Happiness, Sadness, and Something In-Between

:-)

I love good news. And good news about a brilliant book by a fabulous writer is double (or even triple) good news! Which means it must be GREAT news! What, what, what? Well, I’m delighted that Patricia Wood’s wonderful debut novel, LOTTERY, is a contender for the 2008 Orange Prize for Fiction!

And, because I’m having no luck winning the UK’s National Lottery (though I live in hope), I’ll trot along to the bookie’s and bet on LOTTERY winning the Orange Prize!

:-/ 

I adore characterful property. And the gypsy blood that runs through my veins means I’m always thinking of moving. In fact, I was supposed  to be moving next week. To this apartment:

But my buyer backed down two days before exchange of contracts, so I was forced to pull out of the purchase. This is exactly what happened when I tried to move last October. So, I’ve had two potential buyers pull out, you guessed it, two days before exchange of contracts. And on both occasions, I was trying to move to an apartment!!

This must be a sign that my next move should be… NOT to an apartment, but towards my dream of living in the country.

:-(
The untimely death of writer and director Anthony Minghella is incredibly sad news; “… absolutely ghastly” is how Juliet Stevenson describes it in her warm and insightful tribute.

I re-watched Truly, Madly, Deeply only last week, as part of my research on ghosts.

You have to be in it, to win it!

Lottery by Patricia Wood
















My name is Perry L. Crandall and I am not retarded.

You have to have an IQ number less than 75 to be retarded. I am not. Mine is 76.

I am lucky. I know this because I am not retarded.

I know this because I have two good arms.

And I know this because I won twelve million dollars in the Washington State Lottery.


Perry L. Crandall is an adorable character. His story grabbed me from page one.

I loved the voice and the rhythm of the writing. I felt the haziness surrounding the action and conversations Perry didn’t understand, or didn’t wish to be involved in. Perry is a man with a low IQ, but also a good and happy person.

When he wins the lottery, his mother and brothers try to swindle him out of his fortune. But Perry ultimately proves to be wiser than them.

I laughed, and I cried. Perry’s friends became my friends. And, after 305 pages, I wanted to keep on reading.

This book is a gem!

Ghosts

I’m recovering from another heavy cold. This is the second within three or four weeks -- so it seems the tone is set for the season.

I sailed through last winter without a sniff. But this year, it looks like I’ll be sneezing right through to spring. Not that this stops me working. No way! It does stop me returning a phone call, if an email will do, and the dust has reprieve from the hoover. And, of course, I’ve had deadlines on design projects, so my allocated sleeping hours have suffered too.

Yet, I feel inspired!

Now my first novel is ‘finished’ and on submission to agents, I had begun to work on its sequel, or, second in the series (I would love to write six). But I also have a rough outline and first chapter of a completely different story. A ghost story, with a fifteen-year-old protagonist named Daisy Pine. Two nights ago, I was so preoccupied with this story that I couldn’t sleep. I saw Daisy standing at the top of a flight of stairs, and she was smaller, younger, eleven-years-old to be precise. Then all sorts of bits and pieces, well, big things actually, like Daisy's circumstances and the ghosts' motivation, fell into place.

The essence of this story has been with me for a while, but I felt uncertain about writing a ghost story. The very first novel I seriously attempted was a psychological thriller. But spending so much time with a dark and frightening story just wasn’t me! There was no way I could stay with it and ditched it halfway through. For this reason, I didn’t want to rush headlong into a novel I couldn’t sustain. Then, a few weeks ago, I wrote a short ghost story (with midget ghosts ;)) and survived! I didn’t frighten myself to death or turn into a totally strange and scary person.

I’m now really excited about this new novel, and want to write it with momentum, without all the stops and starts that have plagued my previous writing. I’ve set a deadline of the end of March for the first draft. It’s doable, so long as fire and flood stay away from my door!

*****

I've just read in the comments section on Patricia Wood's blog, that she wrote the first draft of Lottery between January and March. I take that as a very good sign.