Quite the most awesome video...

Bit of a treat for you...

I've just been to the cinema to watch The Proposal with Sandra Bullock (fab as ever) and Ryan Reynolds (gorgeous, talented and semi-naked - what's not to love?!) and this video for Strawberry Swing, Coldplay's new single, played before the film...

It was stunning on the big screen but just as impressive on the little screen when I got home!

Whether you like Coldplay or not, I defy you not to be thrilled beyond belief by this awesome piece of film-making magic. Seriously. Forget it's Chris Martin and just watch the amazing animation...

Enjoy!

It's all happening...

I'm one busy bee at the mo...

The book is coming along very nicely, with the last set of edits due back from my editor today - so I'm a little bit nervous about how those will be when they arrive, but excited too!

Also - and this is incredibly exciting - I'm finally being able to put my album together!!! I've been self-funding the album project for the past couple of years or so, and with all that happened last year with losing my job, the whole thing had to be put on the back-burner. Now I have a little bit saved I'm finally able to fund the last few bits so I should hopefully have a sparkly album all finished in the next couple of months or so!!! Keep watching the blog for more on this as it happens!

Talking of music, two of the tracks going on the album are songs I created with the very talented Mr Reuben Halsey... He's just remixed a song by Orbital and created a brilliant video for it, so I thought I'd share it here... Enjoy!!

Happy New Year!

It's going to be a great year...

Keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks, as I have a HUMUNGOUS bit of news. Can't say anything yet, but it's big...

(And no, before you ask, I'm not pregnant and Bob hasn't proposed!)

In the meantime, I have just become a proud Auntie to the impossibly gorgeous Freya Elizabeth Smith, born on Sunday 4th January and weighing a healthy 8lbs 1oz! I'm going to meet her for the first time on Saturday and I can't wait! My sister Bev and her husband Ro are over the moon and it's fantastic to see them become a family (even if it is a tad disconcerting to see your kid sister become a Mum!)


My truly amazing and disgustingly talented friend Reuben Halsey has just released his brand new EP on indiestore.com - featuring a couple of songs that we worked on together, plus three other brilliant tracks. You can hear them here

That's all for now, but make sure you check back soon for
my B-I-I-I-I-I-I-G news!

Facing the scary stuff...

By now, you know I'm an optimist... But sometimes even Eternal Optimists with the Optimism Gene™ firmly in place get scared sometimes.

Now is one of those times.

My health has been a bit odd for the past three months and this week I finally decided to do something about it. Whilst my doctor wasn't overly concerned by my seemingly unrelated smorgasbord of symptoms (dizzyness, heightened emotions, overheating hands, pulsing in my arms and legs and a frustratingly big weight gain in a short period - despite watching what I eat and excercising more) he said he suspected I may have an underactive thyroid.

That in itself is fine - if the blood test results next week confirm this then I know there are pills that can treat it relatively easily - but one thing that's really troubling me is the effect it's currently having on my voice.

As you know, I'm a singer-songwriter and, just recently, I've started to have some success for my songs. MTV have optioned one of my songs - The Man Behind The Smile for their next raft of programming and I just heard today that I'm being considered for the International Award at the National MusicOz Awards in Austrailia (how mad is that?!) Without sounding too showbizzy, singing is incredibly important to me - it's how I interpret my world and whenever I lose my voice I feel like I've had a vital organ disabled.

My voice has been stuggling in its upper register for the past three months. I just assumed it was a flu thing that wouldn't leave me alone. But Bob's mum told me yesterday that a croaky voice is one of the indicators of a thyroid problem. My speaking voice has dropped a semitone and is constantly husky (not a good thing, contrary to popular opinion!) - I'm struggling to sing and it feels horrible. Plus I can't record any of my new songs and I have some wedding gigs fast approaching that I might struggle with.

Though I know this may all be academic when I get my test results next Wednesday, I have to admit that I'm scared. Money problems you can deal with; relationship problems are terribly painful but you can recover; but when it comes to your health it's so important and so beyond your control. If I'm completely honest, I'm petrified that I won't get my voice back. For years I've taken it for granted that I could sing; now I'm scared it's going to disappear for good.

I'm trying to stay positive and I'm sure it will be OK - but facing the scary stuff is the biggest test for even the most hopeless optimist...

Now you can BUY the Story Wot I wrote!

Wow - two stories published in a row!

This time, my short story Remember has been published by Authortrek.com , as part of their series of downloadable PDF stories.

