Although it pales in comparison to all the other horror and tragedy in the world, I had a little loss of my own this week. My budgie Roland died at the not very advanced age of four years. He had been sick for a while with what turned out out to be a liver complaint and died at the weekend, whether from the liver problem or from the stress of being medicated for the liver problem, who can say? (Death from stress is a common problem with birds and small animals in general – apparently the trick is to get them happy taking fluid from a syringe before they ever get ill. Something to remember for next time.) But this is not a sad post – I thought this was a good time to introduce you to the birds who have shared my life. They each had their own unique personality and colouring, kept me company in lonely times and cheered up the house. You can keep your cats and dogs; give me a bird any day.
Continue readingPop-Up Submission Success
31 MayAges ago I submitted my novel The Gates of Janus to Litopia’s Pop-Up Submissions, and yesterday it was finally included in their live YouTube show. The useful but terrifying idea is that you get to hear what literary agents and the like think about your submission, rather than just guessing when they send you a generic “not quite right for us” response. I have had many of those responses for The Gates of Janus so I thought this might be helpful – but I didn’t tell anyone ahead of time because I was afraid they would tear it to pieces!
Anyway, they didn’t tear it to pieces. In fact, it did rather well, so now I am telling you about it. You can see the whole episode here, and this link should take you to where my bit starts (my entry was last).
In a sense it’s unhelpful that GoJ did so well, because it doesn’t uncover the mystery of why it has been rejected so many times. However, it does give me the encouragement to go out and get it a few more rejections rather than giving up! Encouragement is something writers badly need, after all.
If you have your own project that you would like to hear literary types discuss then you can apply for Pop-Up Submissions yourself, although there is a significant wait. But what else are you going to do during the pandemic? Alternatively, if you have no idea how this whole submission thing works, then you can read my wee book How to Get Published, which is available free if you sign up to my extremely infrequent newsletter.
Ugly East Kilbride
30 Apr
Before you get too annoyed, please note that this is a twin post. You can find the other one here.
Continue readingBeautiful East Kilbride
30 Apr
Before you get too confused, please note that this is a twin post. You can find the other one here.
Continue readingKaren 2.0
5 Apr
At the moment I am reading a book called Mini Habits by Stephen Guise. Actually, I’m reading a lot of books at the moment, because I always read multiple books (it’s like being able to select which chocolate you most want to eat now from a carefully curated box) but I want to tell you about Mini Habits.
Continue readingSt Patrick in his World
15 Mar
Just in case you think I’ve been slacking off during this neverending lockdown, I’ll have you know that I am busy preparing a talk on St Patrick – and you are all invited!
Continue readingA Tale of Three Rebeccas
16 Feb
Over the last few months, I have watched three different film versions of Rebecca, and read the book. This sounds like an obsession, but I assure you it’s not. It began innocently enough with my sister, my brother-in-law and myself all watching the new version of Rebecca, with Armie Hammer. (And as I check the spelling of his name online, I notice that some kind of scandal regarding him has just broken. I am accidentally topical, as ever. Also, I notice that his real name is Armand. If I was called Armand, I would not go around asking people to address me as Armie. But I digress.)
Continue readingMy prescription for lockdown
25 JanThere was much hilarity at the Glasgow Esperanto Club this month. We were using Gather (an odd little meetup platform with very ’90s graphics) to play the ‘Secret Rule’ game, and the secret rule was that everyone had to laugh whenever Peter’s hand(s) were in shot. Although the laughter started off artificial, it soon became real when poor Peter was sitting with his hands clearly visible on top of his despairing head saying that he just couldn’t work it out. There is something very funny about a group of people who are not allowed to stop laughing, while someone else has no idea why.
Continue readingMy year in review – 2020
31 Dec
It seems redundant to say that this year has not been what I expected. Unless you’ve been living in an isolated Amazon tribe (in which case I’d love to know how you’re reading this) you already know that 2020 was the year that said ‘no’. If you want to read about my experiences of the first lockdown, click the link. This winter lockdown feels much less new and exciting and much more of a dull, dark slog. However, life goes on regardless, so I will give you a quick review of my year as a whole.
Continue readingChristmas songs that aren’t
19 Dec
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, when songs from 50-odd years ago get dusted off and Noddy Holder informs us all once again that “It’s Chriiiiiiiiiistmas!” But among these festive hits and Christmas carols, there are some that aren’t actually about Christmas at all. This is mostly because here in the northern hemisphere we associate Christmas with snow and ice and wintry pursuits, even though the chances of it snowing on any given Christmas Day are about as high as Lapwing getting to number one (although they are currently number 13 in the UK iTunes chart, which is respectable). So here are a few songs that you perhaps believed were Christmas songs, but aren’t.
Jingle Bells
What, Jingle Bells not a Christmas song?? But find me any reference to Christmas in the lyrics. Go on, I’ll wait.
The reason you won’t find any is that this is just a song about winter frolics. Yes, it does mention a sleigh, but it’s only now that a sleigh automatically brings Santa Claus to mind. Back in the 1850s, when it was written, a sleigh was a fun way to travel in winter – with a horse, rather than nine reindeer.
Let it Snow!
Again, nothing Christmas-related in the lyrics. This song was written during a heatwave in Los Angeles as a pleasant fantasy of cooler conditions.
Baby it’s Cold Outside
You’re getting the idea now, aren’t you? This mildly creepy song is just about a cold evening, which could be anytime between November and March. It was written for a housewarming party, apparently, and was subsequently used by hosts as a hint to guests that it was time to go.
Walking in a Winter Wonderland
Yes, it mentions sleigh bells, but probably just the kind of sleigh from Jingle Bells, not the reindeer- propelled variety. This is (yet) another in the “it’s not Christmas, it’s just cold” category.
Ode to Joy
I’d never thought of this movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as being Christmassy at all, but apparently many people do – particularly in Japan, for some reason. My brother-in-law referred to it as Christmas music when it appeared in the soundtrack of Die Hard, but conceded that he may consider it Christmassy because it’s in his favourite Christmas-adjacent film*, rather than because there’s anything Christmassy about it in itself.
I considered including When a Child Is Born in this list, but decided against. It’s borderline. It doesn’t mention Christmas, and reading the lyrics the ‘child’ is either every child that is born (most of the verses) or a saviour who has not yet been born (the talky bridge and the last verse) rather than explicitly being the baby Jesus. But it does mention a star and says “this comes to pass”, which is very biblical sounding, so I’ll allow it.
I’d be happy to tell you which are my favourite (actual) Christmas songs. If you would like that in another post, leave a comment to that effect. Mariah Carey doesn’t make it in, I’m afraid.
* Christmas-adjacent because it is not a Christmas film. Yes, it happens at Christmas, there’s the odd Christmas-related quip and some Christmas music, but the events of the film are not contingent upon it being Christmas. John McClane could have been attending his wife’s office shindig in July and things would have panned out just the same.
