. For example, "The fat, ugly, hairy, friendly  dog .... merited four ticks for the number of adjectives and a 'Well done' in the margin. Nowadays I'm sure the adjectives would be circled and there would be a note somewhere suggesting that instead of adjectives, I use a strong, or stronger verbs and nouns. For example, The dog, froth slathering from its jowels, waddled ...

As I approached my mid teens my reading diminished and I only read the books set for my Royal Society of Arts exams, one of which I remember being called 'Cycle of the North - A Story of the Tundra", which put me off reading for a good few years. Thus by the age of twenty-one I had stopped reading anything other than things I had to such as instructions and bus timetables. As for writing, the occasional letter had to suffice.

NOW YOU CAN GET SOME OF MY BOOKS FROM THE LIBRARY

Today has been an exciting one because I've received an order for a few copies of  "He Called Me Son" and  "The Best in Blountmere Street from the local library suppliers which means you might see them on the shelves soon. You never know, they might even make their way to "Staff Picks".

The Createspace copies of "There is a Time" are still not available because of a few hiccups, but I'm hoping to have them (the hiccups) sorted out within the next few weeks.

Roger has volunteered to be my despatch clerk, so that I can get on with my next book, which I hope to start sometime in February. I have some ideas for the book swimming around in my head, although when I attempt to catch them they dart away..

I've taken advantage of the holiday season and the beautiful weather we've been having to do some reading and have just finished "The Unknown Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" by Rachel Joyce. It's very well written and I loved the character of Harold Fry. Has anyone out there read this book? If so, what did you think of it?

I'm taking this opportunity to wish you a Happy New Year and to tell you I hope to blog a lot more regularly than I did last year. I hope to do a regular blog on 'creative writing', so keep tuned.

Barbara

IT'S BEEN PUBLISHED!

HAPPY NEW YEAR
At long, long last the third in the Blountmere Street series, There Is a Time, has been published and can be purchased from Amazon Kindle for digital readers. It shouldn't be long - somewhere around four weeks - before you'll be able to purchase it from Amazon CreateSpace, which means you'll be able to buy a paperback version. For those of us in the Antipodes it should provide us with some good holiday reading as well as being the answer to the Christmas present we get the person who has everything.

Already I'm feeling restless without a book underway, and although I promised myself a rest from writing until February, I could well be creeping back to my computer long before February. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. As I wrote at the beginning of the book, even if you've read the previous two books in the trilogy, it would be a good idea to browse through them again to familiarise yourself with the characters. If you haven't read the books at all or only one of them, I strongly suggest you read them first. And when you've read them, will you do me a great favour and write a wee review of them. If you go to the Amazon Kindle sales page you'll see the reviews at the bottom of the page. You don't have to write screeds, nor do you need to be highly literary. Something simple will do. Have a look at the preceding ones.

In the meantime, happy reading and I'll try to be more regular in my blogging in 2015.