I love baking. Absolutely love it. I love cakes, biscuits, pies and tarts. I love the Great British Bake-Off and I REALLY love Mary Berry. She is a perfect baking goddess. I on the other hand, am not a perfect baking goddess but by golly I’m a trier. Here are my 5 not quite perfect baking moments

 

My daughter’s 1^st birthday cake

I was determined to do this properly. It was my First-Born’s 1st birthday after all. I went to a cake shop.  I hired a tin. It was shaped like a dog. Quite a large dog actually. My Mum (who is a bit like Mary Berry but with a south-east London twang) came over to help. We seemed to need a huge quantity of ingredients but it looked okay when it came out of the oven. When we tried to turn it out of the tin it became what it was; a huge wet dog. The dog’s head fell off. I cried. My Mum went out to buy more margarine.

 

My son’s 1^st birthday cake

For some reason I decided that what my one-year-old son really wanted for his first birthday was a 3D Red Dinosaur cake. He seemed to go RAAAR whenever he saw a dinosaur so that was evidence enough for me. I scoured the internet and found some truly amazing works of art and with my customary optimism I thought, ‘How hard can it be?’ Okay, so I think we all know the answer to that question. The ‘triceratops’ I produced looked quite like a hedgehog but my Mum, three-year-old daughter and I boldly covered it in buttercream icing the colour of innards. The photos of my daughter holding her hands up for inspection following this exercise make my blood run cold even today. She looks like a tiny murderer.

 

My mum’s birthday sponge

My mum makes the best Victoria sandwich in the world (sorry Mary but she just does) so I thought I would return the compliment one year by making her a special one filled with strawberries, passion fruit and cream. The result? Raw sponge but delicious fresh fruit and cream. I am a legend.

 

The real rock cakes

I’m good at burning things. It’s something of a specialist field for me. This recipe was given to me by my beloved Mum. The cakes should be moist and teeming with delicious sultanas and other assorted dried fruits. They should be craggy on the outside, like delectable cakey boulders topped with crunchy Demerara sugar. They should not be actual cakey boulders which could happily double up as small but lethal weapons. I would like to blame the oven but can only blame myself. I forgot they were in there and went off to do something else. For a bit too long.

 

My husband’s Jaffa Cake birthday cake

Jaffa Cakes are my husband’s favourite biscuit or cake. I know they’re called cakes but they look like biscuits but I’m not getting into that debate again. Last time I did that I ended up having a spat with an Eccles cake-fancier and we all know how vicious they can be. So I decided that I would make him an actual Jaffa Cake and there is an excellent recipe on the BBC Food website if you want to try it. If involves doing clever things with egg whites, orange jelly and chocolate. What’s not to like right? Anyway, I was actually quite pleased at how this turned out. It basically looked like a giant Jaffa Cake and as we sliced it, the layers of biscuit, jelly and chocolate appeared reassuringly familiar. We tasted it and paused. ‘Tastes exactly like the ones you get in the packets,’ remarked my six-year-old son. I think it was a compliment but I had possibly hoped for more.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/homemadejaffacakes_91480

 

This post first appeared last year on http://blog.rachelcotterill.com/

Oh, so you’re a writer?’

I’m still getting used to this label myself and it makes my heart beat a little faster as I reply,  ‘I am.’

‘Wow! That’s fantastic. So what do you write?’

‘Fiction.’

‘Oh, what kind of fiction?’

And this is when my heart beats even faster but mainly due to panic as I struggle for a specific answer. ‘Women’s fiction?’ I say with an upward inflection, which either makes me sound unsure or Australian.

‘Oh, so Chick-Lit?’

My mind races. What is the definition of Chick Lit again? I can never remember. Which books and authors fall into that category? I do a quick book-audit in my brain. Bridget Jones? Sophie Kinsella? Marian Keyes? I would be honoured to stand alongside these. ‘Er yes, Chick Lit. That’s it. I write Chick Lit.’

‘Oh. Right. I don’t really like Chick Lit. I prefer something a bit meatier.’