Praise for Remember:

'...a chillingly classic short story from a superb writer... an excellent short story... great emotional depths, as well as being supremely spooky. I can foresee 'Remember', like the great Victorian ghost stories, living on for many years to come…'

For the princely sum of 50p, you can download the PDF from Authortrek!

If you're interested, click here

Woo-hoo!

Rejections and the Art of Positive Thinking...

I just received three rejections for my work.

Three. Count 'em...

Being a writer - I refuse to use the term 'struggling', although poor is probably apt - I am getting used to rejections and I'm determined not to take it personally. Even though each rejection feels a bit like the literary equivalent of someone calling your kid ugly... But even a self-confessed Eternal Optimist like me has to admit that three in one day is a bit much...

Nevertheless, the way I've decided to look at it is like this: each rejection is one less to endure before someone says 'Yes'. Just purely by the Law of Averages, someone, somewhere has to say yes eventually.

I've had some success - visit www.myvillage.com to see my latest review of Made of Honour - so I know I'm not a completely useless scribbler. Still no money, but it's the writing that counts.

One day, I will write something that becomes part of someone else's world. It's not an if, it's a when. Until that day, I'm utilising the Positive Gene™ whenever and wherever possible!!

Sneezing pandas!

A-a-a-a-a-a-chooooooo!

As this is the season of hay fever, I thought I'd share these sneezy videos to make fellow sufferers smile. (In between sneezes, that is...) Enjoy!

Panda sneezing fit



Making Mum jump

Old mail and new beginnings...

Something odd just happened...

I was checking my emails (as you do) and realised I had a whole folder of stuff I'd kept from an old boyfriend. I don't know why I'd kept it - I can't remember the last time I even looked at it and, seeing as I was unceremoniously dumped by him over two years ago, there's absolutely no reason I'd want to revisit my past.

That was why it was so strange to find the folder - and realise how much I've moved on since that time.

It was odd to think that I had ever been (a) as naiive as I was; and (b) as completely desperate as I was with him. The poor guy probably didn't know what hit him when I fell for him as hard as I did. Having said that, it wasn't all one-sided; what began as an online correspondance quickly turned into this web of words that caught both of us up in its potency, I think. It's odd how you can feel you know someone through emails and phone calls so quickly - when if you were meeting face to face you would naturally take a lot longer to get to know each other. One minute we were sharing jokes about awful chick-flicks and Ninja Grannies (yep, this was where the genre of geriatric warrior originated) and the next he was declaring undying love for me and I was spending hours at my laptop waiting for him to message me.

Ugh... When I look back on it now, I feel so completely embarassed by the whole thing. It would have been so much better if we had just remained jokey pen-pals and never let our hearts run away with ridiculous romantic notions. I lost a friend because it all got out of hand and it's a shame...

They say you learn from your mistakes; in my case this was definitely true. After this guy I met the gorgeous Bob and took my time getting to know him. I was so scared of being that bunny-boiling FREAK which I'd turned into before that I got a grip of myself and didn't entertain crazy notions beyond what we were capable of. That's why it's working and I'm not panicking about the future.

So, if the email guy in question should happen upon my blog - I'm sorry. I wish you'd just stayed my friend and I wish I hadn't reacted the way I did. Hopefully, lessons learned and all that should count for something...

Sometimes you need to sit up and take notice...

A friend on My Writers Circle posted this video about the plight of Orangutans in Borneo.

It just made me sit up and take notice. Sometimes mankind needs to understand what we are doing to our world. There's such a delicate balance in nature, yet our greed and desire for development often ignores this, arrogantly intent on getting what mankind wants, no matter what cost.

Please take a few minutes to watch this. Sorry for the preach, but sometimes we need to sit up and take notice. Thanks for watching.

The Notorious Cinnamon Kid Raid!!

As you know, I adore words - which is handy, if you're a writer!

But I have to say that crosswords don't thrill me - unless they're someone else's, in which case I rock ... In fact, word games of all descriptions frustrate me and I'm rubbish at scrabble.

But I have finally found a word game that's amusing - anagrams!

On a random anagram generator I found recently, my name becomes Cinnamon Kid Raid - which I like very much! It sounds like a notorious Wild West happening... Maybe the Cinnamon Kid was so named for her raids on unsuspecting Coffee Houses of the Old West. She'd mosey into town, order a Cinnamon Latté and terrorise the store owners until they surrendered all their finest cakes and pastries. The only clue she'd ever leave behind would be a trail of cinnamon powder, as she rode into the sunset.

So, forget the Milky Bar Kid and Billy the Kid - there's a new Kid in town. Hold onto your pastries, Mother, the Cinnamon Kid's a'coming on a Raid!

