Hey there 2020 – wait for me!
This is the first post of the new year. You’ll be thinking that I’ve dropped into a hole somewhere and gone to sleep – but no! Here I am waving hello. How are you? What are you reading? What are you writing? I hope your life is smooth and easy, although mostly our lives are not. I send you good wishes wherever you are.
What’s new for you this year? For me, it’s that I’ve started to keep fit. Most of what I’m doing is the sameold sameold, but every one of my spirits has risen as I’ve started to move more. Mostly I sit in a chair and write – and was beginning to feel tired and ill with the sitting – but I’d done it for so long, it was hard to change.
I’ve always walked a lot but I’ve discovered that it doesn’t count for as much as I’d thought. It’s the brisk stuff that counts. So now I’m running on the spot, sometimes for ten minutes at a time and I’m feeling good. It must be the endorphins. The endorphins must have arrived. How about you guys?
Speaking and writing I was just reading about Gary Younge, the news editor who is leaving The Guardian. They said ‘Gary has a great ear for writing: it’s as if he can almost hear where the rise and fall, the staccato and legato and devastating crescendo, need to happen…. Read his final column here.’
It was the rise and fall that interested me – the fact that you can ‘hear’ writing – the fact that it’s so close to speaking. Like music in your head.
Getting better! It’s surprising how many people get ill at Christmas, so it seemed appropriate to feature Harold Lawrence’s new book At a Stroke as one of the early Hastings Online Times posts this year. It’s a tale about recovery – the story of a stroke survivor. Harold and his illustrator, Graham Wilkins (lovely pics) are raising money for The Stroke Association so if you want to buy his book, you’re doing other folks good as well as yourself. Read about it in the HOT post here.
The Big Happiness This is the first book in the Daniela Hoffman Stories series. I bet you wonder what’s taking me so long. I finished proof reading book 3 Daniela Hoffman is not stupid some months ago. It’s because I keep changing the text of book one. The other books don’t affect me like this, but this one is like a swamp that’s alive. I step into it and it moves. I keep trying to abandon it, but can’t do that either. I’ll keep you posted. Has this happened to you?
I’ll be posting again soon. I’d love it if you signed up for my Newsletter (bits and bobs and loads of stuff about writing and publishing). Thanks so much for reading.
Angie (Angela J.)
top image thanks to Shane Aldendorff at pexels.com