I’ve had this conversation many times; different versions of it but all leading me to the same conclusion. Genre labels are a bit of a pain. They are woefully inadequate but our human brains desperately crave them as we try to comprehend the world of books. Personally, I think Marian Keyes’ novels are about as meaty as they come and over the past few years they have been re-defined to reflect this. Still, in the ‘buy it now-140 characters-snap decision’ world we inhabit, it’s a problem and a thorny one at that.

Start digging very far into a debate on Chick Lit and it’s not long before your feminist credentials are called into question.  It has been criticised for being sexist and dismissive but this argument is countered by those who say that we shouldn’t get bogged down by the term.

I can see both sides of the argument. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of the label.  After all, male writers aren’t defined in the same way.  The term, ‘Lad Lit,’ has been bandied around but never really stuck and somehow doesn’t sound as patronising as its female counterpart. Then again, if readers who love the books aren’t bothered, why should I be? The point is that everyone is different. We all approach life from a different angle. Not every woman wants to be a feminist and not every woman likes a book with a pink cover. Debate it by all means, register your opinion but don’t lose sight of the ultimate goal; finding books and authors that you love. If a genre label helps you to do this then crack open the Bubbly. Its work is done.

It also depends on how you discover books. Way back when I was a bookseller working on the venerated Charing Cross Road, I discovered Louis de Bernieres’ Latin American Trilogy. I tried to explain how brilliant they were to my then boyfriend (now husband).

‘He writes in such a fantastic way. It’s so full of wit and truth but it’s got this really brilliant magical element too,’ I gushed, thinking that I had discovered something unique.

‘Well that’s Magical Realism for you,’ my boyfriend observed.

‘That’s what?’ I asked, my bubble of inspiration burst.

‘Magical Realism. You know, Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie.’

‘Oh. Right.’ I was crest-fallen. These were my books. This was my author. He didn’t fit a genre. He transcended it. We had spent quality time together. I understood him and he understood me. How dare people pigeon-hole him in such a way? But of course, I was missing the point. Not only had I discovered a new author, but a whole new world. I read One Hundred Years of Solitude and fell in love again.

So genres have their uses and not just as a way for booksellers and publishers to direct us, but so that we can find our way through myriads of wonderful books.  Problems arise when the genre is too broad and thematically different books are thrown together or when as in many cases, a book falls into lots of different categories.

In the interest of research, I thought I’d pin down once and for all where my first book, Not Quite Perfect fits.

Is it centred on women’s life experience and marketed to females? Yes. That’s a tick to women’s fiction. Okey dokey.

Does it address issues of modern womanhood, often humorously and light-heartedly?  So people tell me. Okay, well it’s Chick Lit then. Alrighty. If you insist. 

Does it have a primary focus on romantic love between two people with an ultimately satisfying ending? Maybe. And is it set after the end of the Second World War? It is. That’s Contemporary Romance then.

So, to recap, Not Quite Perfect is a Chick Lit-Contemporary Romance-Women’s Fiction book or as I like to think of it, some words I wrote down about two sisters’ lives with a little bit of romance, quite a lot of humour and some tear-inducing sadness. Not easy is it?

In truth, the key thing is the story and whether readers engage with that story and its characters. Genres exist to help readers find books but they’re not the be all and end all. The most important thing is to get lost in a story that you enjoy and keep getting lost in stories whether they are Chick Lit, Crime, Literary fiction or any other kind of writing that you relish. It’s about reading, enjoying, sharing and discovering.  It’s all about the books. I think that’s one thing on which we can all agree.

 

This post first appeared last year on http://www.Novelicious.com

 

I love cheese. Absolutely adore it. In the list of my top five foods (and you know how much I love a list, reader chum) it goes:

1              Tangy blow your head off Cheddar

2              Creamy nutty Brie (preferably Cornish)

3              Shropshire Blue (don’t worry, it’s still cheese)

4              Smells like a teenager’s armpit Camembert

5              Biscuits (to go with the cheese obvs)

This is a passionate love affair which I have conducted over many years; some cheeses have been loved and lost (smoked cheddar – given up around the time everyone gave up smoking oddly; Halloumi – how I loved your grilled squeaky deliciousness) and as we all know true love lasts a life time.

