Writing versus welding

My car just failed its MOT in a it'll-need-welding-for-that sort of a way.

I can pretend it's cool to the kind of writer who drives a car with wing-mirrors held in place with black duct-tape. It means I'm a rebel with style. Well no, it's means I'm a writer and getting the wing-mirrors fixed when they've been broken by wanton vandalism ranks lower than getting the new tyres, or the wielding, done.

So after crowing about how easy it is to make my deadlines, I'm going to spend a lot of time tomorrow running between welders and garages - if they will give me appointments - to try and get the car fixed.

But how lucky you are, I hear many of you cry. I'm stuck in the office all day and I can never be home to see the repairman/go to the garage/run out for the mother in law's forgotten birthday present. Well, no, you can't. But then all the time you're sitting in your wee office you expect Mr/Ms Boss to be putting money into your bank account. I don't deliver I don't get money.

And here's one of the essential conundrums of being a writer, if you're working from home you end up dealing with all the home stuff and while you're dealing with the home stuff you're not earning the money to pay for it. Now, my partner doesn't drive, so I couldn't ask him to do the running around with the car, but even if I did his employer wouldn't let him out. The employer would argue, quite rightly, that he's paid to be within the office walls alleviating the sobs of people whose tech has just broken down in office hours.

However, try as I might to argue with the garage that they need to stay open late to let me do a full day's writing before having to dash out and pick the car up, they don't agree. I have the same trouble with the Emperor's school. All these places are so fixated on working only the hours between nine and five/three. Of course, everyone who has ever tried to get a dentist appointment or get to the store before they sell out of shoes/milk/the-latest-must-have-MacGuffin-that-their-kid-absolutely-must-have-or-the-universe-will end knows the feeling of frustration, but throw in the parenting and the self-employed aspects of being a writing Mum and boy - there are times when I feel like hitting my head off the table for half and hour just so I can feel the relief when I stop.

It's this kind of juggling that sees me writing at my desk when everyone else in the world is enjoying a post-prandial glass of something special.

It is, of course, my own fault for choosing such a deliciously precarious career, but next time you go round to a struggling writer's house and see they haven't hoovered for three weeks cut them a break and make them a cup of tea for once. Better yet, bring a bottle of wine with you and a spare cup of time.

Book Party

Here's hoping Eprint's party at Borders in Cheshire Oaks went down a storm today. This was the major launch for the Readaway series of which A Death in the Family is part and four Readaway authors were present. Hopefully there was much fun and merriment. As I couldn't be there I sent down a film of me reading part of my novel and I believe the plan was to put it up on a big screen. Rather a funny feeling to think lots of people were sitting watching me read while I was in the hairdresser.

I had intended to post this earlier in the day in case any of your down south were reading this, but as some of you will have noticed the blog came up empty. For reasons known only to itself my portable device of the moment decided I was only allowed to post a title and tags. The actual body of the blog would not load. But hopefully it will went swimmingly and there will be photos aplenty.

My own north of the border book launch will happen a week today at 1pm in Edinburgh's Borders. All welcome. It's a big store and I might get a bit lonely if you don't come.

Book Launch

Borders in Edinburgh are hosting my book launch for A Death in the Family on Sunday 10th October.

Details up on the Borders Website.

Many more details on the wonderful City of Literature website.

Also on Oracle here.

Writers don't get sick. We get busier.

Many years ago when I was in one of the many phases when I was looking to take on an outside job to support my writing addiction I was asked in an interview how many days sick I took in a year.

I think even then it was a dodgy question, but at the time I didn't blink. I looked the interviewer straight in the eye and said, 'I'm self-employed. I don't get to be sick.' Needless to say I got the job, which I stayed in for eighteen months until it became clear that although I frequently found myself in situations stranger than fiction I didn't have the time or energy to create any, so I left to go back to my real job.

Today, although the children frequently try to challenge this I write full time. I may not work office hours, but generally I put in more time during the week than I would do if I was a wage-slave. I have, as they worryingly keep saying on the news, underlying health issues, but I work around these. However, last week I discovered I am not proof against parent targeted viruses.

The Panda, now eighteen months, and occasionally condescending to grace a local creche with his presence, has gone into that phase that all parents dread when he is catching every cold and illness known to mankind in a self-determined programme to build his immune system. Everything he catches he bounces back from - he is the original Bounce Back Bear, but everything he catches he also generously passes on to me. And last week he gave me gastroenteritis of a form and a variety that would be classified by the censors as too terrible for viewing even in the worst of horror movies. Not, you understand, that he had it that badly, that was me. I don't think my head actually turned through 360 degrees, but I can't be sure.

So for the first time in forever I've taken a week off. A week because once I succumbed to this illness several others, who had been waiting for me weaken, leapt upon me like a lion on straggler of the pack.

But writers, like any self-employed person, can't get sick. It's not in the job description.

But I'd been working too hard and once down I was out for the count. What has really startled me is coming back to my desk today is to find that I can still make all my deadlines. It seems some skills once learned are never lost.

In the almost forgotten past when there were no mobile phones, I was a commissioning journalist and it seems that the art of defining deadlines has stayed with me. I'll let you in on my secret.

I quote long and deliver early.

I also, like most writers, work very hard. My long deadlines are often seen as short by editors.

Nothing short of total incapacity will stop me from delivering. I was still doing business emails from my bed on my iphone despite an inability to lift my head off the pillow.

So coming back to my desk today I have lots to do, but akin to the refrain of Panda's current favourite tv show I will be managing to get the job done.

But what is A Death in the Family about?

In December 1909 the Reverend Joshia Martins expires in a dish of mutton and onions leaving his family on the brink of destitution. Abandoned by her noble grandfather, Joshia's daughter, the eighteen year old Euphemia, takes it on herself to provide for her mother and little brother by entering service. She's young, fit, intelligent, a little naive and assumes the life of a maid won't be too demanding. However, on her first day at the unhappy home of Lord Stapleford she discovers a murdered body.
Euphemia's innate sense of justice has her prying where no servant should look and uncovering some of the darker social, political and business secrets of Stapleford family. All she has to defend herself is her quick wits, sense of humour and the ultimate weapon of all virtuous young women, her scream.

Cover for A Death in the Family

Crime Launch nears

A Death in the family officially exists - it's on amazon, available for pre-order now!