To market to market, to tell a fat tale

I have just heard that my wonderful fellow authors from the Odyssey stable (garret? mansion?) had a great success at the Ferny Creek Market yesterday. With a mystical theme, they still managed to sell all five copies of The Pale that I sent to the table. Wow, just, WOW!

I guess sci-fi with talking dogs was just within the net of interest for Faery and Angel followers. They too love their dogs I guess.

Meanwhile, I was engaged in an interesting conversation with my mum. She says such fascinating things these days. Indeed, I have plans for a new book, all about the amazing ideas that come to the surface of her reality, which is often in an alternarive universe from where I am living.

Yesterday she introduced me to a new resident at her care home. Although she never addresses me by name, she does introduce me as ‘This is my daughter Clare’, so she definitely knows who I am! Anyway, she then proceeded to tell me the history of the new man at the afternoon tea table.

‘They found Jack in the street, you know, and he wanted to buy the place so they let him in. He lives here now but he works at the local newsagent on Mondays. He’s going to bring me a copy of The Age because I still haven’t seen the article they wrote about my cooking.’

See, it’s absolute gold, isn’t it? Such a rich world. She can cram in more nuggets of intrigue in one go than I can smash into a chapter.

Hmm, I wonder where I get my love of telling stories?

Living as if

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Year of the Rooster

This year has started with a great burst of energy. I’m trying to keep momentum going as I strive to inhabit the life I want to lead – the life of a writer. I’m a bit afraid that if I pause for more than a few minutes, I’ll lose all impetus. So I just keep going.

It strikes me that while it is quite difficult to imagine oneself as a writer, it is even more difficult to describe oneself as a writer. Do I deserve the name? Am I sufficiently writerly in my habits? Do I produce enough words on the page? How much do I need in the way of publications before I can call myself a writer? As for income! That would be a very high criterion indeed.

But I know that I am never more content than when I am lost in writing, when the words dash along onto the screen, all un-edited and mis-typed, and *my* characters face the lives they’ve been dealt. They *live* almost as if they are alive …

Maybe that’s all we can do. In this year of yes, let me live as if I am a writer.