Oh, my goodness, what a thrilling moment! Electronic books are all very well, but this is the moment I dreamed of, the moment when the actual, material, solid, paper-based paperback arrived through the door and I saw it in the flesh for the first time and touched it and opened it and there were my characters on actual printed pages ....
Excuse me a moment! I think it's all too much for me!
I have to go out shortly, but despite the fact it's been sitting by me on my desk all morning, I don't think I can leave it here - I have to take it with me!
Thursday, 19 January 2012
Monday, 16 January 2012
embedded in self-imposed depths ...
It's a beautiful if very chilly day and I'm writing lectures - four and a half done, seven and a half to go! I seem to have involved myself in slightly too many knitting projects at the moment and there's wool everywhere: there are three separate scarves, a pair of socks, a woolly hat for seafarers, a rug and a jacket, and then there's a crochet blanket and two woven wall hangings, one of which is not going as I had hoped. Most of the projects are just in their infancy, which means that actually finishing something, with all the boost to the morale that involves, is quite far off! I knitted a canary over Christmas and have the wool to knit a hen, and I have a dozen more projects I'd like to start. I normally try to restrict myself to six knitting projects at a time but somehow the needles ran away from me! More Fairisle might well be next on the list - but then there's that lovely Norwegian book, and the Australian patterns, and that semi-Aran one I downloaded from Etsy ... Some of the things I've done are for sale and some for gifts, but often I'm just tempted to keep the things myself (too many jerseys now) or they haven't quite gone as I'd planned and I'm forced to keep them myself. The sales are on and wool is irresistible, so selling some things has to happen so I can buy more wool. We have here a very good charity which collects craft stuff, sometimes used or half-used, for onward sale, and their wool is temptingly cheap and far too abundant. Oh, dear, life is too short!
Sales (of books) are going well this month: I think I'm benefitting from the post-Christmas 'Santa gave me a Kindle' rush still, which is lovely. Thanks to all of you who have bought any of the books! I'm still waiting for the proof copy of Death in a Scarlet Gown which appears to be making its own way here, possibly by raft, from America. Ironically, once it's checked I have to tell a friend in America who has sworn off electronic books for life, so I've to get her to print it on demand! There is no escape!
Plans for more visits to Edinburgh in the near future and perhaps Fife for more research. The fourth book is set in Fife, near Cupar (no doubt I'll find that Shirley McKay's is somewhere similar! It's quite alarming - I really hope she doesn't think I'm trying to copy her in some way. I wonder if we knew each other at St. Andrews? Her second book is, so far, terrific - but deals with the hero coming to terms with his father's death and consequences. Spooky, as I say.).
Best get back to the lectures while I can - it's going to be a horribly busy term!
Sales (of books) are going well this month: I think I'm benefitting from the post-Christmas 'Santa gave me a Kindle' rush still, which is lovely. Thanks to all of you who have bought any of the books! I'm still waiting for the proof copy of Death in a Scarlet Gown which appears to be making its own way here, possibly by raft, from America. Ironically, once it's checked I have to tell a friend in America who has sworn off electronic books for life, so I've to get her to print it on demand! There is no escape!
Plans for more visits to Edinburgh in the near future and perhaps Fife for more research. The fourth book is set in Fife, near Cupar (no doubt I'll find that Shirley McKay's is somewhere similar! It's quite alarming - I really hope she doesn't think I'm trying to copy her in some way. I wonder if we knew each other at St. Andrews? Her second book is, so far, terrific - but deals with the hero coming to terms with his father's death and consequences. Spooky, as I say.).
Best get back to the lectures while I can - it's going to be a horribly busy term!
Monday, 9 January 2012
Happy New Year
A very happy New Year to all - ours was a quiet one as usual. Old age kicking in, or perhaps fumbling in in comfy slippers.
The new Sherlock (Steven Moffat's version) on the BBC is very good - clever and witty. Some weak endings, but I do like seeing poor old Watson getting a word in edgeways and the occasional revenge in this version.
