Big changes on the way

I have been talking to the Kimptons at Wordpool, who designed this site, about a brand new website. It's needed for early March when Stravaganza: City of Ships comes out, and Bloomsbury need me to update materials for the Stravaganza site too.

So busy, busy, and it all takes time away from the actual writing. But sometimes you have to put that on hold because the other things have a more pressing deadline.

Anyway one of the changes is that this blog will become more of a newsletter, every week or two and that people will be encouraged to comment and ask questions, which I can reply to. At the moment I answer fanmail every week or so and often spend a long time answering one whose writer has given the wrong email address. Then it bounces back and there's nothing more I can do. The disappointed reader just thinks I'm a mean author who didn't reply.

As well as working on website ideas I have written a piece for the Big Issue about "5 Books your child should read before they're 11" and a story in 247 words for World Book Day on the subject of Time Travel. That was really hard!

I've also been to London twice - once for the Costa award party, which you can read about on my other blog (at http://bookmavenmary.blogspot.com - scroll down because there are a couple of later posts) and once to see the RSc production of Twelfth Night at the Duke of York's. We absolutely loved it!

Some people say that Richard Wilson was born to play Malvolio but this production isn't built around him and he plays it very straight. The ensemble is terrific,with the twins sufficiently alike to carry it , a convincing Orsino and a lovely Andrew Aguecheek in James Fleet (The Vicar of Dibley and Old Mr Dorrit's much nicer musical brother).

We'd both had a hard-working week and it was lovely to sit back and be lavishly entertained for three hours, especially by a play we know so well.

I'm still reading Alan Bennett and will miss him when it's over.

A moving post

Since my last entry, life has been very much dominated by daughter's move.The Sunday before last we went up to London to collect my car, see the flat and take the new home-owners for a pub lunch.

Then the whole of last weekend was spent packing up the rented flat and eventually making the final move on Monday. After that I drove back here in my car, which had done sterling service ferrying items to the dump, flatpacks from IKEA and generally making the move easier.

I do not want to see another cardboard box or any bubble-wrap again for a long time!

So not a great deal of work has been done, though I have written a little piece for The Big Issue on "5 books your child should read before they're 11." And I have been working on new material for the Stravaganza website to coincide with publication of City of Ships.

And, very excitingly, this website should have a whole new re-design by then.Busy, busy.

I've also been to one Nordic Walking class and given blood - but not on the same day!
I've read Alan Bennet's Writing Home and a lot of his Untold Stories. And since I've had a writer friend to stay while husband was away at a conference, I've seen things I never normally watch, like Silent Witness. We also watched Shooting the War on BBC4 - incredible and often harrowing footage of WW2 from both sides.

My Italian Literature Class has started again and we read a "bleeding" chunk from a novel by Alvise Corrado. I hate de-contextualised passages like that.Must get back to revising the adult novel now.

The weather outside is frightful

Well, MOST things went according to plan. Everyone got here in the end and we had a wonderful Christmas. What didn't happen was our anniversary trip to London. The snow was bad there and we saw there had been accident on the M40. We've postponed seeing the play till February.

But that meant my car wasn't in London and husband heroically drove up on Christmas Eve to fetch one couple, while I, less heroically, fetched another from Oxford. The third couple and my sister had arrived on 23rd. So we dug in, with log fires and lots of lovely food and drink.The big carafe of cognac I won in, well, Cognac was very popular.

The big snow arrived last Tuesday and it already feels as if it has been here for ever.
This is a picture of it from my "magic" window.

I got a terrific haul of books and have read two of them: Leanne Shapton's Important artifacts ...etc, etc and Susan Hill's Howard's End is on the Landing. I hope to blog about them both over on the Book Maven (http://bookmavenmary.blogspot.com).

I've also seen quite a lot of TV, including Cranford and Dr Who (the latter was pretty dire). But what I enjoyed most was Avatar in 3D at our new local cinema. We can now do a 15 min drive, park for free and stroll across to the multiplex and see films in comfort. So much nicer than driving at least twice as far to Oxford and paying to park miles away from the cinema.

The story is pretty clunky but the visuals are spectacular.

We didn't stop entertaining till 29th and since then I've written two essays - one in English for Art History and one in Italian on Vitaliano Brancati. So I can start revising the adult novel next week.

Oh, and I didn't win the Costa; Patrick Ness did, with The Ask and the Answer. But I DO get to go to the presentation on 26th and to take a guest. Not a dinner this time, just a champagne reception, but how nice to go to something like that without feeling nervous about whether you might have won!

'Tis the season to be very jolly indeed

This was our tree in 2007 - but it looks the same every year. None of this tasteful, colour-themed minimalist nonsense. The three daughters decorate it - this year on Christmas Eve - and throw everything we've got at it. And we have a LOT. Husband buys one new bauble in every shop we visit in the Christmas season and we have this year been given some as presents.

After feeling frighteningly behind with everything, I am now more ahead than I have ever been. Cards and parcels all got done on time in spite of fewer than half the cards we had ordered arriving. The crackers never did arrive but I got some more at M & S. And all the presents ordered on line will be here on time, except for one, which is for someone we aren't seeing anyway, so it can be posted on. Our Christmas shopping in London was very successful.We even managed a carol service with mulled wine afterwards.

I got that Grace picturebook written and both editor and agent like it, so that's a relief. Also wrote a Guardian review for January.

The most eventful day was 10th December, though this was a mixed blessing:I had my last Art History class of term, then a quick glass of champagne at one party and off to London for the Bloomsbury bash.Before the first party, there was a call from middlest daughter to say she and partner had exchanged contracts on their flat. (The offer had been accepted in September so that was a relief!)