On the other hand, too much of a good thing can turn into a bad thing and around ten years ago I realised, with some sadness, that a choice had to be made; it was either size 14 jeans or cheese in the fridge. I heaved my cheddar-gorged (geddit?) personage onto the cheese wagon.

But as anyone who knows me will tell you, I am neither a saint nor a martyr. I do not believe in denying myself certain treats. If you were to poke around the cupboards in my kitchen (give them a wipe while you’re there will you?), you would soon discover that I have a not-very-secret penchant for Double Deckers and Aldi own-brand Pringles. But cheese is my weakness; my nirvana, my downfall and my favourite.

Therefore, it will not surprise you to learn that occasionally I fall off the wagon. This usually happens at Christmas. For Christmas is the time to eat first and ask questions later (or ideally drink too much egg-nog so that you forget what the actual question was).

This Christmas I really went to town with the cheese. We had guests staying before and after Christmas, so my daughter and I made our annual pilgrimage to the cheese counter at Waitrose. We like to go here because they let you try the cheese and if you time it just right that’s lunch done as well; they don’t even mind if you bring your own biscuits. Anyway, I digress. We got a little bit over-excited on this visit, deciding that we needed at least three types of cheddar, two types of blue-veined cheese and so on (but not that disgusting cheese with fruit in it which is wrong I tell you, plain wrong).

So we returned home with our little piece of cheesy heaven, excited and ready for a feast. However, our first guests didn’t eat any mainly because I forgot to get it out of the fridge (an honest mistake I promise) and despite a royal effort from our second group of guests, there was still a small cheese mountain left after the festive season had passed.

It fell to my daughter and me to polish it off. Now, we take our cheese-eating very seriously. There is no butter allowed but you have to eat it with biscuits, home-made chutney (see my last post before Christmas for the recipe – it is really rather good) and perhaps some grapes and an apple (to convince yourself that it’s an entirely health-giving snack). By the second week of January, our work was nearly done.

The problem arose when I caught a glance of myself in the mirror. No amount of sucking-in and standing sideways could hide it. There was extra me and I did not like it one bit.

Now everyone gets this after Christmas don’t they? It’s no surprise that the weekend supplements and bookshops are filled to the rafters with supposedly innovative suggestions on how to lose weight (eat less) and become more healthy (exercise more). It’s not rocket salad but actually that does help too.

Needless to say, Christmas had left me feeling more sluggish than a particularly slow slug whose nickname was ‘Sluggy’. I resolved to do something about it and found inspiration from three main sources:

1. My marathon-running friend who I have known all my life and who does not suffer fools, responded to my whingeing about not liking running and it being a bit chilly out with the words, ‘get off your fat arse and get on with it.’ Only your oldest friends can address you in this way. Fair point, I thought, hiding an open bag of Hula Hoops behind my back.
2.  I saw the ‘This Girl Can’ advert. I know. What can I say? I’m a sucker for people doing sport to a catchy tune. I also cry at adverts featuring penguins and anything with children making their parents proud. I make no apology for my lack of cynicism or abundance of emotion. I’m a writer, dearie. Plus I like the idea of wobbling my jiggly bits in an unapologetic way.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN7lt0CYwHg
3. Another kinder friend recommended the ‘Couch to 5K’ app to me. She told me that it was easy to follow, encouraging and ‘not as knackering as you might think’.

http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/c25k/pages/couch-to-5k.aspx

I was therefore caught in a perfect storm of compelling reasons to give running a go. I already swim and flirt regularly with Pilates (my husband is very understanding) so I decided the time was right.

One cold, brisk lunchtime when the icy drizzle had passed and my morning’s quota of words had been met, I decided to go for it.