Back to lecture writing for the new term though, as we abandoned the cats for the weekend to go dog-walking with N & D, Number One Cat feels that cat therapy is much more urgent. I have tentatively begun rereading the next Murray novel, as I think I said before, but have made no more progress over Christmas. Instead I've been scuttling through an Elizabeth George (I do enjoy her writing and I admire the clever way she manages to sound almost convincingly like a British author, though I still think her characters' names are sometimes a bit off) and am looking forward to P.D. James' Death Comes to Pemberley, as well as the second Shirley McKay Hew Cullan book, Fate and Fortune. Apparently her hero is off to Edinburgh in this one, with the first one set in St. Andrews - I'm feeling slightly spooked! It's all the stranger as hers, to me (I don't know when she wrote them but they came out recently), seem much newer than mine but are set two hundred odd years earlier. I wonder did we ever meet as students?
And speaking of students, back to the lectures. I wish I'd known, as an undergraduate, how much it means to the lecturer when a student in passing says thanks. I'd have said it much more often!
The new Sherlock (Steven Moffat's version) on the BBC is very good - clever and witty. Some weak endings, but I do like seeing poor old Watson getting a word in edgeways and the occasional revenge in this version.
Back to lecture writing for the new term though, as we abandoned the cats for the weekend to go dog-walking with N & D, Number One Cat feels that cat therapy is much more urgent. I have tentatively begun rereading the next Murray novel, as I think I said before, but have made no more progress over Christmas. Instead I've been scuttling through an Elizabeth George (I do enjoy her writing and I admire the clever way she manages to sound almost convincingly like a British author, though I still think her characters' names are sometimes a bit off) and am looking forward to P.D. James' Death Comes to Pemberley, as well as the second Shirley McKay Hew Cullan book, Fate and Fortune. Apparently her hero is off to Edinburgh in this one, with the first one set in St. Andrews - I'm feeling slightly spooked! It's all the stranger as hers, to me (I don't know when she wrote them but they came out recently), seem much newer than mine but are set two hundred odd years earlier. I wonder did we ever meet as students?
And speaking of students, back to the lectures. I wish I'd known, as an undergraduate, how much it means to the lecturer when a student in passing says thanks. I'd have said it much more often!
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Hooray!
Teaching is over for the term, marking has been done, the Christmas cake is half-marzipanned (I forgot to make double-quantities so had to go and get more ground almonds, ho hum), the snow has come and gone for now, Allotment Major has been put to bed for the winter, and most of the Christmas knitting and sewing is at least under control if not actually, er, finished, and - yippee! - Service of the Heir is up and running on Amazon Kindle!!! At last! It went up on Monday but takes a little while to appear, and then there's all the extra stuff of registering the new ISBN, making sure that people who have been anxiously awaiting it know it's there, thanking various helpers, and lying down in a darkened room for a few hours recovering.
OH! The waxwings have arrived!! Well, they've been around in the town for a month or so but for the first time in a couple of years they've appeared just now on a particular tree they like just outside my study window! They are so handsome. I hope there are still some berries for them: the gales have stripped these trees rather effectively.
Now, what else is to be done? Cracker fillings have been bought, so I need to find the snaps and make the crackers; the bird and associated meat products have to be collected; there's carol singing outside our church tomorrow (I hope it's not pouring) for the local office workers, who may have already suffered enough; the mince pies have to be made; the panto has to be gone to tonight (not the professional expensive one but the amateur one, it has to be); and the present wrapping has to be done. Then after Christmas there's the lecture writing, the catching up on some craft stuff, and starting to read the next Murray of Letho novel. It has the working title of An Unkenspeckle Woman but I suspect that won't survive - we'll see.
Happy Christmas, thank you to all who have bought books from me this year and to those persuasive few, you know who you are, who help me sell them. And a New Year that is all you would wish!
Lexie
OH! The waxwings have arrived!! Well, they've been around in the town for a month or so but for the first time in a couple of years they've appeared just now on a particular tree they like just outside my study window! They are so handsome. I hope there are still some berries for them: the gales have stripped these trees rather effectively.