The Bloomsbury party was fun and I basked in the congratulations on the Costa shortlist.It was a pleasure to meet up with old friends and put faces to new ones I'd met on Facebook (Gillian Philip, Chris Priestley). I was delighted to discover that Chris draws the Payne's Grey cartoon in the New Statesman, which is coming back! Seven of us went out for a Lebanese meal afterwards but I got a call in the middle of it to say my cousin had died in San Diego. This had been coming a while but was very upsetting, especially since my sister and I realised there was no way we could get to the funeral, which was on 19th.R.I.P Sylvia, a lovely lady taken too soon.

I stayed the night with a writer friend, who had invited someone to meet me at breakfast. We woke up 20 minutes before friend was due, thus giving support to the idea that all writers are a bit louche and disorganised.

Husband's work had two parties and my "office party", i.e. the local SAS Christmas lunch happened in Stroud. I drove there in powdery snow with another writer friend and we all signed our books in the children's bookshop next door to the bistrot

The weekend was spent cooking up a Christmas storm and there are many good things sitting in the freezer or fridge.

I saw the Turner and his masters exhibition at Tate Britain, with two friends. I like him much better when he stops being influenced by other people and develops that wonderful dissolving gold style.

And I watched the Cranford creative extension this Sunday. Some of it delightful but harsh in places.

I read Fontamara by Ignazio Silone, which is our set text and really enjoyed it, even though parts of it are grim.

Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary and we are off to London to do complicated car exchanges and see the matinee of The Habit of Art. So this evening will be spent wrapping presents and putting up more decorations. The time to be very jolly indeed!

Christmassy

Well, the first draft of the adult novel is finished and I'm now writing the next Grace picturebook, which has to be delivered by Christmas. The chapterheads for City of Ships have been corrected and the sea-battle plan approved.

The Kids Lit Quiz Final was won in Oxford by a local team of four boys from Wheatley.It was quite different from the regional finals, with 30 teams all racing to press buzzers. One of the only two questions no-one knew the answers to related to JanMark, who died in 2006. So sad that 120 of the brightest readers in the country had never heard of this marvellous writer.

I have only one Art History class left this term and last Thursday's was a field trip to the National Gallery, so I've seen Titians and Bellinis, Leonardo and Michelangelo, Sebastiano del Piombo and Raphael.

The Italian Literature has already finished till January and I have to write an essay for both courses by 8th Jan.

I've read Ann Turnbull's Alice in Love and War, Neil Shusterman's Everlost and Pat Walsh's first novel, The Crowfield Curse, which I'm reviewing for the Guardian.

I've also been watching, with absurd enjoyment, the comedy series on TV called Miranda. Only one left to go next week and each one has made me laugh out loud.

We went to the annual turning on of the Christmas lights in Bourton-on-the-Water. We haven't managed this for the last three years. We didn't buy much but it always marks the beginning of Christmas. And tomorrow we go to Oxford Street to do our Christmas shopping. Publishers' party on Thursday and Carol Service at the weekend - if only the parcel that we think holds our cards hadn't gone missing, we'd be completely immersed in Christmassy activities.

Glittering prizes

I can now reveal, after two weeks of keeping it to myself, that Troubadour has been shortlisted in the children category of the Costa Award. (Full details on News page). I don't think it will win but it's one of only four books chosen, so I'm honoured. I did enjoy winning that prize in France and wouldn't mind having that feeling again!

My team wasn't allowed to win a prize at the Kids' Lit Quiz Regional Final in Northants last Friday, but we did all get nice certificates. (It's for the children, really, you see). I'm going to the Final in Oxford along with about another 30 authors. Should be fun.

I've been busy Skyping - a new joy - and trying to use Google Wave.

Chapter 20 of the adult novel will be finished tomorrow.

I finished The Graveyard Book, which has just won the Booktrust Teenage Prize, and read The Traitor Game and shall blog about them both over at The Book Maven (www.bookmavenmary.blogspot.com).

And I read most of another long short story by Vitaliano Brancati, Il Vecchio con gli Stivali (The old man in boots)for our assessed discussion in Italian.

We've now finished watching all of The Return of the King, which we had to do in tranches, the last of which was last night. Now on to all the extras.

The jacket of City of Ships came today and looks very exciting. I'll try to post it on this website next month.

Memory Lane

I've blogged about Remembrance Day and other memory-related things over at http://bookmavenmary.blogspot.com but here are some more personal ones. A visit from a dear friend from Germany, involving lots of chocolate, talking about his new dog (a whippet) and even watching a bit of the Two Towers in the extended director's version together. That's friendship.

Then on Sunday a visit from friends we have known since before we were married, though a link by marriage. They brought their middle son, who had himself got married in Mexico a few weeks ago. He is waiting for his wife to get her visa to come here. I remember when my wedding ring was that shiny.

I was in Cambridge overnight on Tuesday and made a little pilgrimage on Wednesday morning to St. Bene'ts church. We were married there by special licence nearly 37 years ago.

On Friday middle daughter arrived for a weekend of celebrating her and her father's birthdays. She was 30 on 2nd November but spent that week in Vienna with her partner. She was a deliberate Scorpio - my husband wanted another in the family. We were all gathered together, apart from youngest daughter, who is currently in Morocco. How intrepid they all are! They'll all be here, with partners, for Christmas.

I finished reading The Island of the Day Before at last, with little real pleasure. Am now reading Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book - much more fun.

Page proofs of City of Ships have gone off and Troubadour has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal and got a fabulous review in yesterday's Guardian. Chapter 18 of the adult book has been finished and I start 19 tomorrow. If I can waddle to my computer, after all the birthday feasting!