Good News

I've got a place on the PGCE course. I'm so pleased. I'll be talking and thinking about English and writing all day - so from now on, my head's going to be in one place only. This has to be progress.

I do know that teaching is stressful and demanding, (I taught for 5 years in Japan) but it's always easier to do what you enjoy doing, and everything I do at work will make me a better writer, which has to be a good thing.

Editors Know What's What

It may take me a year or two or even ten before I get it! What I've understood this week is the place of unpleasant events.

I've been thinking about revamping three chapters of a novel that was turned down for being 'too racy' a situation, and also for having too much tragedy to begin with. Basically it's about a wild child who has a near death experience when her plane crashes and then, disguised as a nun, she has to go through the jungle with the hero and two children and they meet terrorists and...

As usual I huffed and puffed over the criticism (stupid editor - if the tragedy didn't happen, my heroine wouldn't have been alone in the jungle with a gorgeous man!) and slung it in a drawer. Yesterday, feeling miserable with a tooth infection I curled up in a chair with a chick lit novel and a pile of antibiotics. I didn't enjoy the book - and one of the things I didn't like was....too many unpleasant events! After all, Jane Austen managed to write riveting novels without dragging in cardboard violence to ramp up the tension, didn't she?

And then I realised I was objecting to this book on the same grounds that my romance, Blessing in Disguise, was turned down for. And I suddenly got it! I totally understand what the editor meant. The next question is what to do about it? And only an hour's thought solved the problem. Suppose the nun and the pilot didn't die, but were too poorly to trek through the jungle so stayed with the plane. As well as softening the tragedy, that gives me an unresolved question: will they be saved, and a better reason for my wild heroine to be disguised as a nun - it isn't my wild child who worries about being alone with a man, it's the surviving nun who begins the deception and makes the heroine promise to continue it.

Yes, editors do know best! I'm going to revamp the first three chapters and try them on Little Black Dress.

The Younger Man

Would it be too much like mothering to have the heroine fall for a younger man? Especially if it was a Pygmalion/Suzy Wong type story where he was uneducated. I can't see it being very attractive, but is that because I'm so steeped in my own culture that I can't see outside the box?

I'm trying to think of a new idea for a plot, but I don't think that one is going to be it. You'd have to be sensitive about class and cultural issues as well. What about a posh uneducated hero? Oh, that was Tarzan, wasn't it?

Rats, there must be some twist that would make it work.

Skills for Writers

I picked this up for £1 at a car boot over the weekend, for Andy, really, because he keeps thinking he'll learn (I hate to see people hunting and pecking over a keyboard - what a waste of time). I thought I was a fast typist - I learned to type with a very early version of Mavis and took RSA Word Processing 3, which is quite fast, but oh, dear, I've gotten into bad ways. What I do now is whack all the text in and then correct it later, but my accuracy has obviously slipped over the years. When I took the diagnostic the program suggested I review my skills! So I am!

Still no news from college - it's very hard to concentrate while waiting to hear.

Talking about news, no more Black Lace!

Hebden Bridge Festival

Hebden Bridge is a foreign country (spot the mangled quotation). At least, it is when the sun is shining. It was full of people sitting outside enjoying themselves. NOT a sight I associate with the north of England.

I went to the library as part of the festival - for two one-to-one sessions with writers who wanted to have a romance published. It was interesting meeting the people whose work I had critiqued. Usually the reports go off by post and that's the end of it. I've had one complaint, and lots of very nice thank you letters, but the process is usually anonymous. I sometimes wonder if I'm too much of a blunt instrument. But what use is a critique if all I say is 'marvellous, darling!' Publishers always say that the book's super, but just not right for their list, but that doesn't help you know how to improve it. Both writers promised to let me know.

The organisers had laid on the most fabulous buffet - organic cakes and sunshine. Life doesn't get a lot better.

Writer's News

Today Writer's News arrived, all sealed up in its plastic bag. I put it on top of last month's Writer's News, which is all sealed up in its plastic bag - it really has been a bad month! I usually tear it open and read it cover to cover.

We are both working this weekend, but we are not going dancing tonight - by mutual consent we are going to flop in front of the TV and chill out.