Thursday, 24 December 2009

It's Christmas Eve


There's an apple and cinnamon cake baking in the kitchen, the tree lights are twinkling and in a couple of hours the shops will all be shut and THAT WILL BE IT! Christmas again! I've loved the run up to Christmas this year and having a full week off work beforehand has been brilliant too. I hope you have a lovely Christmas and that there'll be a little magic in the air for you! As promised, the answers to my little festive teaser can be found on this page. How many did you find???

Merry Christmas!

Jo X

Tuesday, 22 December 2009

Track Santa!


Only 3 more sleeps till Christmas! Last year, around this time, I discovered http://www.noradsanta.org/ an highly unlikely by-product of the North American defence programme. Every year since the 1950s this organisation use their highly advanced missile satellite tracking technology for a much nicer purpose - tracking Santa's journey from his home in the North Pole as he delivers presents all around the world. The site is fascinating, even before Christmas Eve, as it gives away some very hi-tec secrets and insights into how the amazing man in red manages such an astounding undertaking every year. On Christmas Eve itself there are 20 minute updates on his progress from take off at 4am Eastern Time to landing 24 hours later, and sometimes video clips as he passes well-known landmarks. Hours of fun to keep overexcited children under some control! (that includes children over 30...) And then check out the wikipedia page for norad santa as well - you couldn't make it up!!
The photo is Leeds, 2 weeks ago. I suspect that is an escaping elf, not a child in the foreground...

Ho ho ho!

Jo x

Thursday, 17 December 2009

Time for a wee whigmalerie?


The print copies I ordered have arrived and so I've launched 'Whigmalerie' onto lulu this morning. Copies can be downloaded FOR FREE by going to www.lulu.com/joannaduncan and clicking the download button and the previous two stories have made a reappearance there too. They're all free so there's no excuse not to indulge! They're best accompanied by a chunk of stollen or a couple of mince pies. (I'M SO MISSING CAKE!)

And just to make things a bit more interesting... One of my characters has a fondness for stage and screen musicals which, at moments of stress, shows up in his speech. Once you've read the story, can you say how many quotes there are in it from musicals? And can you name the musicals?? I'm warning you now - it's a tough challenge! If anyone gets half marks, I'll be impressed! THE ANSWERS will be here on December 24th...

Merry Christmas! Jo xx

Tuesday, 1 December 2009

Holidays are coming!

And the new Grouse and Partridge Christmas story - A Wintery Whigmalerie - is coming too! A bit longer than the usual festive offering, it weighs in at 55 pages and is the first G&P story to be written on the new laptop! It was completed in a record breaking 4 days and went to press last night.

It will be available from www.lulu.com/joannaduncan from December 17th - which is the day I break up for Christmas hols - as a TOTALLY AND UTTERLY FREE DOWNLOAD! Alternatively, you may purchase a print copy for £3.00. As usual, a donation will be made to CRISIS - a charity which supports homeless people all year round and especially at Christmas - for every copy downloaded or sold!

This year, I'm adding a little bonus feature in the form of a festive challenge... But no! I've said too much already!!! You're just going to have to wait until the 17th...

Saturday, 28 November 2009

Where do you buy your books...?


I'm the first to admit I'm a biblioholoic: I can't stop buying books. I've been like this for years - I've always coveted books and once I started work a sizeable proportion of my income has been spent on them. Which is one of the reasons why I'm so sad at the news of the UK Borders going into receivership yesterday.


But it isn't the main reason. I visited the very first Borders in the UK the day after it opened with my best friend, who's a biblioholic too. We'd been to a Library conference in Reading and came back via London, just to have a look. She'd shown me the article in that week's Bookseller about the book-buying revolution it was going to bring about: I'd dreamed one day all bookshops would be like this - vast, stocked from floor to ceiling, filled with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, offering a dazzling array of media in every form. However, that day I was stolidly unimpressed. I remember as we emerged several hours later, like kids who'd had too much candy, that I commented about it being all 'pile it high and flog it cheap' and that there should be more to a bookstore than that... I can be a bit of a book-snob at times. It hadn't stopped me buying a couple of things though.


However, I was quickly won over. I even forgave them when they bought out the Books etc chain (which, to me, was the very best big bookshop chain ever!) Why did I soften? Well, like Mr Darcy's first comments about Lizzie Bennett, I realised I might have been a bit hasty. There was much that was lovable about Borders, not least the fact that it stayed open late and served wonderful coffee and sold books imported from America you couldn't get elsewhere.


