the plot thickens

Hello!  I hope you're all well and if you're still reading over here...maybe come over to where I'm blogging these days and catch up with me there :)  There's been lots of interesting developments!

Cheers  xx

you've got mail!

source (found via my friend Stella)

Isn't this so very, very true? :)

It's been a while - how have you all been?  I finished my book last month (well, first draft of it anyway!).  We're moving on Saturday.  And I mostly blog over here now.  Come and say hi!

exactly

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so......

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A few years ago I went to a high school about an hour out of London to talk to the kids about writing.  It was lots of fun.  This is a poem I shared with them.  I'd forgotten how good, and true, it is.  I thought it might be some nice Friday reading for you.

so you want to be a writer?  
A poem by Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

~~~~~~~~

PS: Rachel Connor's post on behind the scenes at an Arvon course has made me terribly nostalgic and longing to go on another course!  I have a retreat planned for August though.  More on that soon.  Happy weekend all xx

i suddenly feel like

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dream

   Thank you Amelia :)

When was the last time you gave yourself permission to just dream in the truest sense of the word?

tuesday treasures

This recipe book belonged to my Nan.  She had many, many cookbooks, as my mother does, and as I now do.  But I didn't have this one.

My mum brought it over to the UK last year when she and Dad came over for the wedding.  I had originally wanted the Beautiful Biscuits one, but someone else got that one of Nan's....Mum ended up giving me her copy for my birthday this year...but this one, Mum told me, was one of Nan's favourites.  She was very fond of sweet things and as I flicked through the pages I recognised many of her much loved signature desserts and cakes.  Nan had a sweet tooth, no doubt about it.  Perhaps it's where my own appreciation for desserts comes from.

As I turned page after page, suddenly a faded, lined piece of notepaper fell out from between them.  It was her handwriting.

This is Nan's recipe for Anzac biscuits, a much loved childhood favourite of mine.  I love them slightly undercooked and chewy.  Probably because I loved eating the leftover mixture whenever Nan or Mum used to make them.  

I only have a few keepsakes of Nan - a bangle she bought me when I was twelve; a tiny jewellery box that belonged to her; photographs; birthday cards she sent me in the last few years of her life.  But now I have this too and it's as precious to me as anything else could be.  It reminds me of the woman she was and how she kept us well supplied with her homemade cakes and biscuits all throughout our school years, and our birthday cakes were always entrusted to her, and rightly so, they were usually masterpieces with only a few crumbs left to tell the tale.   

I always loved her handwriting too; ornate copperplate handwriting that no one does any more.  It was a dying art even when I was learning to write, the best part of thirty years ago.

Always, when I think of my grandmother, I think of her floral perfume; the smell of freshly pressed clothes; steaming mugs of black tea; and a slice or two of a freshly baked sweet old fashioned favourite.

What's your Tuesday Treasure this week?

PS: And here's the Anzac biscuit recipe :)

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup self raising flour

1/2 cup plain flour

3/4 cup coconut

3/4 cup sugar (brown, raw or white)

1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda

2 tablespoons boiling water

125g butter, melted

2 tablespoons golden syrup

Mix all dry ingredients. Dissolve bicarb soda in boiling water and add to melted butter and golden syrup. Add to dry ingredients and mix well. Place in teaspoonfuls on a greased tray or press into a greased tin and cut into squares while still hot. Bake in a moderately slow oven (160 C, 325 F) for 15 minutes.

For "nutties", Nan suggested adding 30g crushed nuts to the mixture. For oatmeal raisin cookies, add 30g sultanas or raisins. For muesli biscuits, omit the oats and add 1 cup muesli. She wrote "delicious" at the end, but spelled it "delecious" :) Oh, I miss her.