A really boring evening yesterday. A full two hours spent taking dictation - more invoices to be done - customer requires them for the end of their financial year. So this morning, I spent some time unwinding - probably a bit too much. Did the codewords puzzle in the Evening Standard and then played several computer games. Guilt overcame me around lunch time and I sorted out the invoices, printed them out, filed the copies, etc., etc.
While taking and collecting M from the station, I had another marvellous view of autumn colours. I tried to describe them in my head - the golden browns set against the red brick of our mainly Victorian village, but how do you describe autumn leaves; golden browns, warm browns, yellowy browns? Can a writer ever do justice to scenery in the way an artist can? I asked this in a poem I composed some time ago. One keeps trying, probably, in the same way that some artists repeatedly choose the same subject and try to reproduce it over and over again, each time aiming for perfection, or perhaps something better than last time.
Shortly after we got in, there was a downpour, so just as well I wasn't driving then. It was torrential. As it was, on my journey out, I noticed quite a few fallen branches. Autumn is very late this year. The leaves are only just falling, but the high winds and heavy rain will soon bring them all down.
I heard the other day from Wendy Lloyd with the names of the first three short stories in the Radio Southern Counties competition. I wasn't one of them, but was still very happy to have been featured on their website and paid for my story, Damaged Goods. http://www.bbc.co.uk/southerncounties/content/articles/2006/06/13/story_jackie_luben.shtml
About Me
- Jackie Luben
- Like all women, apparently, I'm multi-skilled and have a dual identity. As the little woman at home, I run my husband's business in an extraordinarily efficient way, typing, bookkeeping, dealing with telephone calls and chasing non-paying customers. But my other identity is far more interesting, as I've been writing for the past twenty five years at least, and have published four books - all very different. My fourth book, Tainted Tree, was published in May 2008, having won second prize at the 2007 Winchester Writers' Conference. My other books comprise a self help book dealing with cot death (no longer in print); an autobiographical slice of life, (The Fruit of the Tree) which also describes this event and other more lighthearted happenings in my life; a novella, A Bottle of Plonk, which bears no relationship to my life. This was also published in America by Virtual Tales, with the name, Have Wine Will Travel and is available from some sellers. I also have some short stories available on-line, some published by Untreed Reads (www.untreedreads.com). My writing work is set out more formally on my web pages, which you can access at: http://freespace.virgin.net/jackie.luben
Nice Award
Awarded by Anne Brooke
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