Over the years, I've amassed a whole range of Borders memories from branches country wide, notably Birmingham, Glasgow, York, Central London, Islington on a peaceful summer's morning during the bomb scares of 2005, buying books with my 'team' at our local Teeside branch for the school library, and the two around Newcastle. Ben (one of the old 'library crew') and I used to spend lunchtimes fantasising about how you could spend an entire day in Borders and never need to leave. We had it planned like a military operation. Shame we never actually tried it...


It's not all pleasant memories, mind you. There was a Christmas shopping trip to York some years ago with a gentleman acquaintance which I thought might be the beginning of something beautiful but which ended up as something messily destructive. But even that had its up-side: it was in that Borders we both discovered Edward Gorey (and we both managed to stay entranced by him if not with each other!) and it was in my local Borders that I wept into a succession of cinnamon lattes and bored my long suffering best friend with all the angst he'd generated! She has her own Borders memories and reasons to mourn its demise...


Sadly, Borders has been a victim of that 'pile em high and sell em cheap' philosophy because Amazon and co do it so much better. And I hold my hand up - I've done it too - checked out a book in Borders and then gone home and ordered it on line (although I also have a strict policy of NEVER leaving any bookshop without making a purchase!) In recent years too, since the split from the US company, the choice of stock, presentation and promotion has sometimes left a lot to be desired. In August in Oxford Street we passed that former flagship store where they were holding a closing down sale and I wondered then about the future. Now it seems it's going the way of those other great loves of mine - Dillons, Heffers, Sherratt and Hughes, Ottakers, James Thin, Claude Gill, The Penguin Bookshops, Thornes, Mawson Swan and Morgan, Hills... all bookshops, all gone.


I was last in Borders on Monday night. I sank a Dark Cherry Mocha in Starbucks, bought a couple of books for work. There was an air of sadness about the place which was distressing. I read on the internet this morning the receivers have announced a huge sale - basically a closing down sale - with big discounts on the remaining stock. I love a bargain book. But I won't be going. I think I'd prefer to remember it as it was.

Monday, 16 November 2009

I've just bought my first Christmas present...


Although I don't feel in the least bit Christmassy yet! However, I've just realised that we've half way through November and I know from bitter experience that once we get to this stage of the year, the next few weeks will rocket by. I've spent a fruitless evening trying to order Christmas presents on line and having the website in question crash on me every couple of minutes! So much for e-commerce.


So I thought I'd reassure my vast readership that there will be a G and P Christmas story available from mid December as usual. It'll probably be the last installment of the saga for quite some time so keep watching this space to make sure you don't miss out. I'm not going to give anything away just yet, except that I've got to watch Brigadoon for research purposes...


Nice things this week: my favourite band Elbow were the subject of the South Bank Show last night which was fantastic. I've still got this week's Dr Who special to indulge in and one of my sources of inspiration for a certain Scottish detective made a public appearance in a kilt - sadly, I wasn't there to see the knees in person, but I've scrutinised the photos! (Don't bother asking for clues - you won't get any more! I shouldn't have told you this much!) Oh, and I've discovered I can get Dark Cherry Mochas in Starbucks with skimmed milk and no cream! Maybe Christmas won't be that bad after all...


Monday, 2 November 2009

My Guilty Indulgence...

Work has stopped. E-mails are going unanswered and I am ignoring the phone, the growing pile of washing up and the fact that I should be doing a dozen other things. Why? I started Ian Rankin's 'The Complaints' yesterday and I can't put it down! I'm devouring whole chunks of the book and resenting anything that pulls me away from the story! What is it about Ian Rankin's writing that sucks you in so completely that you just have to keep reading page after page?? I'm like a kid with an Enid Blyton! And yet at the same time, I don't want to finish it because then I'll have to wait for him to write another one before I can have this much fun again!


I envy him his seemingly effortless style (which I'm sure takes a lot of effort!) and his confident handling of material - he is a genius! (Haven't found any tressle tables in this one, but there's still half a book to go.)


Just spoils all other crime novels though...nothing else comes close!