Despite realising that I didn’t own a sports bra, that my gloves had a hole and my tracksuit trousers didn’t reach my ankles, I pressed on like a woman possessed. I squashed my bobble hat onto my head, grabbed my iPod, left the house, locked the door, walked a few steps, went back to check I really had locked the door and then pressed ‘play’ on my iPod.

The lady on the podcast is called Laura. She sounds like the kind of woman who would instantly be your best friend; she would help you go shopping for shoes and encourage you to try something daring; she would probably order a fish you’d never heard of in a restaurant; she would make an ideal girlfriend for your younger brother and never flirt with your husband.

She told me to walk for five minutes, so I walked for five minutes. She told me to get ready for my first run, she told me I could do it, she counted me in and off I went. She played me punchy music to give me impetus and one minute later she told me to walk for ninety seconds. I followed her instructions to the letter and she told me I was doing great. We ran, we walked, we ran, we walked and actually, I enjoyed it. I forgot about the hole in my glove and all the things that addle my fevered brain. It was just me and Laura running together; me getting rather out of breath and her staying cool and supportive mind but nonetheless, we were a team.

I arrived home twenty minutes later feeling exhilarated, alive and utterly knackered. Later that evening I experienced the most unspeakable cramp, the next day the front of my legs were really quite sore but do you know what? I don’t care. I’ve run for the first time in my life without hating it and I have a new best friend called Laura. The cheese is gone and the potato is off the couch, rolling down the hill with breathless glee.

 

This week I read a headline which made me do a little dance around the kitchen:

‘Waterstones plans more stores as book sales rise.’

More book stores? Book sales rising? Can it be possible? If previous reports were to be believed, you were more likely to see a unicorn in the 2.30 at Uttoxeter than new book stores on the high street but no, apparently it’s all going rather well at Waterstone’s (they’ve dropped their apostrophe – I refuse to) and indeed Foyles, the London-based chain.

And they are talking about actual, physical, pick it up, sniff it (no? just me then), purchase, take home and read with joyful pleasure-type books. James Daunt, the Waterstone’s MD and, let’s say it as it is, book-selling wizard has declared that sales of Kindles have pretty much dried up. Of course, this is largely because people are reading eBooks on their phones, tablets and other similar devices instead of purchasing a separate Kindle for the task.

But eBooks aside (I’m not knocking this particular medium; it’s how I earn my keep), the fact that sales of physical books is up and there may be more book stores as a result is a reason for much celebration.

When I was growing up in a slightly grubby corner of south-east London, my parents used to take me on a weekly pilgrimage to the big local town. On this particular high street there was a toyshop, a stationer’s, a department store, a Wimpy (we never went; too expensive) and tucked down a dark alleyway (which in my mind has become a version of Diagon alley, when actually it was all concrete and graffiti) was an independent bookshop. I remember it as being small with rooms leading to more treasures and of course lined floor to ceiling with books. Above all, the thing I recall most vividly is that smell; the smell of the book.

Having spent most of my life around books in one form or other, that smell has been to me what the smell of a good gravy is to a chef; heaven in a box.

I think it’s a smell that means different things to every person but for me, it can be summed up in one word; possibility. It’s that sense that on opening a new book, you will be transported somewhere else, to a different world, a different time or just to the company of a character you will grow to love like a friend.

For me, being able to walk into a good bookshop is a necessity of life because of the way I feel when I’m there. It’s different to a library; less a group-imposed silence and more a hushed introspection but I truly believe that this quiet sanctity is becoming more important than ever. In a world of rolling news (most of it too sad to bear), frenzied social media and constant fact-bombardment, we need time to quieten our minds. We need to be still and calm without constantly being poked, liked or favorited, all of which frankly sounds a bit unsavoury.

When I walk into a bookshop, as I did this week (the newish Foyles on Charing Cross Road), I immediately relax. I feel at home, among friends; safe. This particular branch is so perfectly designed; spacious, light and filled with that smell. It’s a bibliophile’s sweet-shop. It has the obligatory café, which is everything you’d want it to be and a music shop nestled above the two floors (two floors, reader friends!) of books. Oddly enough, I was greatly taken with the pull-out drawers section filled with sheet music and I haven’t played a musical instrument since 1995. Apologies to anyone who was alarmed by a woman in a blue bobble hat grinning like a loon as she browsed the shelves on Thursday afternoon; I was just so very happy.

