Friday, June 29, 2012

At least my pants stay up

I know I've been slack with my blogging lately. However, I'm not so slack as William Shatner's pants which apparently fell down at LAX airport.

Now that's the kind of news I like. You just gotta love that guy. Eighty one years old and still whipping up a storm.

By the way, I'm over 20,000 words into my new novel. I'm not sure if it's any good. In fact it's probably in very bad taste as so far I've managed to squeeze in everything a publisher would probably hate: lots of gags about The War (sorry), A German matron (sorry), An elderly woman with Alzheimer's who believes she a famous screen actor, a Scottish romantic novelist, a care home, and a mother of three who's just quit her job.

Now I just have to get in the telephone sex, the comical deaths, The Sound of Music and a whole host of other bizarre happenings and this will be the novel that hopefully will make people both and laugh and cry. It'll probably make any publisher laugh and cry as well - but probably not for the right reasons.

I'll be self-publishing obviously.

Bizarrely enough, in my novel, my heroine's pants can be found around her ankles. And this was before I'd read about Bill Shatner and has nothing to do with Fifty Shades of Grey.

More about Fifty Shades soon I think. It needs a serious reviewer like my good self to do it justice.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Sympathy, Please.

I've done my back in. Twice in three weeks. Now this is a first for me as I'm a robust kind of gal and rarely suffer from aches and pains. Even in pregnancy I don't remember any significant backache. (I remember a hell of a lot of other ghastly things about it but I won't divulge them I don't want to discourage anyone from having children even though you won't have a decent night's sleep for about ten years, you'll look like Donald Pleasance in drag until they leave home at 18 and question your sanity everyday for the rest of your life.)

So the first time I awoke in the night with pain in my hip. "That's odd" I thought, "Has Mr T been trying it on without my knowledge?" ( He hadn't but it's the thought that counts.) Then by morning it had spread to a stiffness in my whole back and I was kaput. It took me about three days or so to get back to what seemed normal. I put it down to bad luck which is on a par with what most Doctors say when you go to the surgery which in my experience is usually one of three phrases;
a) "It's just one of things!"
b) "You're getting old. You'll just have to put up with it!"
c) "You're depressed. The pain is a symptom of your depression!"

Now, Dear Readers, I want to offer you my life experiences on such Doctors' phraseology - If you are unlucky enough to experience all three of these diagnosis for the same complaint may I suggest checking your life insurance before seeking private medical care.

Anyway, time passed and all seemed okay with my back and then early last week I was cleaning in the kitchen (Okay, okay go easy on the universal gasps of horror) and I nearly passed out which again is something I have never done. Basically, I have the constitution of an ox - unless my stomach has one of those funny moments.  (I also have the legs of an ox but that's a different story.) Anyway, I decided to put this episode down to an overdose of cleaning fluids (I was a little heavy on the bleach in the sink), the exertion of cleaning the floor and most likely another little hint that the (whispers) menopause is on the way. Also, this theory has the added benefit that I would be able to avoid any future cleaning duties. Which, obviously, is very, very sad but a necessary evil if one wants to avoid drowning in a bucket of floor cleaning solution.

So Thursday comes and I decide to play tennis  in my usual manner which is basically to hit the ball as hard as I can. Because that's the way I am. None of those silly drop shops. Those are for women over 50 who can't run and who don't have a constitution of an ox. So, needless to say, I did my back in again and have spent  3 days in a lot of discomfort  and 4 nights in even more discomfort. I have seen a sports physio and have had all these weird, rather too intimate manipulations done and he clicked some stuff back into place and now I am just stiff, stiff, stiff. 

So other than aches and pains all is well. I am also working on a new novel which is called The Changing Room. It's a comedy-drama about life's ups and downs. I hope I have taken on board all that I've learnt over the last five years writing this blog and doing all the other bits of writing I've done. Hopefully, this will be the book that makes it into print. Fingers crossed.

Ps - when my back is better I am going to practise drop shots. Damn.

My Nominees for the US and UK Elections and Other Waffle

It's the early hours of the morning, and I have had a large gin... Late-night alcohol is always a good recipe for writing gibberish. And...