Sunday, 1 November 2009

Proof I'm totally stupid


As yesterday was Hallowe'en, I thought a view of the gravestones in the Burial enclosure in Inchbuie would be appropriate. This isn't my picture - I've never been on the island - but it's one I used to help me write the last few chapters of Scotch Pine.
It's the end of my week off and I can't say I've achieved a huge amount really. I've done some initial rewriting, sketched out the overall plan of this year's G&P Christmas story and built an office chair! My old desk chair was seriously in need of replacing: the back 'went' some time ago and my back has been going ever since. It was doing nothing for my posture or comfort. So today - which has been arguably the wettest day of the year so far - I went in search of seating. And I found a very nice, very comfy black chair which suited me perfectly. I bought it, brought it home and then started to put it together, only to discover that it only had one screw with it - and 1o were listed on the instructions.

To say I was furious would be an understatement. I'd checked the box was sealed before I bought it, and the fittings were in a sealed bag inside another sealed bag- there was no way they could've dropped out. In anger, (and resisting the call of a wicked bar of Aero which is living in my fridge and tormenting me beyond all reasonable bounds) I called the store I'd bought it from. My ire quickly dissipated, however, and turned to deep embarrassment when 'Chris' who answered the phone sighed heavily and informed me in a world-weary tone that the screws were already fitted to the chair in the right places - they just needed unscrewing and then re-fixing once the parts were in place...

As he was telling me this, my eyes fell on a line of writing above the diagrams on the instruction leaflet which informed me of the self-same thing. However, at least I'd only phoned up with my complaint: according to 'Chris' most people storm back into the shop carrying the half-built chair with them!

I'm sitting on the completed chair as I type. Very comfy it is too. Now, about that Aero...

Monday, 26 October 2009

Holidays...




are wonderful things! About to start my writing day at the very civilised hour of 11.15 - this is much more my time of the day than my usual rising time! I know the week is going to fly past - they always do - but this morning it has been really nice to take things slowly. Hoping this week to sketch out the basis of the christmas story for this year because I don't want to leave it all thill the last minute. It is hard, though, turning your thoughts towards Christmas in October - I find that once I start thinking 'Christmas' it takes over and I'm too much of an Autumn lover to want to hurry it away! Resisting the temptation to head Scotland-wards as well this week: we're planning a possible trip in May next year to ride on the 'Jacobite' steam train and maybe revisit Killin -I might actually get onto the island this time!




Sunday, 18 October 2009

Getting On A Bit...

It was my birthday on Friday, which inevitably meant cake. It was excellent cake - or actually cakes - lovely cupcakes with strawberry icing and sparkly sprinkles - and they were completely delicious. And then there was the wonderful Lemon Meringue Pie my sister-in-law made me. And the delectable cakes which had come back from Spain in my brother's suitcase... I'm not expecting good things out of this week's weigh in!

Grouse and Partridge re-writes are going slowly. Very slowly. In between confidence crises and other demands on my time, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm barking up the wrong tree entirely by even imagining there'd be an audience. I know when I start thinking like this, I need a holiday!!

Sunday, 11 October 2009

Seasons of Mists...

This is the entrance to the MacNab Burial Ground on Inchbuie, taken when we were there in 2007. I've only just got round to transferring photos and files to my lovely new laptop and so the next few posts will probably have Scotland pix to accompany them!

I love October, probably because I'm an Autumn baby. And so far, October's been rather good, with a trip to Birmingham to see the wonderful ballet 'Cyrano' and some really lovely sunshine.

I'm working hard at weekends to re-edit - and in places completely rewrite - SCOTCH MIST. When I re-read it this summer with my critical hat on, I could see some very big mistakes which needed addressing. It's been quite fun to do and I'm hoping the work so far is an improvement on the original. I'm still scared at the prospect of sending it to anyone, but I've realised if I don't no one's going to come and knock on the door to demand it! The 'usual suspects' have been egging me on to do something about it for months now, and if no one actually wants it, I won't be any worse off than I am now, will I???

Had a disappointment with the last batch of books from Lulu.com. Usually they are of a very high standard and are beautifully finished, but the last parcel I got looked as if it had been rushed through: there were three books which I felt were sub-standard and they'd got the order wrong (right on the invoice, but the invoice didn't match!) However, I cannot fault their customer service who offered a refund or a reprint and were very apologetic. I'm sure it was a blip and nothing more...

I'm still getting requests for copies which is very gratifying: so far I've sold 187 copies between the three titles which I find quite amazing!

