I was kindly sent this by a lovely lady I met on a book-related website and had the pleasure of meeting in person last year. The idea is to release seven random or weird facts about myself into the blogosphere (I’ve refrained from using the word ‘interesting’ as it really doesn’t apply here). It was a welcome diversion from feeling ill. So, here we are:

1. IQ: Those who know me may be surprised by this but, according to MENSA, my IQ is high enough to allow me to join their organisation. Unfortunately, I could not take my application further, due to lack of money. I’m not going to tell you the exact score, as I’ve probably dropped 50 IQ points since spending 14 hours per day watching TV!

2. SOLICITORS: I once worked for a (large) firm of solicitors and hated it, so packed my job in. They said they’d fired me, so I took them to a tribunal. They sent their Chief Exec in to defend them (???), and I represented myself. I won. I won’t embarrass them by mentioning which firm it was.

3. ANXIETY: I suffer from panic attacks. They can happen anytime, any place and the people around me probably don’t even notice. I carry a Star Wars ewok (’Wicket’) in my pocket as a ‘grounding’ object. Weird, huh? I got a fantastic self-help book about panic attacks - email me if you want the title, as I can’t recall it at the moment.

4. £2: I absolutely HATE two-pound coins. Don’t ask me why, as I don’t know. If I get them, I either spend them immediately or give them away.

5. GEEK: I used to work in biochemistry, genetics and microbiology laboratories and used to do this (which I really enjoyed). I love science (yep, I’m a total science nerd) but was unable to complete my Biomedical Science degree due to illness.

6. STEVE COOGAN: I once slapped Steve Coogan. We met him following a gig in London, and as he was signing my t-shirt, I noticed he’d spelled my name wrongly. I slapped his arm in a completely overly-familiar way and said, “That’s with an ‘i’ not a ‘y’,” which is what he then proceeded to write on my shirt! He was a very nice man, but I went off him a bit when he called his fans “bunny boilers” in an interview.

7. DRINKS: I can’t gulp down a drink from a bottle or a can. I tend to only use a straw. This is due to an unfortunate incident in my childhood. We used to get wrong for drinking from the bottle and one day, I sneaked into the kitchen and tried to take a drink out of a 3 litre bottle of Co-op Lemonade. As I was mid-gulp, my dad came in and caught me. I got such a shock, the pop went down the wrong way and I thought I was going to choke on it. Trying to drink out of bottles invokes a similar feeling, even today!

I’m supposed to pass this on to other bloggers, but I know so few people these days, so I guess I can’t. I’m also guessing that you now think I’m even stranger than you thought I was in the first place!

It may be early January ‘08, not late December, back in ‘63, but what a night. Maybe I’m getting old, but I question the merit of entertaining between the hours of 11.30pm and somewhere in the region of 3am, when you live in a terraced house with paper-thin walls. I’m trying my very best to get plenty of rest and get myself pulled together, but struggle when inconsiderate people nearby have what sounded like a step aerobics session for elephants in the middle of the night! I blame my upbringing (again - sorry, mam). When I was little, if we made the slightest noise after about 8pm, we were told, “Shush, there’s babies sleeping!” I still care that there’s babies sleeping, even now, so do try to limit my noise (and that of my dogs) but others don’t care if they wake the poor little tots! Rant over and back to the original topic for this post.

Yesterday, once again, I didn’t win the lottery and questioned the sense in buying a ticket when I have little money to spare. The conclusion I came to was this: for £1, not only are you buyng the slimmest of chances that “It could be you”, you are buying seven days’ worth of something I hadn’t realised you could buy: hope. For seven days, you can imagine what you would do if you won; who you’d give money to; if it would change your life. So, as my two numbers came up yesterday, I was briefly disappointed, but then started the whole imaginary lottery winning experience again prior to next Saturday’s draw! £1 well spent.

I do have a point to this post. Last time I blogged, I mentioned the cost of entering the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance. I underestimated this as, due to fatigue, I seem to have lost my basic grasp of maths. 6 books would be equal to £54 and the postage around £9, so the total was over £60. Then, I realised that 6 books (the last of my own copies - now I don’t even own a copy of my own book) and the associated postal costs would give me several months’ worth of hope and day-dreaming. Suddenly, it didn’t seem such a big deal. I know that, deep down, I have no chance of even being shortlisted, but thanks to my over-active imagination, at least I can dream about what it must be like to go to an Awards ceremony. As Dale Winton says on his lottery show (which I also tried to enter last year), “You’ve got to be in it to win it!” So, I’m in it…providing the Royal Mail have actually delivered my books in time. I’ll never know. We can only hope.

Sorry if this post didn’t make sense. I’m very tired, due to my neighbours, who don’t care if the 33 year-old baby was sleeping!

Like many people I know, I’m suffering from this 4-6 week virus that’s going around (”4-6 weeks for normal people,” said my doctor. “Probably much longer for you!”) Now hubby and I both have cold on top of that. I totally agree that stress makes you more susceptible to illness, and I’m stressing myself out more by worrying about the myriad of things which are affecting my life at the moment: no money, uncertainty, frustration, etc, etc. I hate not being able to problem-solve!!! And I’m stuck in the house liked a caged animal (more like a goldfish in a bowl, since the curtain rod broke and everyone can see into the house)!

It’s impossible to even write for cathartic purposes when your mind cannot concentrate on one topic long enough to form a logical thought! Adding to the stress is the fact that I STILL have not heard from my publisher. As you know, the main man contacted me before Christmas to ask for my contact details (?). I assumed this meant he would contact me. I heard nothing so emailed again. This email also asked what the status was of my entry to the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance, for which Natalie had entered me. Again, I heard nothing, so contacted the organisers myself and was told they had no record of a nomination, but if I could send six books, they would be happy to consider me. That was very kind, but leaves me with a dilemma: six books is equal to almost £50…then there’s postage on top. It’s a great competition, but when you have zero money, is it wise to take a leap in the dark to enter a competition you have 0.000000000001% chance of winning? Especially when you consider Marian Keyes won last years’s Award. Maybe things like that are best left to the professionals…

…auf wiedersehen, goodbye! That’s what I’d like to say to the people who have inundated my inbox with adult-themed spam this Christmas. I don’t want a “super-sized one-eyed monster”, thank you very much! What I do like are messages from people who’ve read the book. What I would like is to hear from the people that PUBLISHED the book!

I’m really ready to do some more writing, but can’t sit at the laptop for long, so am rather frustrated. Is it worth returning to paper and pen? Can I remember how to write without getting writers’ cramp after a paragraph? I could use a dictaphone (that reminds me about a joke I heard…) but I couldn’t bear to hear the sound of my voice as I played it back!!! So many ideas, so little energy…