My inner child and I had a FANTASTIC day, today! I finally got to meet Mark Jones when he arrived in Sunderland – he’s a genuinely nice man, and is a talented entertainer. I got to see Sooty’s Magic Castle (I know I’m 32, but for a couple of hours today, I was young again and I enjoyed every minute of the show). My companion (naming no names) was joining in the audience-participation bits with gusto! I have to point out that the child-to-adult ratio was not as I’d expected: I saw three adults to one small child, children who were barely out of prams (with parents who were clearly having a whale of a time) and an elderly couple who didn’t seem to have any children with them (though I’m a fine one to talk). I have spent the rest of the day annoying the dogs with my Sweep hand-puppet (they tired of it before I have, I’m sad to say). Was worth the bus and train journey to Sunderland. Unfortunately, I’ll not be going to the James Martin book signing tomorrow, but I think I made the right choice of excursions!
What does any of this have to do with book stuff? Not a thing, but I don’t care – there’s very little going on with the book at the moment. Following the Sunday Sun article, the book rose through Amazon’s rankings…but they have no books in stock (website states orders will be despatched in 2-3 weeks, which has probably put some people off). Don’t know if Waterstones (Newcastle) or Borders got in touch with Natalie, so can’t tell you anything about that.
Oh and I read an interesting article about the woman who selects the books for Richard & Judy – there’s no chance a book like mine would ever find its way on the show. Why, you ask…apart from the obvious? Because the cover is pink!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article607041.ece
I almost started working on one of the other books I have ideas for – had an excellent idea but, unfortunately, I was in the bath at the time. By the time I was dry, I’d forgotten what I was going to write. I have a lot of scenes in my mind, but they aren’t all from the same book – I know that sounds odd, considering there are no other books yet, but it makes sense in my strange mind! If I ever get a book deal (I need some motivation) I have something to work from…
One last thing, someone (and hope they don’t mind me mentioning this) commented that they don’t like to talk about illness, but I don’t seem to mind. I do, really. I spent years being embarrassed about being ill, and making excuses for myself. I hate being defined as someone who is ill primarily, and then whatever I’ve done is mentioned almost as an after-thought. However, I would be doing a disservice to everyone who has the same illness as I do if I pretended I was fine – we have a hard enough time trying to get people to recognise CFS/ME as a genuine illness, so how would it look if I ignored it too? *Just climbing down from my soapbox now, hoping I’ve cleared up any misunderstandings.*
Before you leave, check out the new piccies I’ve added!