Friday Tea (or, "Oops - I forgot")

So sorry - I was tapping away and suddenly wondered where the Friday Coffee Morning post was. Then I remembered i was down for a stint sometime round December and there I was. Oops.

I have tea -- black (Darjeeling, Assam, Lady Grey), green, chai and herbal -- and pecan twists that were on sale at Morisson's at 69p for two. Help yourself.

Mea culpa.

Still, I did about 3K today on the latest unpublishable novel -- I swear I only write for two or three readers -- and Harold's in a pickle again. Nano, of course. I know some of the others here participated. How did you do?

For those that didn't, is writing 50K in 30 days of any use? Is Nano sneered at by the professionals as a bunch of amateurs pounding out purple prose for the sake of it? Has anyone ever published a nano novel? I came close once, but they wanted all the smut removed and I never heard anything again.

News

You've been so kind and supportive about my meeting this week, thank you. Although I can't give any details yet and I'm still in an utter daze, it's slowly sinking in that I've been offered a publishing contract. On a day when the Guardian's leading article was about the difficulties in publishing, I thought it was important to say that there are some rays of hope out there.

Please Read This

Could everyone pop over to the other place to read a post there. Thanks.

Reading Matter

This is a day early as we are going away tomorrow early for the weekend. This week I wanted to think about reading.

I joined a reading group several years ago but didn't go to many meetings because I didn't like the type of books they were reading. I understand that it does us all good to expand our reading knowledge, and go outside our comfort zones (etc), but on the other hand there are so many books in this world that I will never have time to read, why waste time on those I don't enjoy?

So I had a phase when I didn't go. Then last summer I started attending and found a different lot of people. The choice of books is a democratic one – we all get a list and tick what we want and the shortlist is given to the library who inform us when a set of 10 or 12 books are available (see, we don't have to pay for our books either!).

The group are all women (unsurprisingly) - two physiotherapists, one of whom decided she was feeling stale in her job, was allowed to take 3 months off and bicycled round Britain, never having been on a bike before. One is the MD of our local radio station, one works in a library, one at a university, one's a social worker, one a teacher, one a mum with young children – so a wide mixture.

Obviously the one thing we all have in common is the love of a good book, and I find it fascinating to hear other people's reactions to books. It certainly makes me see things I never would have understood before. One of us is just finishing her OU MA in English Literature so she always has fascinating insights.

Last time we met we discussed the works of Daphne du Maurier – we'd been given a mixed box so everyone read something different. Being a great DduM fan, I was able to bore them rigid with my views and help them see some of her work differently. We realised that she hated men called Dick (there are many of these in her work, as in real life) from which we deduced that she probably didn't have many good experiences with men. The lovely pirate in Frenchman's Creek is probably the exception to the rule, and then of course she couldn't be with him anyway.

So my question is – do you belong to a book group and if so, how does it affect your writing?

Endurance

Morning all. Just got back from a very wet walk with MollieDog on the beach and awaiting further storms. So it's a mug of Rooibosh or I can offer PG Tips or herbal, Gold Blend or Tesco's decaff. Not very inspiring here I'm afraid.

This is for all you Na No writers -

Back in 1995 I was among 50 nutters selected to take part in the World One Day Novel competition. (The entry form was devised by Terry Pratchett which tells you something about the kind of person they wanted.)

I got the letter to say I'd been accepted on my birthday. And panicked. My writing group met and we worked out A Plan, which was basically enlarging a short story I'd just had published. Based on the previous year's submissions I think the word count I was aiming at was 20,000 words but I could type fast in those days. But it obviously meant a lot of fleshing out from 12000 words to 20,000. So I walked round the village, reciting the plot, characters etc as I went (we werent allowed to take any notes in to the competition).

On a practical level, it meant travelling to the Groucho Club in London and doing the competition on a laptop. In those days laptops were like gold dust but thankfully my little brother came to the rescue with one from work. He also put me up for the weekend, dear of him.

So at 10 am that Saturday, 50 of us were poised, ready to start writing. We'd been told that the organisers reserved the right to set a subject at the last minute but thankfully they didn't. I was shaking so much that I didn't think I'd be able to type a word, particularly when the event was being covered by Radio Four and other news channels, so I had a huge fluffy microphone stuck under my nose (to hear my manic tapping of the keys, presumably. Either that or my belaboured, hysterical gasping). When we were given the Off my brain went entirely blank and I hyperventilated.

But eventually I got going – and didn't stop till we had to finish at 10 o'clock that night. We started at 10am again the following day, all of us feeling slightly more at home with what we were doing. Several had even gone off on the piss the night before, or what was left of it.

Being someone who always rushes things, I was the first to finish, some time that Sunday afternoon. Having edited and polished, with the few remaining brain cells left, I then staggered to the bar and got drunk courtesy of the Groucho Club, with various other members.

The experience was decidedly zany. It was terrifying, exhilarating and so unlike anything else that I will never forget it. It would have been great to have more time to meet the other contestants, but as it was I became friends with two journalists from the West Country. I then spent a week with my poor system in overdrive, unable to relax.

Looking back, what did I get out of it? Well, nothing that helped my day to day writing. But I did learn how to think – or write - on my feet. Or is that bum? I could type a lot faster – and more accurately – in those days, which helped a lot. I learnt how to plan and edit according to the time I had (not much). And I learnt how to work under pressure. Apart from all that, it was great fun and if asked, and after a few glasses of wine, I'm sure I'd do it again.

So for all of those you doing NaNo – what do you hope to get out of it?