When did life start to involve so much juggling?

It's been a difficult week. I'm still in flare, but I'm not going to dwell on that. My foster daughter went home on Monday, which was also difficult. I've a number of self-imposed deadlines for my writing from here until Christmas, and I've - crazily - taken on a couple of new projects work wise. I'll talk about them in October.

My biggest news is that I'm going to have a new foster placement! He's an infant with high medical needs, and we'll have him for six months. It's very exciting (if a bit daunting) and I can't wait to meet him.

I went to see the new Jane Eyre film on Thursday, which was so amazing it deserves its own blog post. Which it will get tomorrow.

Have a great weekend everyone! :)

My blog is on fire! (Now I have that Kings of Leon song stuck in my head)

The lovely Hart Johnson Gave me the Blog on Fire Award. I'm super happy, because Hart's blog inspired me to start my own after I met her on the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award forum. I got this award a few months ago, but this time it comes with a new meme, which is pretty cool. So here we go!

1)  Are you a rutabaga? I had to Google this to find out what it was. To be honest, if I'm going to be a root vegetable I'd rather be a carrot. Doesn't sound very fancy, but makes great soup.

2) Who is your current crush? I'm holding on to James McAvoy, even though he kind of reminded me of a bumbling David Cameron in the X-Men prequel. Hopefully that was a one time blip, because David Cameron does not a leading man make.

3) Upload a heartwarming picture that makes you smile.

These pictures are of my Labrador Roxie when she was just twelve weeks old. When she was this size I carried her to other peoples houses in my handbag because she wasn't completely vaccinated, and couldn't touch ground that other non-vaccinated dogs could have walked on. She's now seventeen months old, sixty pounds, and carrying her anywhere would involve a wheelie suitcase and a back injury. I love her to bits, and these pictures makes me smile in that goofy way that parents do when they're looking at pictures of their newborn. Yes, I'm one of those dog owners. 

4) When was the last time you ate a vine-ripened tomato?

Probably the last time I ate in my mother in law's house. She buys vine ripened cherry tomatoes because they're the only kind her tortoise will eat. True story.

5) Name one habit that causes other people to plot your demise?

Probably my absent-mindedness. I can tell you the names of prominent nineteenth century physicians, but will forget where I put vital things and to do things you specifically asked me to do. Despite frequent reminders. I have a planner, post it notes, flash cards, Google reminders, and to-do lists but I still manage to forget almost everything important.

6) What is the weirdest, most-disgusting job you've ever had to do?  

I haven't had any weird, disgusting jobs (yet), but the worst job I've had was as a telephone market researcher. I had to ring people and ask them lots of questions on behalf of big companies. My worst day was when I was ringing on behalf of an Irish bank, I rang a woman and asked to speak to her husband. She told me that he had passed away a few weeks ago. I apologised, and said it was nothing important, just a customer satisfaction survey about his account with said bank. She said that he hadn't had an account with that bank, and got quite upset. I felt awful after the call. I'd just informed a grieving woman that her husband had a secret bank account. She didn't need to hear that, especially not then. Other bad days involved ringing people at 10am on Saturday mornings, and a woman who was convinced that I wasn't ringing from a call-centre, but was in fact her husband's mistress. Fun times.

8) What author introduced you to your genre?

Young adult urban fantasy: Richelle Mead. I love all her books. Women's contemporary fiction: Marian Keyes and Sophie Kinsella.

9) Describe yourself using obscure Latin words.

Sorry, I'm not going to even attempt this. My father and husband both learned Latin, and will pull me up if my declensions are wrong. 

That's it! Hope everyone is having a more productive writing day than me, I have a cold that is making my life (and that of my husband) miserable. Hope it passes quickly.

I Couldn't Help But Wonder...

I loved Sex and the City. The television series that is, the less said about the movies the better. Apart from the fantastic clothes, the handbags and the glimpses of New York life, we also got to see the inside track on the life of a journalist.

I, like the fabulous Carrie Bradshaw, am a journalist.Unfortunately, that's where the comparisons begin and end. I don't write about sex, I write about the lifting of the European Union milk quota. The only relationship issues I attempt to hammer out are the link between the Greek riots and the price of Irish bonds.Carrie Bradshaw said in one episode that when money was tight she bought a copy of Vogue instead of dinner. If I even attempted such a thing, I'd end up eating the pages, glossy sheen or no. Which is probably how she manages to fit into all the designer clothes that she somehow manages to afford on a freelance salary. A column a week does not a Burberry trench-coat buy, my friends.

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest myth that show spawned was not the fact that one 'average' woman could use four different Dior bags in a single episode, or that friends will forgive you if you repeatedly slam their other half. It wasn't even the unrealistic dynamic of female friendship that Holli Moncrieff wrote about. It was the 'one take' idea of writing. I never saw her do rewrites, for example. She just sat down, made a scrunched up face, smoked a Marlboro Light and 'wondered'.She never once wrote an article on, say, sheep-farming in Bavaria, to make ends meet. She never made writing look like the hard work that it actually is.

She did wear some cool clothes though...

F is for Finances (sigh)

I love writing. I especially love writing fiction. I think that I've managed to find both my voice, and the genres I want to write in, which is fundamental to my growth as a writer. When you finally sit down after years of good intentions, roll up your shirt sleeves and begin to write your novel, you very quickly realise something: it is hard work.

I enjoy all aspects of writing, the planning, the editing, the revising. But it takes a huge amount of time. And for those of us who dream of having a full time career as a writer, we start to wonder about money. Because while we would all happily type away for free for the sheer love of what we do, we know that love doesn't pay the bills. And either does three hundred pages of second draft contemporary women's fiction.

So, in order to enable us to live the dream, we have to make us some money. In my case, I write non-fiction journalism. It's not too bad, and I like to think that everything I write (including my mad ramblings here) strengthens my writing muscles. But lately I'm starting to resent the time that is taken up with non-fiction. I'm starting to fall behind schedule with my new work and edits, which is stressing me out a little. I know that this is the real world, and I've got to suck it up, but I feel like I'm stuck in a sort of chicken and the egg situation.

I know that I probably won't make a lot of money with my writing. I've read all the articles written doom and gloom merchants who tell us that the we should stop thinking we can be the next JK Rowling (those people don't have any imagination, it's never any of the millions of other wealthy writers-its always our good friend Joanne) and that we are statistically more likely to to get run over by a ride on lawn mower driven by a cat than ever make more than twenty quid from our books.

It's a sad fact, but to spend as much time as I would like to on my fiction, I'd need to be getting paid for it. It's a hard business to break into, but it's still worth a try though, right? Is anyone else hoping to get to a point where they could earn a living from writing?