Still largely cake-free, I'm afraid, but I did manage to sneak a slice of Druckers' delicious Apple Cake in Birmingham. It's cake of the week by default, but it would have won the award on its own merits anyway!

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

I'm back!


Hello. Did you miss me? Or is that a silly question... ?I'm not quite sure what has happened to the time since my last post, except that it has brought me a new lap top, super fast and all shiny, with all the letters clearly on the keys and no bits that fall off whenever I put it away! Just getting my head round all the bits and pieces at the moment - it seems to have a mind of its own.

Grouse and Partridge have had a good summer. They've been away to lots of exotic places in people's luggage and have even had their photos taken being read in odd places. Their readers have been very kind in their comments as well, which is lovely because I was quite scared about the response this one would get. I haven't been able to read it myself yet - I don't feel distant enough from it and I'm frightened I'll just sit and spot the mistakes!

The highlights of my summer were a wonderful week in Suffolk, where I was struck with inspiration for something I want to start writing in the new year and where I tasted possibly the best crab salad known to humanity in Aldeburgh, and my dash up to Edinburgh where I caught up with a school friend I hadn't seen for ages and MET IAN RANKIN! More of that later...

I'm on a health kick at the moment, trying to lose some of the pounds I piled on while writing Scotch Pine. I'm having mixed results so far, but the upshot of it is that proper cake is firmly off the menu for the time being. However, it wasn't off the menu for the summer, so for the next few weeks my cake recommendations will be retrospective ones! Best I can manage at the moment is Weighwatchers Carrot Cake slices - at a point a slice, they're gorgeous and not too naughty! (If a bit on the small side...!)

Sunday, 2 August 2009

The Leaning Tower of Paper

In case you've ever wondered, this is what the accumulated rough drafts of three novels looks like - 22 inches in height and - shortly after I took this photo - all over my study floor, when the table decided to tip over. It looks a bit like a giant angel cake because I use different colours of paper for each complete draft. That way I don't mix up different versions of the same book. This is all three books - the final drafts are kept safe elsewhere - and all this needs recycling somehow... As you might have gathered from this, I've spent much of the first two weeks of my holiday trying to find the house beneath the clutter and junk which accumulated during the time I was writing SCOTCH PINE. Finally, I feel as if I've got my house back but I'm ready to stop being domesticated and be creative instead!

It has been a busy few weeks for other reasons too. I spent a very interesting day at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival 'Creative Thursday' for writers and came away with at least one good idea for Grouse and Partridge as well as the determination to try and see if I can get an agent interested in the first book. It needs some re-writing, but I think I could face having a try at untangling it for a new audience. I'm also determind to stay a little longer next year and indulge in some of the excellent author events they arrange.

And this week I spent three days in London, indulging in theatre (including the wonderful production of La Cage aux Folles at the Playhouse Theatre, starring Philip Quast and Roger Allam who are two of my very favourite actors anyway! I can't recommend it too highly - it was inspirational!) shopping for art and craft materials and visiting the John William Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy. I also drooled over the Crime Fiction Department of Hatchards bookshop in Piccadilly - it's wonderful! - and saw a fantastic photography exhibition at the Photographer's Gallery off Oxford Street. More on this in the next post, I think!
Best cake? Found in the Royal Academy Restaurant, without doubt. They called it 'Orange and Almond Cake' but to my mind it was more of a marmalade orgy on a plate, dripping with syrupy orange pieces. Huge portions, went down well with a large (strong!) Americano...

Wednesday, 15 July 2009

Ride your Motorbike to Work day!

Apparently, today is Ride your Motorbike to Work Day, which will please Grouse. As I don't have a bike, and couldn't ride one even if I did (I'm not much good at balance!) I went to work on the train as usual. However, it's nice to think lots of people did ride to work. I got very excited the other day when I spotted a Bonnie (in emerald green!) in our local service station - a most handsome beast!
Speaking of handsome beasts, SCOTCH PINE has been duly delivered into the hands of those who requested a copy. It's strange to think that so many people I know are taking it on holiday with them this year! I haven't been able to bring myself to read it yet - I'm waiting till I can face it like a book, rather than something that needs another edit!
My summer hols start in two days and for the first time in six years, I'm not in the middle of a writing project. I'm really looking forward to six-and-a-bit weeks of doing very little at all. Fingers crossed for some nice weather. I'm going to Harrogate to the Crime Writing Festival and then to Edinburgh to see Ian Rankin at the Book Festival so it won't be an entirely non-crime fiction holiday and I have a pile of reading waiting for me!
Best cake of late - something rather delicious in the Bakewell line in the Imperial War Museum at Salford Quays - a truly amazing building and a really good - and entirely free - day out! Drover would have liked it! We were in Salford for the final 'fixture' of the ballet season - got to wait a bit for my next fix! I love Salford Quays.

