And after the event...

What a lovely day we had at Neilson Hays Library yesterday. Saturday night’s big thunderstorm gave me hope that we’d have a dry day and we did; it was a scorcher.

I don’t have many pictures but this one makes me happy:

WordPlay: final programme

Tomorrow the Neilson Hays Library is hosting WordPlay, Bangkok's first literary festival.  The details below are the final programme. It's not too late to sign up for the workshops!

Further details are here.

Bangkok's first literary festival

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Can't wait for this.

We've got some fabulous names lined up. Check out further details on WordPlay here and I'll be back to tell you more soon.

We're nearly there...

Sue has arrived in Bangkok and her author talk at the Neilson Hays library, is nearly upon us. (It’s Thursday at 2pm – please do come.) Sue’s talk will include readings from her book and stories of her experience volunteering in Cambodia. You can find further information on the talk here.

I’ve turned my thoughts to all the people who have helped put this together.

My friends in the BWG book club who have pledged their help – support to me, encouragement and help during the talk on Thursday with whatever might need doing.

Volunteer women run the Neilson Hays library. They have been full of enthusiasm and excitement about Sue’s talk and I am grateful to them for the use of their beautiful premises. (If you are interested in working with them – please get in touch.)

Peter Robinson at the SET Foundation – the charity that will benefit from the afternoon – has rung around his supporters and publishers and we have around a hundred books to sell. All of these proceeds will benefit SET. Bamboo Sinfonia, Asia Books and Random House have all sent me boxes of books completely and utterly free… in these hard times. I cannot thank them enough.

It really is Friday

Sunday word count & excuses, excuses…

Since I started my mini race with Sheepish I’d been writing pretty consistently. This was good because it meant I was carrying all the threads of the plot in my head and was shuffling between them as and when it was needed. Then I had the emotional traumas of the UK and even when I had a tiny opportunity to write, I couldn’t.

The day that I left Bangkok, you may remember that Paul Theroux came to visit the Neilson Hays Library. He said during his talk that he was grateful to his family for providing him with a stable and happy environment in which to write. I noticed this comment but didn’t think much of it until several weeks later, a good while into my UK trip and then I realised that this is essential to me too. My family here give me that (mostly) and I am very grateful to them for it. (It also appears that I can’t write in my pyjamas…I have to get showered and dressed and honestly, I feel a bit resentful about this. What is the point of working from home unless it’s so you can stay in your pyjamas all day?)

So the writing should have exploded in this last seven days but in addition to losing the thread of what happens next, I’ve also been making hats fighting jetlag. I really am rubbish at changing time zones – what am I doing living here? Or going back there?

Anyway, the words this week have been a rather pitiful 458 but any words are welcome: some are most definitely better than none. And this has pushed me to a word count of over 80,000 which is rather fab.

I was still holding onto a bit of anxiety though; these weren’t new words. They were inserted while rereading the last 10,000 words which I had to do in order to remember what was going on in my story. Even after re-reading I still couldn’t see my way forward so I was quite despondent yesterday but I went back to it fresh this morning and I’ve disentangled the different threads and now I have mapped out a rough way forward.

Fingers crossed please.

Paul Theroux

It's jolly difficult to believe that last night the Board at the Neilson Hays Library were welcoming Paul Theroux and this morning I'm sitting in a little hotel room in overcast London.

We had a wonderful night. It was a great coup to get him to come and talk and members and non members alike turned out in their droves to come and listen.

He was wonderful, funny, charming, and generous. I'm a bit fuzzy headed to give you a report so I'm just going to leave you with some pictures. (Yes, that's me meeting Paul Theroux!)

OFFICIALLY OVER-EXCITED

This week’s been a washout as far as writing has been concerned: novel writing at any rate. (Pah: just as I started a personal race with Sheepish and I’ll be seriously lagging behind this week and tomorrow is WC day (word count day!)

This week has been full of sickness (mine and Daughter’s) and of course I should be writing now because this afternoon I am on the Neilson Hays Library stand at the Living in Bangkok exhibition at Bumrungrad Hospital.

But instead of writing, I’m jumping up and down with excitement because I read this yesterday. I had, up to this moment, been quietly excited but my trip to London is getting closer and OMG I think it’s time to lose control. This is Othello with Lenny Henry at Trafalgar Studios. AND I’ve got tickets. OMG, OMG. I am going with Leigh. Yay yay yay. Othello is my favourite Shakespeare play and I have a rather large soft spot for Lenny Henry and every faith that he will be stupendous. I am wondering if Leigh will be embarrassed if I want to go to the stage door to swoon a bit…

Now I’ve got myself over-excited. I’ve got to calm down and write lots of words so I don't shame myself in front of Sheepish tomorrow. And then I can get off to the hospital to promote the library when really what I want to do is think about LH as Othello...

Call yourself a writer?

DJ tagged for this meme. I am off on a writing course all day today at the Neilson Hays Library, so this is a perfect post for today.

1. Which words do you use too much in your writing?
Words which dictate meticulous detail of the physical movement of my characters. I think I’m a frustrated film director.

2. Which words do you consider overused in stuff you read?
The ones that should have been edited out.

3. What's your favourite piece of writing by you?
Anything that makes me laugh because then I feel terribly clever.

4. Which blog post do you wish you had written?
Anything that makes me laugh because I am very envious of people that can consistantly write funny.

5. Regrets. Do you have a few? Is there anything you wish you hadn't written?
Nope: it’s waste of energy (but so is worrying and I do plenty of that.) I would be sad to think I’d written something that might have hurt someone.

6. How has your writing made a difference? What do you consider your most important piece of writing?
I am surprised at how it alters my mood for the better. I suppose the most important piece is the piece I’m doing here and now (whenever that is.)

