Three questions

The honesty is in flower all around the garden. There's always far more purple than white. My first question to all of you knowledgeable people out in Blogland is, will it come true from seed if I save the seeds from the white plants?

I recently finished reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It's a book that manages to be entertainingly light, but has a serious heart. The subject is the German occupation of Guernsey during the second World War, and how it affected the islanders. Goodness - how we take our freedoms for granted. Apparently there's going to be a film of it too.

After that I read Joanne Harris' The Lollipop Shoes, for the second time. I enjoyed that very much as well, even more than her novel Chocolat which preceded it. It's set in Paris, you see, and in a few weeks I am off there myself. So my second question is, what other novels can I read which are also set in Paris? Classic or modern, I don't mind. Have already done A Tale of Two Cities and Les Miserables.

My third question is whether anyone can recommend vegetarian cafes in Paris. I have earmarked a couple that I've spotted on the Internet, but there's nothing like a personal tip from someone who's been. I am unlikely to go hungry in any event, with all that bread and cheese to sample. And maybe even some chocolat.

Not much writing news this week, although I was shortlisted for the spring Flash 500 competition. The judge was Margaret James, and if you go to the 'winning entries' page, she makes some helpful comments about what she was looking for. (Mine is the last one on the shortlist called 'When She Comes Home'.) The next closing date is at the end of June, if anyone wants to enter. There are very healthy cash prizes, results seem to be announced promptly, and it's a good place to try out your 500 worders.

Meanwhile, it's actually stopped raining and we are officially no longer in a drought zone. Just popping out to pull up some weeds...

Dream house

Hello everyone. I am feeling rather tentative about blogging today, as I see the threatened 'new look' has arrived on my dashboard! Untechnical at the best of times, I am not quite used to it all yet. How are you finding it?

This week brought good news about the sale of another story to People's Friend magazine. It's always exciting to see how they present it on the page, and I know they will have a lovely illustration to go with it when it is published. In the meantime, I would like to show you the picture that inspired me to write it.

I bought this print in an antique shop a few months ago. The minute I saw it I thought that this would be my dream house, with the overflowing garden and the sea in the background. I also knew that if I looked at it for long enough I would find a story to set there. I will use the money I earned from the story towards seeing new places in the summer. Those are sure to provide me with more stories too. Don't they say you must speculate to accumulate? Oh well, any excuse to spend money, really.



Harvey's sunshine award

Wotcha! Harvey here. It's been a while since Mrs Boss let me do a blog post. But last week she went through the end of her finger with the secateurs. Since then her typing has been even wonkier than normal. And that's saying something.

If you visit this blog often, you'll have guessed Mrs Boss is the kind of person who spends forever thinking about a thing before she does it. Her blog friends Patsy and Teresa both gave her awards a few weeks ago. Has she posted them to the blog? No!

So while she's off plastering up her finger again, I thought I'd grab Patsy's sunshine award for myself. I deserve it, don't I?

As recipient of this award I now have to tell you about what makes me happy.

1. Food. Mr and Mrs Boss are far too picky. They yank me away from all kinds of eating opportunities. Chips on the pavement. Bread by the duckpond. Nice bits of old wood, bursting with fibre. Just what a dog needs, I say. Bad for me, they say. And apparently the person beginning with V told them I was overweight. I don't know how he figures that out. Every time they try to put me on the scales, I lie on the floor, making myself as flat as a bearskin rug. So how do they know I'm overweight if I don't get on the nasty scales?

2. Digging. Mr and Mrs Boss don't understand that all the really interesting things in the garden are beneath the lawn. How am I supposed to retrieve them if I don't dig? Of course when Mrs Boss digs, she calls it something fancy, like 'dividing the hostas'. When I dig, she calls it 'ruining the grass'. What's grass anyway? Just a load of boring green stuff. And underneath there are things to eat.

3. Meeting people. Most people, anyway. You find the odd one who doesn't like dribble or doghair on their clothes. But most people appreciate me making a big fuss of them. Take the man who visited last week, for instance, to help Mr and Mrs Boss write something called a will. How boring it would all have been if I'd just ignored the will man. The will man loves dogs. I left extra doghair on his pinstripe suit, to show I love him too.

4. Barking. Some days you're just in the mood to let rip. You know what I mean? Bin day, for instance. When Mrs Boss is writing, she says my barking makes her jump. Wouldn't you think she'd be used to it after four and a half years?

5. Sleeping. You can't beat a nice snooze, even though there is an ongoing dispute with Mrs Boss about my favourite chair. I know I've won the battle really. She just likes to pretend she's in charge sometimes.

6. Playing. Chewing up tennis balls is the best sort of playing. But what a lot of people don't realise is that when you're a golden retriever, everything in life is a game. Humans take themselves far too seriously, in my opinion. Chill out! Would you rather be a wiggly worm, under the boring grass, living in the dark? Or up here in the sunshine, eating, greeting, and sniffing out fun? Mrs Boss says doing a will makes you think about these things.

