Saturday, June 30, 2007

Books and Bombshells

It’s been a couple of busy days with exciting news late today.

When I awoke yesterday morning and heard that police had found a bomb in Haymarket, I wasn’t that keen on going to meet my friend, Pam, in London. In addition, the rain was pouring down. As I didn’t hear anything from her, I went anyway. Unbelievably, by 10.15, the sun was blazing down; that at least was good news.

Stupidly, I didn’t prepare something to write or read for my journey. My current book for the reading circle is Pride and Prejudice. I am reading a hardback edition, which I’ve had probably since I was ten or eleven. That means it’s too heavy to carry around an art gallery. I’m also reading Middlemarch for the first time; paperback, but also heavy. I couldn’t work up the enthusiasm for my previous unfinished book, The Emigrants. What was worse was that I didn’t look up the Writers’ News (http://www.writersnews.co.uk/) competitions to see if I could get started on a new story and I didn’t check back to my novel to see if I could take it on a bit further.

Train journeys are little oases in time when you can’t sort out the washing/ironing/paperwork, etc. And it’s a great shame to waste them.

They were very hot on security on the train. At one point, the guard announced they had found an empty shoebox and requested the owner to come and reclaim it. There is obviously a heightened sense of fear. And today’s news from Glasgow Airport will do nothing to diminish it.

Pam and I met up at the National Portrait Gallery and had lunch there before viewing the BP competition for portrait painters. It used to be for young artists, but now any age can take part. As a result it was less innovative, but always worth a look. We go regularly every year.

Red’n’Ritten have contacted me again to say they want to take copies of The Fruit of the Tree and turn it into an e-book too. Unlike A Bottle of Plonk, The Fruit of the Tree does fit into their particular market and I’m glad for them to take it on.

Today, Jennifer, Irene (www.myspace.com/ireneblack) and I went to the Winchester Writers’ Conference, (http://www.writersconference.co.uk/), where we had a stand selling Goldenford books (http://www.goldenford.co.uk/). Anne (www.myspace.com/annebrooke) was attending the conference – courses, interviews, etc. and had been at the stand most of yesterday. Consequently, a lot of people knew her from there or from other writer events. We had quite a successful couple of days and sold a variety of our books.

Although I hadn’t booked for the conference itself, I submitted some entries for their competitions, including my unpublished novel, Tainted Tree, to the First Three Pages of a Novel competition, to be judged by the publishers, Piatkus. I thought it would be beneficial to have the Piatkus critique – Irene had told me it was very useful to her last year. Also, the short story I submitted to Winchester last year came back to me with a useful critique and I worked on it and submitted it to Radio Southern Counties, and was one of the twenty prize-winners who were broadcast on the station.

When I arrived, I was delighted to see that both Anne and I had been shortlisted in the Novel competition, me under my one-off pseudonym, Lady Macbeth. But the best news came when I was back home, this evening. Anne – still at the conference – telephoned me to tell me I had come second. What a lovely thing for Anne to do to take the trouble to ring me.

I was quite thrown by the news. I started walking round and round in circles around the house, like Dougal in The Magic Roundabout. It took me an hour before I could get down to making a meal – pasta, which we haven’t long finished. I’ll let you know when I hear anything official. But in the meantime, YIPPEE.

4 comments:

Anne Brooke said...

But I wasn't using a phone, Jackie - you could just hear my screams of delight all the way from Winchester ...

Congrats again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:))

A
xxx

Sue said...

Well done. It looks like it was a good weekend for the Goldenford girls.

Sue xx

Jackie Luben said...

Thank you Anne and Sue. And of course, well done to Anne for being on the Novel shortlist.

Jackie

Anne Brooke said...

Ooh, thanks, Jackie!

:))

A
xxx