so how do you get a little photo on the side?

I wish I knew how to be technological! How do I make my head smaller? And put it on the side over there? And how do I have links at the side and how do I have people's names to connect to links for other people and places? What's the meaning of life? Help me someone!

I'm going back in time with photos, but though this was only six weeks ago, it seems ages away, but we all look so happy and today I feel ancient, though really I'm having the life of Riley. Birthdays were so exciting when we were young....hey ho... maybe I've put this on now cos I think it's a good photo of me and everyone else as well. A good night. Oh I'm halfway through a bottle of red and all the way through a box of chocs... if only somone had bought me the hairdresser's head complete with real nylon hair as a child things might have been different. I blame my parents. I'll be OK tomorrow.

Oooh look piles of the bloody things! That was the pile before I read. After I read it was even bigger as several people brought copies back asking for a refund.

Oooh look that's me reading all alone at Ottakars Market Harborough. With food enough to feed the whole town and those fetching plastic cups of wine in the foreground. I wasn't really alone. It's just everyone was so far back! Maybe they'd heard about the guy who had a heart attack on the front row in Northampton when I lunged at him. (It's acting dahling!)

some photos I should have uploaded before

Hi here I am sat in my study trying to look like I'm working. I should be working on a new novel idea, but though I have loads of ideas I haven't found THE ONE yet!

Hi OK so I've managed to download my book cover. Clever girl! I think it's really groovy. It looks like a fun read, but hang on what's that? Look deeper and what a bottle of wine and what the hell.... what is that ladder thing? Can anyone tell me? A prize to anyone who knows. (And I'm a big fat liar!)

a good day

Today has been a good day. Today has been a very good day. Or rather yesterday because it's now the middle of the night, and if today (I mean yesterday) was really such a good day why have I woken in the middle of the night cringing? (again!) Why do I do that? When everything was going so well.

I'm not sure I'm a proper genuine blogger because I can't seem to find the time to do this very often, or put any clever tricksy bits on and links to where you can buy my book. I'm sure I could do this but I can't seem to find the time to learn how, but hey if anyone is reading this, and hasn't bought my book, then hey I'm sure you're not daft and can do a search on the internet, Amazon, or Macmillan New Writing.

Anyway back to why today, I mean yesterday, was such a good day. it wasn't just the weather which was amazing. I knew it was going to be a good day because I got up early and my hair went right and I didn't look too much like Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen, which is why I avoid frilly shirts at all times. It might seem superficial, especially with all the things I had going on yesterday, but a good hair day helps.

Good day thing ONE: First meeting at a mental health ward at a hospital. This might sound like a weird thing on a good day, but was a follow up/feedback meeting about a writing workshop I did there recently. And from this (funding allowing!) it looks I will become their Writer in Residence, on this ward, which absolutely thrilled me and was completely unexpected. I work on a freelance basis for MK Arts for Health (www.mkartsforhealth.org.uk)

God day thing TWO: I then had my usual workshop with my Offstage drama group at The Castle Theatre Wellingborough. It's a drama group I facilitate for the over 50s and I go there every fortnight. The last session I had with them hadn't gone that well, and I began to think I was l getting a bit stale, but this week was great again, they were all up for it, and I was really there with them. Driving back from that with car windows open and jigging in my car to Will Smith's Summertime felt great.

Good day thing THREE: And really the most important as far as blag blogs go was a book reading/launch thingy in the evening at Northampton. Again it went well, really well. Roger Morros, Taking Comfort author came up from London and I guess we had around thirty people and both sold out of our books, which in one way was a bit annoying because the organisers obviously hadn't ordered enough.

And this is why I'm not sure why I'm waking up in the night cringing again, because it went well, I feel it went well. Having done a few of these things now, I'm actually beginning to be a little less nervous and able to engage with the audience a bit more and getting a few laughs. In fact I did it so well I became a kind of funny man to Roger's straight guy. I even managed to make an old guy on the front row jump, when I did a monster impression (it's in the book!) and lunged at him. Talking to his wife afterwards, I learnt he's been very stressed as he's been on a waiting list for a heart transplant for years! Oops!

So what was the problem? Why am I waking up in the night cringing? Because, because ooooh I dunno, I'm not sure if I don't do my book a diservice (spelling? is there no spell check on here?) I make it sound like it's all a laugh. I play up to the Hen-lit/Chick-Lit/Mick-Lit (Middle-aged Chick geddit?) tag, when that's not really a true picture, there's something a lot more thoughtful and darker going on in my book, yeah there are laughs, yeah I don't do all that bleeding hearts-throw -me- out -with -Angela's -Ashes stuff, and yet....and yet... and I wonder why, why do I feel the need to always try and entertain an audience?My playwriting background? Or because it makes me uncomfortable to be sharing that stuff, some of which happened to me, I mean the story and characters are all fiction, but some of the internal monologue stuff in Jeanette's head, the thoughtful stuff about the trauma of going through an adoption assessment and some of the musing on relationships an stuff, some of it is my own thoughts, that I then take on somewhere else, somewhere fictional. So why can't I tell people that? Why can I write about that stuff very honestly in a book, and on here, but in person, in front of an audience, I bottle out and go for the easier option, the writer as entertainer option? When in fact it's more authentic and would connect with people more if I spoke about that aspect. I don't know.

Roger came across as a very clever literary kind of author which he is, and I love his style and his book. I think I came across as a bit of fluff, a bit of middle-aged-whatever -happened- to- baby- Jane fluff, and it's my own fault. I engineered it, I let it happen.

Anyway, here I am in the middle of the night ruminating about this in a very Jeanette way actually. Someone even asked me that question about how autobiographical the book is, and I rambled on about how it wasn't really very much... and it isn't in one way, but in another...

Oh stop mithering and go back to bed.... you sold all the books for goodness sake, want do you want the Nobel effing prize or something?
It's times like tonight when I'm reading that I hear my mother's voice saying to me clearly.... Will you just stop showing off!

Anyway, today was a good day.

Be nice to hear what makes other people wake up in the night and cringe.