Mrs Boss says I have to pass the sunshine award on to other blogging friends. Of course, she's taken so long thinking about it that most of them have it already! So I will just list the following three. If they would like to accept, all they have to do is paste the award to their own blogs, tell us what makes them happy, and pass it on. I would say "simples!". But I'm a retriever, not a meerkat.

Biddy Fraser at The Bluebell Blog

Joanna Campbell at Brightwriter60

Hayley N Jones at Writing, Reading and Waffling

Have a barking good Easter. Harvey xxx

For Anne Tyler fans...

A rare interview here. You can listen to the full version (after a short advert!) or read the summary. You can also read an extract from her new novel 'The Beginner's Goodbye' and look at photos of places in Baltimore that relate to her novels. I devour anything by Anne Tyler and can't wait to read her latest book.

A visit from Carol E. Wyer

This week our local writers' group welcomed Carol E. Wyer as our guest speaker. Carol gave an entertaining talk about how she drew on personal experience of facing fifty for her debut novel 'Mini Skirts and Laughter Lines'. Published by YouWriteOn in 2011, the novel takes the unusual form of a blog written by the main character.


It is always lovely to meet writers who are generous in sharing what they've learnt along the way. Amongst other things, Carol discussed the trend towards digital publishing, and the relative ease of producing eBooks, especially in Kindle format. This reminded me, yet again, that I'd threatened to put my Pocket Novel onto Kindle and still haven't done it!

Social media has been crucial in the marketing and promotion of Carol's book. She continues to write on the themes of 'Mini Skirts and Laughter Lines' in her own blog Facing 50 With Humour.

Here's how Carol describes the novel.

"Amanda Wilson can't decide between murder, insanity and another glass of red wine. Facing 50 and all that it entails is problematic enough. What's the point in minking your eyes, when your husband would rather watch 'Russia Today' than admire you, strutting in front of the television in only thigh boots and a thong?

Her son has managed to perform yet another magical disappearing act. Could he actually be buried under the mountain of festering washing which is strewn on his bedroom floor? He'll certainly be buried somewhere when she next gets her hands on him.

At least her mother knows how to enjoy herself. She's partying her twilight years away in Cyprus. Queen of the Twister mat, she now has a toy boy in tow.

She really shouldn't have pressed that send button The past always catches up with you sooner or later. Still, her colourful past is a welcome relief to her monochrome present; especially when it comes in the shape of provocative Todd Bradshaw, her first true love.

Soon Mandy has a difficult decision to make; one that will require more than a few glasses of Chianti."

'Mini Skirts and Laughter Lines' is available from bookshops, online, and also as an eBook. For further details, Carol's website is here.

International Tree Foundation

I wish I could remember for sure which blogger posted the link to a recent short story competition run by the International Tree Foundation. I would like to say a big thank you to that kind person, as I have won second prize.

In the picture on the left you can see some of the lovely contents of my prize goody bag. (There was also a nice green tie, but my husband has already taken to wearing it and he's gone out!) For the competition results and three top stories, just go to this page on the International Tree Foundation website.

It may have been Patsy who originally mentioned the competition. If not, I think Patsy deserves thanking anyway, for all the competition details she shares with us. Well done Patsy - keep it up!

Yesterday I met two writing friends in London. We spent most of the day in the Victoria and Albert Museum, admiring beautiful gems in the Jewellery Gallery, seeing the famous Great Bed of Ware, and of course buying the obligatory postcard and fridge magnet in the shop.

Here's a heron who was posing perfectly in Kensington Gardens on my way from the station.

The One and Only

One of the nicest things about being published in magazines is seeing how a story has been set out and illustrated. I am always keen to know whether the characters pictured will match up to how I imagined them when I was writing. They are sometimes quite different, but I am never disappointed.

In the latest People's Friend Fiction Special, I am especially lucky that alongside my story, 'The One and Only', is a short piece about the man who illustrated it, Mike Italiaander. Thank you Mike! I really enjoyed reading this fascinating 'Meet the Artist' slot. It's also a reminder that it takes the skills of many people to bring a story to the page.

My writing continues to plod along at its current slow pace. My submissions are right down as a result, but I am enjoying allowing myself more time to think hard about each story. One of my problems is that I have too many ideas. Maybe some people wouldn't see that as a problem. But I have spells of feeling very frustrated that I cannot use every single idea.

Because of the number of ideas that overwhelm me, I tend to try and use too many of them in one story. Taking stories more slowly has made me realise that I don't need to throw in more and more ideas. What I need to do is go into the original idea more deeply instead of flitting off at a tangent. We're always learning, aren't we, which is one of the reasons why I don't think I will ever be tired of writing.

Here's me, gazing philosophically into a river on a freezing February day!