Now, what else is to be done? Cracker fillings have been bought, so I need to find the snaps and make the crackers; the bird and associated meat products have to be collected; there's carol singing outside our church tomorrow (I hope it's not pouring) for the local office workers, who may have already suffered enough; the mince pies have to be made; the panto has to be gone to tonight (not the professional expensive one but the amateur one, it has to be); and the present wrapping has to be done. Then after Christmas there's the lecture writing, the catching up on some craft stuff, and starting to read the next Murray of Letho novel. It has the working title of An Unkenspeckle Woman but I suspect that won't survive - we'll see.
Happy Christmas, thank you to all who have bought books from me this year and to those persuasive few, you know who you are, who help me sell them. And a New Year that is all you would wish!
Lexie
Sunday, 13 November 2011
Dreich
Feeling a bit on the gloomy side today. Outside it is damp and dark (dreich - there's no good English equivalent, really); I'm feeling a bit miserable about the politics going on on the Allotment Minor site; I've two charity bids to get in by next Friday with the usual difficulty of herding committee members together; I still haven't written Tuesday's lecture; I just seem to have too many juggling balls in the air at the moment and I haven't the energy to run and catch any that stray.
On the plus side (there has to be one somewhere) I finally finished typing up Service of the Heir yesterday morning. It still needs to be gone through with a fine-tooth comb, but it's a milestone. The trouble is I'd rather read the next one than go back over this one again! The other plus is that I told all my students on Monday to go and give blood if they could, and apparently they pretty much went in a body and did so. I went on Wednesday - remaining aloof as ever! Well, it's usually a bit of a stampede at the university, and I'd already made an appointment at the transfusion centre. Then Number One Cat's turn at the vet that evening for his boosters: he'd obviously decided he'd show Number Two Cat how to behave and was very good indeed. He's losing a bit of weight in his old age - time was the vet would back off into a corner as he emerged from his carrying box!
On the realistic side (there are three sides to everything, I find - even pieces of paper) I have to remember that I had pizza on Friday night and a wrap today and gluten does give me fits of depression (or serious indigestion). I think I'm glutenised. Glutenated? Hyperglutenated? Bah!
On the plus side (there has to be one somewhere) I finally finished typing up Service of the Heir yesterday morning. It still needs to be gone through with a fine-tooth comb, but it's a milestone. The trouble is I'd rather read the next one than go back over this one again! The other plus is that I told all my students on Monday to go and give blood if they could, and apparently they pretty much went in a body and did so. I went on Wednesday - remaining aloof as ever! Well, it's usually a bit of a stampede at the university, and I'd already made an appointment at the transfusion centre. Then Number One Cat's turn at the vet that evening for his boosters: he'd obviously decided he'd show Number Two Cat how to behave and was very good indeed. He's losing a bit of weight in his old age - time was the vet would back off into a corner as he emerged from his carrying box!
On the realistic side (there are three sides to everything, I find - even pieces of paper) I have to remember that I had pizza on Friday night and a wrap today and gluten does give me fits of depression (or serious indigestion). I think I'm glutenised. Glutenated? Hyperglutenated? Bah!
Sunday, 6 November 2011
Mud and grouting
It's a wonder I can type this evening - an afternoon allotmenting, including a blitz job with my fellow plotters on our shared polytunnel, then home to grout the new tiles in the bathroom. Fingers fizzing with nettle stings. The last of the runner beans picked, and the pak choi, as there was a frost last night. The plot looks strangely unfamiliar without the bean canes up.
I had to cancel a lecture last week as there was already a class in that room. My class, assembling themselves in the foyer of the building, offered to follow me up the stairs and take on the other class in unarmed combat, but I suggested they go and read quietly somewhere instead. I went to see my secretary who accused me of being fussy about rooms again - I wasn't aware we were reduced to room sharing, but there we are! Anyway, she booked me into another room, which turned out, as far as I can see, to be a converted corridor. Some of my students were so far away I offered to get them binoculars. The whiteboard was tiny and fixed behind the fixed desk, so the lower third was completely invisible, the middle third was invisible if I was behind the desk, and I couldn't reach the top third. There was, of course, a new box of chalk. I offered to have a World Tour teeshirt printed for the class with a list of all the locations we've been in so far, then thought (a) they might not all fit and (b) there might still be more!