And with relaxation and happiness, I am that child in the bookshop again. The world of possibility is opened up and with it my mind. I am searching for new ideas or just a mighty fine book. I found it as it happens. It’s called, ‘How To Be a Public Author’ by the splendidly named Francis Plug. I cried with laughter on the train journey home much to the embarrassment of my husband who was trying to concentrate on his far more serious book. I went to bed that night, a new book by my side, my heart content.

So, my book-loving friends, let’s be proud and cheer the readers, who browse and buy, the booksellers, who lovingly display and entice, the publishers who produce such irresistible beauties. Bookshops are here to stay and if we’re lucky and keep supporting them, there will be more for us all to enjoy.

A world of possibility awaits…

Gosh I love a list, don’t you? There’s nothing better for a person like me with a wandering mind and a propensity to get dis-

Sorry, just remembered I hadn’t put on the washing, which made me realise that I hadn’t emptied the dishwasher and then of course, I made a coffee while I was downstairs but anyway, I’m back with you, lovely reader. Now where was I?

Oh yes, lists! Lovely lists. What’s not to like? A way of ordering your mind, of pretending to be organised, of getting stuff done.

Shopping lists are the best of course;

Coffee – tick,

Cornflakes – tick,

Battenberg cake – don’t mind if I do – tick.

 

Then there are the ‘to do’ lists. Mine always start with, ‘Write ‘to do’ list’ because a ticked item is one step closer to list-completing nirvana. What can I say? I’m a list expert.

Which is why, when it comes to this time of year, to the Big Daddy of them all, I come in to my own. I ignore the naysayers, the cynics and the shirkers. Those New Year resolutions will be made, dammit and they will be made with a smile on my face and hope in my heart.

For that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s all about the good intentions; about beginning afresh with renewed energy.

I actually start thinking about my New Year’s resolutions around November time but this is mainly because it enables me to put off certain tricky items.

Go running? I need new trainers so it will be thriftier to wait for the New Year sales.

Finish my tax return? Always more fun in January when everyone else is doing it and we are united in our collective looming deadline panic.

You see my problem, don’t you? I am an expert in making lists and resolutions but when it comes to actually fulfilling them, it’s a very different matter.

So I thought that this year I would make two lists because two lists are better than one obviously. The first is my wide-eyed, child-like list that my hopeful new year self would like to achieve and the second is the voice of experience. I like the first one better but I know the second one too well.

 

List One

1. Read a book a week.
2. Go running 3 times a week.
3. Learn to dance. Properly.
4. Buy lots of books, discovering new writers and brilliant ideas which stimulate and entertain me.
5. Write a really brilliant book.

 

List Two

1. Read a book a month.
2. Buy some trainers.
3. Play Wii Dance with my daughter every weekend.
4. Read the books I bought last year, discovering new writers and brilliant ideas which stimulate and entertain me.
5. Write the best book I can.

 

It just remains for me to wish you a happy 2015, dear reader friends – may your lists be concise and all your items achievable and ticked.

 

Christmas eh? The most magical time of the year and of course, for anyone over the age of twenty, the most stressful.

Every year it’s the same for me. I start out full of hope that I will glide through proceedings like butter on a basting turkey. All gifts will be bought by the beginning of December, I shall decorate the house with tasteful elegance, the presents will be wrapped by the time the children break up from school and I shall welcome my family with open arms and a joyous heart.

It’s just not possible is it? I watch White Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life each year and dream of snow, snow, snow and a world that doesn’t exist. Every year, I strive for something that cannot be achieved and every year I wonder why.