Friday, 3 July 2009

THEY'VE ARRIVED!

All present and correct and the pages seem to be in the right order so I can start breathing again. There's nothing quite like taking multiple copies of your very own book out of their cardboard box for the first time. Even though you know exactly how it is supposed to look, it still looks different as a book rather than a huge pile of typed pages. Glancing through it last night I was just amazed I'd written it all. It's so pleasing. Just hope everyone likes the contents now...

Tuesday, 30 June 2009

They're on their way...

Just had an e-mail from lulu.com - the books are printed and on their way! This is the scary part: waiting for them to arrive and hoping (praying!) they are fine! The traumas of last week's sending seem a lifetime ago and real 'work' has taken over. The house is still a tip and the cleaning just keeps getting put back and back! It's too hot to do anything -that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! Not much on the cake front this week - hoping to make up for it this weekend! Wonder when the parcel will arrive...?

Tuesday, 23 June 2009

And then it all went pear-shaped for a while...


It was all going so well. Too well. All I had to do was upload the file to the lulu site and then it was done. That was on Friday...

Today - two days AFTER the launch date, SCOTCH PINE finally reached lulu! It's been unbelievably difficult to transfer the text to PDF this time. The recommended route - using Open Office - introduced a number of annoying little glitches and I realised that I'd have to completely re-check the entire text. So instead I downloaded a free trial of Adobe Acrobat - only to discover that my beloved and antiquated lap top didn't have anything like enough memory to run it! Two computers and a different lap-top later I finally managed at 6.45pm tonight to create a lulu acceptable PDF! The cover was a doddle by comparison.
And now, it's there - I keep going to the website and looking at it!!! Can't quite believe it's actually FINISHED! By the way,for the next 30 days you can get a 10% discount on the cover price by quoting JOANNADUNCANXMM3 in the coupon box at the checkout, thanks to lulu. And you can have a look at the free preview as well - just go to http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/scotch-pine/3169764

BEST CAKE? without a doubt, fruit tart in Druckers in the Bullring on Sunday just before I got the train home from a mad ballet weekend. Delicious. The tart was good too...

Friday, 19 June 2009

IT'S DONE!!!!!


For better or for worse, I've put the final touches to SCOTCH PINE and it is all ready to upload to lulu.com...Scary! Equally scary is the vast amount of Malteasers which I seem to have consumed this week! Just hoping my PDF maker works now... See you on LAUNCH DAY!!!!

Wednesday, 17 June 2009

Dotting the eyes...

I have dots in front of my eyes. I'm in the final stages of the final FINAL edit of Scotch Pine and I'm combing all 390 pages pulling out rogue full stops and renegade question marks which have invaded my prose and have evaded the eagle eyes of me and the Editor! Still keeping to schedule, but terrified I'll leave in some whopping mistake which will effectively ruin the whole thing! I have two days effectively to get things finished... Watch this space for launch on Monday! There'll be serious cake, I promise.

Friday, 5 June 2009

In the wee small hours of the morning...


This is a knitted squirrel from Jane Bolsover's knitted garden project - which inspired one element of the book. Visit www.bhkc.co.uk/data/the_knitted_garden_jbol.htm to see more of it!


Just 16 days to go...I'm not sure this countdown thing was such a good idea now!! It's scary! I was on holiday last week and spent a vast part of it slashing the wordcount of Scotch Pine and trying to make all my subplots join up. I'm now in the middle of the final typo-hunt and still on track to publish on Midsummer's Day. This is the exciting part - this and the moment the first book arrives from lulu.

It's going to be a chunky book (tho' hopefully it is all muscle!) at 390 pages - my longest so far - and I was worried that people might be reluctant to part with their hard-earned cash during these rather trying times just to find out what happens to Grouse, Partridge, Marmalade and the others. But, so far, I've racked up quite a few pre-orders from readers of the last two books - handing out promotional postcards was a good way of alerting people that it was almost ready to read. I'm not very good at the whole self-promotion thing, though: I get very embarrassed!

