Reading and Writing

Four o'clock this morning and I was suddenly awake. I'd like to say it was because I had received divine inspiration from my Guardian Angel of Writing giving me a prod and urging me to get up and begin my Best Selling Novel. I imagine my Guardian Angel of Writing doing such a thing because I think Angels have no concept of time and have the freedom of spirit to leap into creative action regardless of the time we humans have imposed on our lives.

And if it had been she (or he, I'm not Angelist), I'd have leapt forth and nipped across the landing to my arty-crafty writing room and sat at my computer and written and written until the job was done, because that is how I imagine such Angel-inspired events should be played. And then it would be MY turn to be interviewed by some left-wing glossy magazine and come over all smug...

'Ah yes, of course, I started writing at 4 a.m, couldn't stop - the urge was so great. Darling hubbie brought me lightly scrambled ambrosia sprinkled with nectar at 8.30, and by mid-day the script was finished and in the post to Penguin/ Harper/ Corgi/ Virago. First thing Monday morning my agent calls to tell me I've started a bidding war and by Friday I was able to buy a mansion in the country and a pony called Callista.'

HA! I was, in fact, woken by 6 assorted socially inadequate, intellectually challenged yobbos and yobbettes effing and blinding at each other in a drunken fracas (something about shoes - I know, don't ask), right on the corner of our road. And what I really wanted to do creep out incognito, follow them to their houses, wait until about 9am and then start yellin' and fussin' (no swearing - I know better words than that) outside their windows and see how they liked it. Unfortunately a) I'm basically too much a coward to deal with the ensuing and inevitable revenge attacks and b) I suddenly had a really good idea for an A level coursework question, so I wrote that down instead because no matter how many times I repeated it to myself I knew that if I went back to sleep, it would be gone by the time I woke up again.

And whilst I was up I had a little chat to the Guardian Angel of Moving People to Quiet Places in the Country Preferably Herefordshire, just in case he/ she was listening.

I did actually have a momentous moment of writing inspiration last weekend. On Saturday I thought, 'Just sit down and write you lazy dollop', so I did, and I struggled to cough up 1,000 words. And then I woke up Sunday morning and a moment of clarity settled on my brain, and I deleted the 1,000 words from the previous day and replaced them with 3,467 words on exactly the same focus but from a different viewpoint and in a different style. 'Much better', I thought, because writing cheers me up enormously.

As does reading. And I am pleased to say that, having been selected to be a Giver for the first World Book Night last year, I have been successful in my application this year, too, which means I shall have a bunch of books to give away for freebies on World Book Night 2! The format for World Book Night has changed slightly this year. Last year Givers could apply for one title only, and were handed 48 copies of the book to distribute at their will. I got 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time.' This year, you could apply for 3 different titles, and the number of books you'd get if successful was 24 which I think is a much more manageable number, especially as you have to collect them from your local bookshop or library.

So, on World Book Night 2012 I shall have 24 copies of my third choice - 'The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic' a chick-lit masterpiece - to give away.

I'll have to re-read it. Can't for the life of me remember what it was about. But I know I enjoyed it at the time!

And lastly, before Andy and I go out for a National Trust lunch fix, welcome to new MMM guest, Sandi! Mrs Pumphrey has laid an egg in your honour!