'Tasting Strangers'

 A friend in real life has just asked me if I'm keeping healthy and sane, to which I answered, 'Healthy? Yes. Sane? Most days!'

With all the doom and gloom that's going on in the public world and with the quiet, personal troubles that many of us are enduring, I feel rather awkward about announcing the publication of my new book: but here goes.

Tasting Strangers is a collection of short stories on the common theme of  people meeting, interacting and then moving on, sometimes together and sometimes apart. The title came from an exercise I did last year with Corby Collective Poets. We were working with a word bubble exercise on the theme of journeys, and the phrase came up in the discussion. Someone said it would make a good title, and so here we are.

I've gone with paperback and e-book via the mighty Amazon platform. For all its faults - and goodness knows there are many - it provides a very straightforward way to publish and, of course, there are no costs in the setup. If you would like to buy a copy, the link is here. Thanks in anticipation.

In other matters, I am reading two books at the moment. On the non-fiction side, I have Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit, which is a beautiful account of the history of walking. In the page footers there are literary and philosophical quotes in a continuous thread, so it's almost like getting two books for the price of one. It's a slow read, but I'd definitely recommend it. On the fiction side I have The Promise, a psychological thriller by fellow blogger Sally Jenkins, whom many of you will know. I'm not very far into it, but I'm already gripped. Great stuff, Sally!

Finally, is anyone trying to use the new version of Blogger? If so, can you tell me how to get pics in the right place - that is to say, as on this post, in the top left with the copy starting aligned with the top of the image? I've reverted to the old version for now. Why do they have to keep changing things?

Digging in

Our allotment has received so much attention in the last three months that it looks as though it has been Hoovered. All but one of the beds are full, the ridings have been mown: even the shed has been tidied. It's an ill wind, as they say.

There are quite a few relatively new folks up there whom we old hands have been watching from a respectful distance as they get to grips with the enormity of the task ahead of them. Captivated by the idea of delicious homegrown veg, they often underestimate the hard slog involved and many give up at the first sign of trouble. One of our near neighbours has said she won't be up on the field for a while because it's too hot to do anything!

The allotment is, of course, a fine place to find inspiration for story-writing. You'd be surprised what goes on. We once arrived find that a potting shed had been completely turned upside-down. Nothing had been taken and, miraculously, there was no major damage, but there it was, on its roof. What larks!

There are some interesting sights among the polytunnels and the bean rows. There is, for instance, an entire army of scarecrows, including one made from a tailor's dummy, which is very sinister. Then there's this, the last resting place of the garden gnomes who didn't make it through:

I wonder what these little fellas did wrong.

In praise of short stories

I do love short stories, whether published in a magazine, an anthology or a collection. I enjoy them if they're written by people I know and by authors new to me. I know (because I write them) that it takes just as much skill to write short stories as long ones, and certainly a different set of skills.

The books pictured are just a few of the short-story books I have. Amongst the others are Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories (surprisingly accessible) and a Doctor Who collection that was published to mark 50 years of the great man (pre-Jodie Whittaker). Fair to say, I think, I have varied taste.

At the moment, I'm reading Bryant & May: England's Finest by Christopher Fowler. The stories are great and the writing is amazing, of course, but I think his full-length novels featuring these two characters are better. (He'll be crying all the way to the bank.) On the other hand, Property by Lionel Shriver is every bit as good as her novels. Closer to home, my writing pal Louise Jensen, well-known for her terrific psychological thrillers and about to break into the romance market under her nom de plume Amelia Henley, has just had a short story accepted by My Weekly magazine.

Do you think an author's short stories can be an indication of that person's style as a writer of novels, and vice versa, or are they such different media as to necessitate separate appraisal?

Wanted: short stories for broadcast

You know how I've read out a couple of my short stories for my publisher's podcast? Well, now 3P Publishing would like to offer this opportunity to other writers and is looking for tales that take somewhere between five and ten minutes to read aloud.