7. Name three favourite words
I’ve done this before in a meme on TeaStains, so I had to go looking for it. According to that meme my favourite words are: ‘Bollocks,’ ‘vituperative’ and ‘elderly.’ I also like ‘presbyopic’ and ‘discombobulated.’

8. ....And three words you're not so keen on.
Uhm, I can’t think of any though my BF, The High Priestess of Punk-chew-ation loathes the word ‘moist.’ If you talk to her about moist belly buttons, she’ll really freak out.

9. Do you have a writing mentor, role model or inspiration?
I’ve just finished the six sessions with my mentor through The Literary Consultancy and have the industry day and the ms read to go. Also the friends I’ve made through the Novel Racers have been a huge inspiration and support.

10.What's your writing ambition?
To write entertaining stories well.

I am passing this on to YOU. Please take it if you like it. I'm going to be late for the library...

My week

Despite the migraine and its aftershocks, (thanks for all the good wishes) I’ve been very busy this week - mostly while filled up with medicine.

The day after the migraine meltdown I had to go to school to watch Daughter in a Dance Extravaganza: very tough feeling so fragile but I filled myself up with pain relief and lovely neighbours gave Daughter and me a lift home.

I had a meeting at the library on Thursday and then that evening I’d promised to drag Husband along to a quiz at a pub along our road. It was organised by the St George’s Society and we were rounded up by Andrew ‘Computer’, my website teacher. We joined up with friends, C&R to make a team, R called our team ‘No Fork in Chance.’ It took me several rounds of the quiz before working out why everyone sniggered at this… but I was still a bit poorly, honest.

Regular readers might know that we did attend a quiz quite regularly a year or so ago… we were spectacularly bad and managed most weeks to come in second to last, which earned us a free round of drinks. This quiz didn’t have any of the ‘professional quiz teams’ in evidence and R was quite brilliant at the sports rounds. Husband excelled in the Thai general knowledge… C and I managed to answer a few too. There was only one literary question (Lady Chatterley’s Christian name which I knew because one of my characters is named after her: Constance.)

We had a nice evening though and to our utter amazement came in second! Woo hoo and each of us won a box of chocolate covered nuts. Obviously I gave my box to Husband and then proceeded to steal them one by one, once the packet was opened: there are no calories in stolen food, did you know that? Pictures can be seen here. I have no idea who the grinning man is next to me.

Friday saw me at a lunch for the 40th anniversary of the first ever meeting of the BWG (don’t go to the website, the irritating music is still there!) I rather liked the idea of those gentile ladies, meeting to organise a group in exactly the same venue, forty years earlier. I think my next novel will feature a group of expat women in Bangkok. Watch this space. Despite requiring Migraleve in the morning, I managed 3 Pimms without any negative effects. Hoo rah.

Proud Mum

Today Husband’s playing golf with a colleague from the UK; Daughter’s gone off (voluntarily) to do some charity work through school… Son, who is considerably more difficult to motivate, was informed, by me, a week ago that he would be joining me for my stint at the library used book sale today.

I don’t think I ever uttered the words ‘I’m not asking, I’m telling’ but the gist… the picture… was well and truly got by Son. Still, he’d forgotten by midweek and I had to remind him he’d been press ganged and couldn’t go for a sleepover on the Friday night… He looked a bit disappointed but not a grumble was heard.

He was woken this morning from his teenage slumber (which would normally have gone on towards lunchtime) without a moan. He came to the sale and was charming and acted as my human calculator adding up the different prices of books, helping old people (really) and running errands.

I considered taking him by the shoulders, shaking him and asking ‘Who are you and what have you done with my son?’ Instead I beamed with pride, rewarded him and sent him off to the cinema to meet his friend.

This is the Neilson Hays Library (where I am bookbuyer) and our book sale today (and tomorrow.) Fingers crossed we raise lots of money.

What to do?

I’ve been holed up at home for days now. I know this, because my purse is still full of Singaporean coins, which we stopped needing on Sunday, and because I’m starting to feel a bit mad. I’ve been writing …although my concentration was not so good yesterday.

Today, being Thursday, means I have the day off; the day off writing. I’m going out to have a life, starting with breakfast with Husband near his office, because afterwards I am due at a board meeting at the library in Silom.

And then I’m free to do what I choose: I am trying to decide whether I shall go to a movie or *whispers* have a pedicure.

If I go to the movies I might get to see all the films I want to see at the cinema (as opposed to on DVD) (Doubt, The Reader, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Slumdog – Friday with Husband, Milk – Monday with the girls.)

But if I get a pedicure, my trotters will look lovely (it’s all relative) and I can read while they do it because I don’t often waste my time with manicures. I’ve never really felt grown up enough to have colour on my fingers. It makes me feel like I’m trying to be someone else.

Anyway… what to do? Ho hum.

A new job

I’ve got a new job. (I use the word ‘job’ in the loosest sense for I don’t and can’t receive remuneration for any ‘work’ here, and anyway, they weren’t offering.)

Neilson Hays Library is an English Language Library in Bangkok. It was founded in 1869 by The Ladies’ Bazaar Association. They formed the Bangkok Ladies’ Library Association to supply the English speaking population of Bangkok with reading material. The property its now in was part of an endowment made in 1922 from Dr Hayward Hays in memory of his wife Jennie Neilson Hays.

I know a couple of the women on the board there and they approached me to see if I’d be their book buyer as their current buyer is taking over as President. I said I’d love to but couldn’t as I had recently made a commitment to myself about my writing. They wouldn’t take no for an answer … so we had lunch to talk about it.

And now I’m their new book buyer (and I will still write my book.)