Best Cake? Although we loved Kings Lynn, it wasn't that hot in the cake-stakes (at least, not in the places we visited!) so my best cake this week is another Durham one: very fresh almond croissant in Cafe Nero - delicious! They were playing Vivaldi as well, so they get extra brownie points!

Wednesday, 20 May 2009

One Little Month...

(As Hamlet says in the play!) till publication day! The first draft was finally finished last night - or, more accurately, in the early hours of this morning - and I'm now embarking on big revisions to slim it down and sharpen it up. Not sure what to make of it yet... just pleased I found a way to knit all the bits together! This is the bit I really love - it's much more fun editing than writing! The publicity machine kicks in next week and I'm merrily telling everyone there will be a product by June 21st so I'm going to have to get my head down! Another ballet packed weekend, with Birmingham Royal Ballet in Durham for 2 days - off to King's Lynn on Saturday to catch them there too! Stunning performances of two of my favourite ballets and an introduction to one I hadn't seen before. They're magnificient! Frantically reading Donna Leon's Brunetti books at the moment - devouring them on the commute to work! Having only recently come back from Venice I can imagine it all vividly and her 'hero' is a really lovely bloke who (as a refreshing change!) has a reasonably stable home life and a family who aren't entirely disfunctional! Really admire her pared down style! Half term looms on the horizon - thank goodness for holidays! Best cake: going to cheat - it was a pudding - Rhubarb and Gooseberry Fool at Oldfield's restaurant in Durham. Divine...

Monday, 11 May 2009

The Countdown has started!

Yes! I'm about three thousand words from the end and so I've bitten the proverbial bullet! 'SCOTCH PINE' will be available from midnight on June 21st - the 'longest day' of the year in the UK seems to be an appropriate birth date for a book that is the longest in the series and which has been so long in the writing. Having a countdown timer works wonders for focusing the mind: forty days doesn't seem very long at all! There's a lot still to do, but I'm confident we can meet the deadline. Keep checking back for the latest information! Had a brilliant day on Saturday, managing more than 5,000 words and then going out in the evening to see Eddi Reader in concert - she was wonderful, accompanied by the amazing John McCusker and Boo Hewerdine - a real treat. Her Robert Burns CD was partly responsible for my Burns fixation back in 2005 and her music has been playing in the background while I've written all three books. Her new album is lovely. I left feeling uplifted and recharged! Best cake of recent weeks was the cherry and almond scone - still warm - at Milkhope in Northumberland. It pains me to say it, but it would've given Mary Enbryte's offerings a run for their money...gorgeous!

Thursday, 30 April 2009

Woes and Triumphs...


Since I last logged in, I've been ILL! Very nasty chest infection picked up, I suspect, before I went away and which has lasted two weeks. I am getting better but I found myself totally incapacitated from last weekend, getting breathless from just putting on my shoes - and this from the woman who walked round Venice for eleven hours for four consecutive days!

I've been off work - I can't remember the last time I was away this long- and only ventured back today. HOWEVER: there has been a pay off. After the reasonable success of the Easter holiday writing and the work I've put in from my sick bed this week (literally!) I am pleased to report that I am one chapter away from finishing the first draft of SCOTCH PINE! Given that this weekend is a bank holiday in the UK, I'm pretty confident that - by this time next week - there'll be an ending!

And it's stopped feeling like toothpaste squeezing. In fact I've enjoyed the last three or four chapters as much as anything I've ever written, maybe because it's taken my mind off my aches, pains and wheezing chest! (Or perhaps the cough medicine has had something to do with it! ) There's still lots of work to do with cutting down the word-count and tightening up the plot - I like to think of it as the book going into traction - but with my 'editor' able to read again, all systems are go! Best cake? Sorry - I've been off food as well! But you can't have everything...