There is no payment, I'm afraid, but it might be a good way to showcase to a wider audience a story that you've had published already. You will be credited, of course, and 3P will give a link to your website and publications. Look on it as a marketing exercise! If you have the necessary tech, you might be able to record the story yourself (I used Audacity and submitted a mono MP3 file), or a member of the 3P team will read it for you.

If you have a suitable story for which you own broadcasting rights, please drop a line to Caroline Snelling (caroline@3ppublishing.co.uk) and she can talk you through what's what.

You can hear all the stories that have already been broadcast here.

Celebrations for Friday The Thirteenth

Actually, I'm not superstitious about the date. It's just another day, (she says with her fingers crossed).

After the flurry of booty last week there have been no prizes or surprises this week. I've worked hard to clear the decks, though, because tomorrow I'm off to Birmingham Literature Festival for a couple of workshops in the Library.

Coming soon!

One of the main jobs today has been to deliver a manuscript to the printers. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and coming painfully close to getting a short story collection accepted by a conventional publisher, I have decided to go it alone. You can be sure I'll let you know when it's available.

Right, that's it. I'm off for an evening of mindless TV. Have a good weekend, folks.

Feeling inspired

Welcome to this week's celebratory post, an opportunity to find something good to share with you all. There has definitely been a positive vibe in the air this week. Whether it is just post-Christmas glow or something more mysterious or ethereal I wouldn't like to say, but several people have told me they are feeling unusually optimistic about the coming year. I'll drink to that - and I can do, because I'm not doing Dry January this time. Well done you, if you've signed 'the pledge'.

Here, then, are my particular celebrations.

• On the work front, I managed to meet all my deadlines this week and even sent out some enquiries. (We'll gloss over the fact that a rejection came from one almost by return.) I've taught some lovely yoga classes, including a one-to-one with a lady who is making great progress. I'm not sure who is benefiting most from these sessions, her or me.
• I've heard that I'm on the short list for the H E Bates short story competition, which is gratifying. I'm not expecting to get any further, but it's nice to know I was in the judges' sights.
• I managed to keep my cool - just about - at ukulele group last night. Why don't people practise? Grr!
• Both my 'boys' are joining us for dinner tonight, so I reckon that's a good excuse for a sticky pudding.

Have a good weekend, folks.

Celebrate the Small Things  is a blog hop. Visit Lexa's Blog for the rules, and then post every Friday about something you're grateful  for that week. Originated by VikLit) and co-hosted by L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off The Edge and Tonja Drecker @ Kidbits Blog.

Who am I today?

Life is a many stranded thing

We all wear different hats. I'm mother, wife, sister, auntie, daughter, friend (and perhaps enemy!), business colleague, fellow alto, yoga student, community busybody etc etc etc. Professionally, I also have multiple roles. One of the joys of being self-employed is that I can do lots of different things to earn a crust, but the two main threads are teaching yoga and word-wrangling. There is some cross-over between the two - I write for Om magazine and have just had an article published in the British Wheel of Yoga's journal, Spectrum, for instance - but I tend to promote them separately. I have a website for my yoga and place ads in local publications to publicise my classes; but I also have entries in business directories for my editorial stuff.

But it's getting complicated. My website has a contacts form that doesn't feature my email address, but nevertheless any enquiries are forwarded to my all-purpose Googlemail. I have this blog, which is, again, a multipurpose outlet for my writing but takes in whatever is on my mind at the time. I monitor my choir's email address (admin@) which is diverted to my personal one and am the fingers behind the choir's Twitter feed. I've also got a fairly idle Facebook account, but that is so I can look at stuff, rather than post it.

However, I've just uploaded a couple of stories to Ether books, a site from which folk can download stories (some free, some not) to be read on a mobile phone. (Thanks to the Literary Pig for the tip.) The site suggests social networking as a really good way to promote my stuff, which makes sense, given the target market. I can't be bothered with Facebook, and don't want to tweet personal trivia, but quite like the idea of having a 'Julia as writer' Twitter that I can just use for wordy news. But this means another account and, for simplicity and to reduce the risk of my posting details of a new writing competition to the choral music community, another email address.

Does this sound like a rational way to carry on?