The truth is I’m not organised enough to get everything bought and wrapped in a timely fashion; my brain is too chaotic and flits from task to task like a flea on a dirty dog. Also, I don’t really do elegance at Christmas; I like tinsel too much and lametta (look it up if you’ve never come across it; it’s glorious) and that spray-on snow stuff. Plus I’m always tired by the time Christmas comes and therefore my patience threshold is almost non-existent. You can imagine how I react when a visiting family member makes an ill-advised comment about anything. Anything at all.  In fact I don’t react, I usually just fume because I’m too tired to do anything else.

Of course, when you’ve written a book called, ‘Not Quite Perfect’ as I have, you come to realise that life is just that. In addition, my children have a warped sense of humour and love to tell me grinningly that their dinner, my clothes or the weather are, ‘not quite perfect’. You reap what you sow, my friends.

You also learn a great deal from your children. My father often says that his children taught him everything he knows and I think that this is best exemplified at Christmas.

Most children face Christmas as they face life; wide-eyed and hopeful. They don’t see the planning, preparations or stress. They see sparkle and magic and fun.

There’s an excellent book called, ‘Becoming a Writer’ by Dorothea Brande. In it she urges us to see the world as children do, with innocence and an absence of cynicism. This is excellent advice, not just for writing but for life too.

So this Christmas, I’m going to try and see what my children see. Yes. I’ll no doubt get stressed as the day approaches but I’m going to make a conscious effort to step outside that stress from time to time; to see the magic and enjoy the sparkle. Christmas may not be perfect but it should definitely be fun. Now where’s my bag of tinsel?

I’m not sure if many Kindle bestsellers are born in a dingy, creative writing course classroom in south-east London (Penge to be precise), but mine was.

I had signed up following the birth of my second baby after experiencing a nagging sense that I’d left my brain somewhere and couldn’t quite remember where (possibly in the back of the fridge with the car keys).

The course gave me the chance to re-engage with people over the age of three and such interesting ones at that; a retired engineer, an out-of-work actor, a fellow mum, a successful local businessman, an Indian granny; all sharing the urge to write. We were taught with smiling patience by an enthusiastic tutor who offered as many ideas as we could handle and two published books to her name. I longed for a mind-hoover to suck out her knowledge and transplant it into my own feeble mind.

My goal was simple.  I wanted to know how to write a novel with plausible, engaging characters surrounded by a convincing, flowing plot that made people laugh and cry. Surely that should be achievable during twelve two-hourly sessions? Move over John Grisham, I’m coming through.

One week, our sparkling teacher looked even more twinkly than usual. ‘This week we are going to look at romantic fiction and turn to the masters in this field for inspiration.’ As the male writers in our number groaned, she passed round print-outs from the Harlequin publishing website. Our teacher fixed the naysayers with a steely gaze. ‘This is a brilliant place to learn the art of story-telling,’ she said with finality.

This should probably have been the moment when trumpeters began blasting a fanfare, fireworks fizzed in the sky and a gigantic light-bulb appeared above my head. For this was the moment when I thought, ‘I’m going to try and write a novel.’ The next week Emma Darcy was born, followed shortly by her sister Rachel and then a cast of supporting characters.  I’d like to say that it was all plain-sailing from here but it wasn’t.

I read a lot of ‘How To’ books and a lot more novels. I plotted and re-plotted and then gave up plotting and wrote and wrote. At 20,000 words I nearly gave up but Stephen King (via his brilliant book, On Writing) had told me to write every day and you don’t mess with that man. So I kept on going until one day I finished my book.  I felt excited, exhausted and weirdly bereft. I missed my characters.

The book and my characters remained trapped on my computer for another two years experiencing encouragement, disappointment and many re-writes before joy of joys, they found a happy home with Harlequin’s new digital imprint, Carina. It was meant to be.

And as for my heartfelt wish to make my audience laugh and cry? If what my readers are telling me is true, I seem to be on my way to achieving that too.

 

After forty years existing in the world, I’ve decided that winter is my favourite season.

Don’t worry, reader friend – I’m not seasonist. I still love the nodding-daffodil, new-life, chocolate-egg-ness of spring; the ice-cream, sun-cream, strawberries-and-cream happiness of summer and what’s not to like about the mulchy crispness of autumn?

