Friday 25 February 2011

Big Birthday, Spineless Me and Pocket Novels


My eldest son (or should that be elderly son?) is thirty on Monday. Happy birthday dear… I said HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR. He’s getting on a bit now bless him, and as from Monday he’ll be pushing forty as my mum would have said. Amazing, I was only five years old when he was born.

Hardly seems like yesterday he was playing with our dog big gentle Ben in the garden.

This week I have been discussing making a
Living Will – or Advance Decisions as it is now known with a friend. Interesting. I think I shall.

While I was out with the dogs yesterday, the postman who had been hiding round the corner in his van, whizzed round and put a card through my door to say he had a packet that wouldn’t fit through my letterbox.

You know what I thought it was don’t you? Well of course you do. One of those horrendously big fat brown envelopes which has insufficient postage stamped all over it. I gloomed and fretted about it all day – well for four hours until the sorting office opened up.

And spineless coward that I am, I sent the beloved in to get it – just in case the envelope had come open and all my rubbish stories had fallen on and maimed the sorting office cat.

He emerged with an A4 sized morbidly obese brown parcel and I nearly fainted until I realised it was the Amazon order I’d forgotten about. Phew. But there’s always today’s post. Never let it be said that I’m not an expert at this pessimism lark.

You may have heard that My Weekly Pocket Novels are required to be fifty thousand words in length in future - full details here. The pay isn’t great at £300, but there are large print rights to be considered and PLR – well while we still have libraries anyway. And it’s a pleasant way to hone those novel writing skills and get a bit of writing practice in. Well that’s how I sees it anyway.

I’ll have a look over the books I’ve read during February and see if there is anything there to recommend. Until then, enjoy your writing and I’ll see you in a day or few.

8 comments:

  1. If you ask me (which you didn't) thirty is barely old enough for a boy to be let out on his own.

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  2. You're just a kid, Teresa. My YOUNGEST (of four) has just turned thirty. Makes a woman feel very old indeed.

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  3. Hi Teresa,
    If I was your postman, I'd be opening the envelopes to be the first to read your stories. That de ja vous with you was lovely.

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  4. Have great day remembering your son birth day. My son told me today that the hospital where he is working will be filming a episode of 'Casualty' I told him about the day he came into the world was the day I missed an episode of the programme, which up until then was unmissable for me. As his father rubbed my back I asked him what the time was as it had felt like forever. I was told it was 7.30. 'Oh,' said I 'I'm missing Casualty... 'Oh well' said he 'you're experiencing it instead.' I never did watch another episode of the programme again.

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  5. My son will turn 27 at the end of May. He was ruminating gloomily on this fact only yesterday...

    'I'm nearly THIRTY! I'm getting OLD!'

    'YOU'RE feeling old?' I said. 'How do you think I feel? I was 27 when I had you!'

    I then went on to tell him that I'd probably have to disown him after his birthday, since I couldn't possibly admit to having such an ancient firstborn.

    So, Teresa, I'm with you on how fast life whizzes by once you become a parent.

    Jarmara - Your comment made me laugh. My Mum had to miss an episode of the new medical drama series "Emergency Ward 10" (which ran from 1957-1967) when she was giving birth to me. The experience didn't stop her from continuing to watch the series, however, and I watched it, too, when I was old enough.

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  6. I agree, Patsy.

    Thank you, Frances - it's a long time since anyone called me a kid. An old goat perhaps, but not a kid. (And you don't look old enough to have four over thirty.

    What a lovely thing to say, Suzy, thank you!

    I love Casualty, Jarmara. How fantastic they're filming at your son's hospital.

    Jacula, what I wouldn't give to be 27 again - oh no, maybe not - that was not a good year for me, but I'd settle for 30. Yes that would be nice. And I remember Emergency Ward 10 too!

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  7. Belated Happy Birthday to your baby.

    I agree about the pocket novels, they're a great opportunity, especially when a lot of fiction outlets seem to be shrinking. I love DC Thomson - everyone I've ever dealt with there has been lovely. All I need is time to write 50k words.

    XX

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  8. Thank you Suzanne.
    I agree about D C Thomson. But yes an awful lot of time involved in writing 50k words. What we need as well as more actual daylight is more hours in the day!
    xx

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