Sunday, 19 April 2009

Venice


I'm just back from four magical days in Venice, with my mum - we've both had 'significant' birthdays this year and this was our way of celebrating them! We've walked and wandered and sauntered and looked and strolled and photographed (this is one of mine!) and generally meandered all over the city, enjoying the sunshine and the cappuchinos and taking in the occasional bit of culture and art as we stumbled across it. It really is an amazing place, and once you get away from San Marco, very quiet and uncrowded. We've had a brilliant time and I didn't want to come back! I'd forgotten how much I loved it last time I visited: you can look at pictures but they don't give you the complete sensory experience of being there, smelling the salt water and hearing it lapping against the stones, feeling the sunshine and hearing the birdsong and the church bells. It is paradise. No wonder so many people over the years have been captivated by it. I've already started saving up for next year: there won't be another G&P NOVEL for a while after this one, but I'm planning some short stories, maybe even taking Partridge and Marmalade to Venice for a short break... That way I can justify it as research!
Sadly, it's back to reality with a bump and back to work tomorrow. I've written quite a bit this holiday, although things haven't flowed easily at all - sometimes it's been a bit like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube which is really just about empty! I'm hoping the spring sunshine and the Venice vibes will have done the job when I resume the task tomorrow evening. I promised my readership(!) a spring publication date and the end of spring approaches... The story is almost complete. There's just a final push to get the last few scenes completed before the big edit begins. Maybe May? Or am I being too optimistic?? Can we pretend June is still spring????
Best cake? That's a tough one - although we didn't sample them all, the shop windows were full of confections which looked as if they might be the best cake in Venice. (and therefore, probably, the world!)However, I think I'd have to go with the croissants with crema (confectioner's custard!) which were served up every morning in our hotel as part of breakfast. Seriously nice!

Wednesday, 8 April 2009

All up in the air...

I'm on holiday at last!! We started off in style with a weekend visit to Manchester and the Lowry at Salford to see our 'team' Birmingham Royal Ballet. Three performances of Sylvia in March hadn't been nearly enough so we did the Saturday matinee and evening and even managed to squeeze in company class. On Sunday we explored Manchester - the first time we've ever been - and I found myself agreeing to a trip on the Manchester Eye, a giant ferris wheel in the centre of the city. I'm not quite as bad as Grouse when it comes to heights, but I don't mind admitting being rather terrified. I was fine as long as the wheel kept turning, but when it stopped and we were just about at the top - and our pod started swaying in the breeze... well, it was an experience! I'm glad I did it - I felt very brave for the rest of the day - and really rather silly that I'd been so scared. And it might make a good setting for a short story one day. Yesterday's outing was a much more frightening proposition - the opticians. I don't mind the eye exam but choosing frames is a nightmare. It's like choosing a new nose or a different pair of ears! The fact that I'm practically blind without my glasses means my long suffering 'editor' had to make the decision for me: I'm useless when it comes to choosing with the webcam pictures either - I can't get past how dreadful I look! On the whole, it's an ordeal I could happily do without. Came home and engrossed myself in writing for a few hours: Hamish Bolph and Drover are all in a spot of serious bother at the moment and I'm considering the prospects for their rescue. Hoping the next few days will move things along a little!
Best cake? Manchester City Art Gallery where a giant piece of delicious cinammon and carrot cake was shared to push down one of the best cappuchinos I've had outside Italy. Speaking of Italy... but not just yet!

Monday, 30 March 2009

The Acorn, a wiffle lever and some progress...

Excellent writing weekend - managed over 3,700 words and a substantial amount of editing. With a holiday from work approaching, I'm hoping to be just about finished by the end of April. At the moment, it's an unwieldy 340 pages so there'll have to be some trimming, otherwise cost and weight will be prohibitive! Left Hamish tied to a chair at the end of the session on Saturday. It ought to keep him out of mischief for the week... Music on the stereo for the last three days has been The Acorn's album - 'Glory Mountain Dreamer' which is gorgeous. They were support for Elbow when we went to see them a couple of weeks ago and they were really good, but the album is sublime - a bit like Fleet Foxes but more mellow, lots of banjo and guitar and some Penguin Cafe type rhythms. The words are heavenly. As for the wiffle lever...well, since January, I've been indulging in a childhood obsession, working my way through boxed sets of the BBCs 'Blakes 7' on DVD and I came across the intriguing 'Wiffle Lever to Full!' book by Bob Fischer which is funny and nostalgic and really made me smile last week. Bob Fischer has a brilliant blog - I'll find the link and post it - in which he is currently serialising his 1984 diary with 2009 annotations. If you were a child of the 80s or indeed a lover of tv sci-fi, please check it out! Best cake at the moment is probably Costa coffee's breakfast loaf which is packed with carrot, apples, sultanas and pumpkin and sunflower seeds. It feels very healthy which is just as well as the accompanying latte you need with it most definitely isn't!