But winter is the Big Daddy for me. We’re cosying up, we’re hunkering down, we’re roasting our chestnuts all in preparation for the big Ho Ho Ho. It begins for me around the end of October. The clocks thoughtfully go back, the heating usually thunk-hisses into life and then whizz, bang, wheee – Fireworks Night! This is the pre-cursor; the moment when I know something special is on its way. Not long afterwards, the Christmas lights start to appear in the towns and cities. As a devoted Londoner, I do love Christmas in the city. Cities know how to do Christmas in all its baubly, light-festooned glory.

So November begins calm and bright but towards the end of the month, the panic sets it. Did I remember to order those photos for my mother-in-law? No I did not and I have to do it today. Do my kids really need more plastic tat? It’s okay, I already know the answer. Will my husband and I both buy the next series of Breaking Bad? When am I going to find time to make my (now legendary in at least seven houses across the world) Nicey Spicy Christmas Chutney?

It is at this moment that I (and possibly you) need to stop. Because the other reason I love winter and Christmas so much is that it’s a good time to reflect. The landscape is stark and occasionally frost or snow-covered, the trees are bare and the world takes on a simpler and more stripped-down aspect. It’s the perfect time for a little introspection.

Before I was a published writer, I used to take a moment away from all the preparation and stress to sit down and write a Christmas story and then give it to my husband as a present. They covered lots of different subjects but in the end the message was always one of hope. Because I think that’s what Christmas is about for me; it’s about hope and it’s about love and you only find those when you take time to think.

This year, I was delighted to be asked by Helen Phifer, who is one of the awesome Writer Romantics to write a short story for an anthology they were compiling. Every story had to be winter or Christmas themed and end with a message of hope. All proceeds from the anthology are going to the Teenage Cancer Trust and Cystic Fibrosis Trust. I am very proud to have one of my stories included alongside such a brilliant and generous group of writers.

So, if you are a little overwhelmed by the Christmas preparations or need a reminder of what this time of year is really about, I urge you to download this book and order copies for all your friends and family.

Winter Tales is what Christmas is all about – love and hope. What more could anyone need at Christmas or indeed all year round?

Happy winter, happy preparations and if you can manage it, happy thinking time.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Winter-Tales-Stories-Warm-Heart-ebook/dp/B00P84UGHA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416754630&sr=1-1&keywords=winter+tales+stories+to+warm+your+heart

Invaluable advice from a writer you should add to your ‘follow’ list immediately!

‘You should start blogging.’

‘Should I?’

‘Definitely. Go on WordPress. It’s dead easy.’

‘Easy you say?’

‘As falling off a horse.’

Unfortunately, I am the kind of person who if I were ever to accidentally find myself on a horse (and frankly getting onto a horse is never done accidentally), I would cling on with grim determination until the whole thing was over. Falling off anything is not an option. It was fine when I was a child; scabby knees and bruised shins came with the territory but I am forty now. I like to steer a steady and safe passage through life. Bicycles are my limit and only if the path is flat and traffic-free.

But I digress. Back to WordPress and its simplicity. I imagine it is simple for some people; for those who understand widgets or the difference between a ‘menu’ and a ‘page’ (still no idea) or what a domain, cache or a cookie is. I am not one of those people. I’ll be honest, reader friend (you’re two paragraphs in so I feel I can call you that), I find it baffling and a little exhausting.

And this has led me to something of an epiphany. I find life pretty baffling and exhausting. I long to be an organised sort of person expertly juggling all the balls with calm ease. Instead, I am mildly chaotic, often late and occasionally one of the balls I’ve thrown into the air hits me squarely on the head. But I’ve got a theory here (I’m a big theorist, you will see as we embark on this blogging journey together). I don’t think I’m alone. I suspect there are others who are similarly baffled and really quite tired.

So this is a blog for the confused, bewildered and those with too many ‘to do’ lists. If you are a sorted, organised individual who is always on the ball and never off the boil, be a treasure and keep it to yourself.