The coffee for the 9am tutorial is going down well. Not that they're actually drinking it, but they seem to appreciate the harmless eccentricity of my bringing it.
Two more lovely evenings working on Service - itching now to get on with the next one, but that's a treat that's going to have to wait! And it's almost certainly much worse than I remember ...
I had to cancel a lecture last week as there was already a class in that room. My class, assembling themselves in the foyer of the building, offered to follow me up the stairs and take on the other class in unarmed combat, but I suggested they go and read quietly somewhere instead. I went to see my secretary who accused me of being fussy about rooms again - I wasn't aware we were reduced to room sharing, but there we are! Anyway, she booked me into another room, which turned out, as far as I can see, to be a converted corridor. Some of my students were so far away I offered to get them binoculars. The whiteboard was tiny and fixed behind the fixed desk, so the lower third was completely invisible, the middle third was invisible if I was behind the desk, and I couldn't reach the top third. There was, of course, a new box of chalk. I offered to have a World Tour teeshirt printed for the class with a list of all the locations we've been in so far, then thought (a) they might not all fit and (b) there might still be more!
The coffee for the 9am tutorial is going down well. Not that they're actually drinking it, but they seem to appreciate the harmless eccentricity of my bringing it.
Two more lovely evenings working on Service - itching now to get on with the next one, but that's a treat that's going to have to wait! And it's almost certainly much worse than I remember ...
Sunday, 23 October 2011
The mixture as before
Having reread last week's post, I'm wondering if I accidentally pressed Repeat by mistake. Apart from the exam, this week has been much the same again - teaching, ceilidh, allotment, stiff back by Sunday! If you add in a 'flu jab and an appointment with the dental hygienist, you have the peaks of my week's excitement.
Well, not entirely - I did manage to spend a whole evening editing Service of the Heir, including my favourite bit involving Murray and an open drain on a foggy night. That cheered me up slightly, and made up for waking early one morning mumbling, 'But Henry was at the funeral! So he couldn't have ... oh, bother ...'
One classroom that had no black or whiteboard last week has a whiteboard this week - with a projector pointing away from it, and a lovely big box of new chalk. Very useful on a whiteboard. I've liberated most of the chalk and intend tomorrow to transfer it to a lecture room where there's an ancient blackboard but only ever a few fragments of chalk. The boardless classroom is my favourite venue, but not that of my students as that particular tutorial is at 9am. They were so dozy on Tuesday I'm planning to take them coffee and biscuits this week, so they have no excuse.
Someone has commented that Number One Cat deserves to be spoiled as he's had his nose put out of joint by the arrival (not planned) of Number Two Cat. This is absolutely true. The tuna can is being opened even as we speak. Number One Cat is delighted he has a loyal supporter.
Now to go and put out the wheelie bin. Oh, the glamour of a writer's life!
Well, not entirely - I did manage to spend a whole evening editing Service of the Heir, including my favourite bit involving Murray and an open drain on a foggy night. That cheered me up slightly, and made up for waking early one morning mumbling, 'But Henry was at the funeral! So he couldn't have ... oh, bother ...'
One classroom that had no black or whiteboard last week has a whiteboard this week - with a projector pointing away from it, and a lovely big box of new chalk. Very useful on a whiteboard. I've liberated most of the chalk and intend tomorrow to transfer it to a lecture room where there's an ancient blackboard but only ever a few fragments of chalk. The boardless classroom is my favourite venue, but not that of my students as that particular tutorial is at 9am. They were so dozy on Tuesday I'm planning to take them coffee and biscuits this week, so they have no excuse.
Someone has commented that Number One Cat deserves to be spoiled as he's had his nose put out of joint by the arrival (not planned) of Number Two Cat. This is absolutely true. The tuna can is being opened even as we speak. Number One Cat is delighted he has a loyal supporter.
Now to go and put out the wheelie bin. Oh, the glamour of a writer's life!
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