Ups and downs in life and books

I am currently imprisoned in my mini office or study or whatever you want to call it. Actually, it’s a good place to be because with the door closed and the computer on, it’s quite cosy and outside the window, it looks decidedly chilly. I have a carpet fitter here, as for some time, we’ve been concerned about a threadbare patch of carpet in a very obvious place. He came to look, today, and then said he’d deal with it there and then. He’s cut a bit from one place and put it in another; what’s more he’s going to clean it too. Consequently, I can’t really move into any of the areas where work is in progress.

We’ve had rather a grim few days. M’s medication caused problems, which resulted in us spending an evening – well up to 2.30 a.m. actually – at the local Casualty. (Thank goodness for the Surrey County – they haven’t succeeded in closing it yet.) Then I got an infection and had to go on anti-biotics. But hopefully, we’re both OK now.

On our way to Casualty, the internal workings of my car made the most appalling racket. Bearing in mind it was the same day that the car had been serviced, I wasn’t best pleased. When M was feeling back to normal, he took it back for me. He had to go in that direction, and I really wanted him to do the grumbling. (I’m not very good at that in the flesh, though my grumpy letters are normally quite potent.) However, when they opened the car up, they found a conker in the innards. M & I speculated how it could have got there – after all, it’s not even conker time now, is it? M’s cousin – a car engineer – suggested that some small animal had attempted to make a nest in the underneath of the car, attracted by the warmth, and the conker had been drawn in by the air system. Then perhaps during the service, it had moved into a position where we became aware of it. As you know, animals love to come and occupy our space.

I’ve been working on the changes to the PDF file on Gawain, one of the Goldenford books (http://www.goldenford.co.uk/), before we get a reprint, and I’ve just sent off my final version to the others for any comments. We hope to get our printing orders in for additional books in the new year, along with Thorn in the Flesh and Pink Champagne.

Tonight, I’m at the reading circle to dispense my thoughts on Tenderness of Wolves. My main feeling was it tried to cover too much, in terms of characters. When I wrote Tainted Tree, my focus was on one main character. Perhaps this was too narrow, but I think the reader’s sympathies should not be dissipated by having to cope with too many characters and sub-plots. Bear in mind, I’m not talking about Russian novels, but anything characterised by the term ‘a good read’, and by the end of T of W, I had begun to find my interest in what happened to all of them was wearing thin. It also moved too slowly towards a climax. A story should move rapidly in an uphill direction to a peak, very near the end, in my opinion. This was jogging along on a plateau. But then, who am I too comment? Not a winner of the Costa Prize, that's or sure.

I’ve been listening to Dombey and Son serialised on Women’s Hour, and of course it’s possible that it has been edited to remove too many sub-plots – I haven’t read it, so I don’t know – but it does seem that Dickens has concentrated on the main characters, and though there are sub-plots, there is a sort of hierarchy of interest, with Florence Dombey at the top of the tree. It’s worked for me; I’ve listened avidly to all three weeks of it.

Having dealt with Thorn and Gawain, next job is to complete the Christmas cards and prepare for a dinner party this weekend. Then it seems the way will be clear for me to start on the edit of Tainted Tree. There can’t be anything else happening in the next couple of weeks.