Sunday, 15 March 2009

Now the Ballet-hoo is over...

I'm settling back down to writing. We managed 6 performances in 4 days, plus various activities which the Friends of Birmingham Royal Ballet organise for our delight. It has been an amazing week but I am exhausted today! I can honestly say that I haven't given the novel a thought since last weekend and I am aware of time ticking by... So tomorrow night I'll get going again. (Best cakes this week were found in Starbucks. So were some of the company, which definitely made the cakes even tastier!)
Ballet has been an inspiration for poetry for about ten years although I've never really done anything with the poems I wrote. However, I'm considering 'lulu-ing' a slim volume of the ones I like the best, just for the pleasure of seeing them in print. Once you've published one book, it really does become an obsession. Maybe, once Scotch Pine is finished, I'll bite the bullet and have a go! BRB are an amazing company, talented and individual and so exciting to watch.
I'm also toying with replacing my beloved laptop. I've had it almost six years, some of the labels on the keys have worn off and several of the keys stick or need to be hit twice (strangely, P, M, and most of the vowels, but not E...?!) The battery hasn't worked for years. There's probably enough shortbread crumb under the keyboard to make an entire Petticoat Tail, and the cracked cover is beginning to resemble crazy paving. It's as slow as a tortoise working to rule, and it crashes at the most innopportune moments, but I love it dearly: we've been through a lot together and I have a (quite ridiculous and throughly sentimental) desire to finish SP on it. After that... well, maybe it's time to retire it!

Sunday, 8 March 2009

That's better!

I've had a bit of time to play around with the settings and fonts and add a few bits and pieces: it's all very posh over here on this bit of the internet! I'm starting to feel quite pleased I've been forced to move! Still not entirely happy with the way things look so I'll probably keep fiddling about with it for a while until I work out what all the buttons are for! Have just checked and there seem to be about 22,000 bloggers who like Elbow on this site: I knew I was in the right place. Mark (book cover designer extraordinare) and I went to see them on Thursday in Newcastle - 3rd time this year - and we had a brilliant night. They're like sun-ray treatment for the soul! I've floated through the weekend, buoyed up by the experience, and was still so bedazzled on Saturday that I LOST A PIECE OF GINGER CAKE in a cafe! I had it when I left the counter but it had disappeared by the time I reached the table! All was not lost: a lady heard me wailing with grief and returned the absconding victuals which I'd put down to add nutmeg to my latte... It was all the more delicious for almost having lost it!

Scotch Pine news: I'm working on re-drafting at the same time as I'm writing. It's a strange experience. My 'editor' (who's had 2 eye ops and is waiting for a third!) has been brilliant and with her help I've managed to get 3/4 of the book just about ready for publication although there will need to be a bit of tightening up, inevitably, before it is ready to "lulu". The final few chapters are still in the back of my brain, in a sucession of little notebooks and on a dozen sheets of paper! At the moment I only seem to get Saturdays to myself, which makes it difficult, and next week Birmingham Royal Ballet are in Sunderland so I doubt I'll get anything done at all, since I'll be at the theatre each night! However, I am doing my best to ensure we have a publication date this spring. I'm determined! Planning an exclusive preview of part of chapter one in a few weeks time: I'll let you know when it's ready!

Best cake? Got to be the piece of Ginger Cake I thought I'd lost!!

Thursday, 5 March 2009

A new home!

After blogging away merrily on http://www.lulu.com/joannaduncan for so many months, Grouse and Partridge were most distraught to discover that lulu had withdrawn its blogspot 'due to lack of interest'!! LACK OF INTEREST?? Not only that, all my cake recommendations of the last two years disappeared as well.
Now, I know no one ever read the blog (except you, SMF, and possibly even you, Colin!) but that's not the point!
I've got used to being able to randomly outpour the angst of self-publishing and the problems of juggling writing a novel with a full time job! And I was really rather pleased with my last posting! So, I've taken the plunge and here we are on Google! I'm not sure how it's going to work out - or even what we're going to look like yet - but please come back and keep up to date with the G&P chronicles as they happen! For now, I think I need cake...! Jo