Lake District pics - part one

As promised, here are a few of the stunning photos that the lovely Bob took on our holiday in the Lake District.


We climbed up Silver How (at the back of our cottage), early one morning, through thick fog. When we were nearly at the top, we emerged out of the clouds to see this amazing sight...



It really was breathtaking, watching the clouds rolling like waves into the valley as the sun came up.


On the footpath by Aira Force, near Ullswater, I turned back and saw this view - I quickly grabbed Bob and told him to take a photo. He now calls me his Location Manager !


















And here's the photographer himself (I took this one - arty, I know!)

The hills (well, the mountains) are alive...

...with the sound of me!!

I've just got back from a totally fantastic holiday in the gorgeous Lake District (so apologies for the small delay in optimistic scribbling!)

If you've never been, you have to go... Not only is it the place that inspired Wordsworth, Ruskin, Beatrix Potter and Arthur Ransome to write (amongst others), but it also boasts some of the most breathtakingly stunning scenery anywhere in the world.

The Lake District (or Cumbria, to give it its county name), is absolutely the best place for a weary optimist to recharge... You can't fail to be inspired with so much magestic beauty all around you (and I'm not just talking about Bob...)

We stayed in the Langdale Valley, in the tiny village of Chapel Stile (near Elterwater) - an excellent base for a holiday with loads of wonderful places nearby.

What you need to know about my family and the Lakes is that, for every year of my childhood, we headed here for our family holiday. And it usually rained. Constantly! Despite that, we always managed to have truly magical weeks there - and we still revisit many of our childhood holiday haunts. This holiday was no different - except that we had brilliant weather :o)

I went with my parents, sister and brother-in-law - and the lovely Bob came with us, too! (Our first holiday together - another milestone!) As it was Bob's first visit to Cumbria, my Dad was in his element - so the childhood haunts were even more on the agenda than usual.

We visited the pretty little village of Hawkshead and had great cake from The Minstrels Gallery tearoom (which has gone uber-upmarket since I was little - Orange Pekoe Tea now, fnar, fnar...) I have to say, however, that this tearoom won the prize for most over-the-top presentation of an afternoon tea - a silver cake stand with three plates: scone on one, tiny butter pat and cream sample on next and miniscule jam portion on top... Talk about over-presentation...

On every Dickinson Family holiday, a trip on the big boats on Windermere is a must - but you have to pick the coldest, windiest day of your week to travel and you have - repeat, have - to sit on the open top deck, huddled up against the elements. No sitting in the comfy, warm coffee deck, oh no. Warmth is for wimps... So, true to form, we picked the coldest, dullest day and sat, like true Brits, snuggled up watching the seagulls battling against the cross-winds and trying to eat fudge with frozen lips! We travelled from Ambleside to Bowness on the 'Tern' and the return journey on the 'Swan' (my favourite one, so I was mightily chuffed.)

We also visited Wastwater (recently voted 'Britain's Favourite View' in an ITV1 survey - hence the crowds there). It's the deepest lake in England and overlooked by Scafell Pike, England's tallest mountain, so the views are amazing, with the scree slopes from the mountains falling right into the lake.

Grasmere was as pretty a town as ever - and as full of rude, arrogant Brits as usual, as a lot of the posh hotels are nearby (one particularly pampered pooch decided to wee up Bob's leg and its owner didn't even seem concerned!)

We climbed up by Aira Force near Ullswater and Stock Ghyll Falls behind Ambleside - both beautiful river walks with impressive waterfalls.

We also visited Tarn Hows (amazing man-made lake high in the hills), Coniston (pretty little market town on the shores of the lake where Donald Campbell's water speed record was set) and tackled the edge-of-your-seat-thrilling rides over the Hard Knott and Wrynose passes (just don't look down..)

Our favourite cafe was a stone's throw from our cottage in Chapel Stile - Brambles Cafe (above the Co-op) was absolutely the best place for breakfast... and the cakes looked amazing, too. The staff were so friendly and the views stunning - if you get a chance to visit, you have to check it out!

I'll post some photos next time... Until then, if I've whetted your appetite, check out the places I visited on the Lake Distict website at:

www.LoveTheLakes.co.uk

and have a look at Brambles Cafe by clicking this link or pasting it into your browser:

http://www.golakes.co.uk/lang-dms/thedms.asp?dms=13¶m1=taste¶m2=C24¶m3=ja¶m4=ja&venue=5027858

Only trouble is, I want to be back there right now...

I made the semi-finals!

Well, I think I almost made it...

I just got my results for the UK Songwriting Competition and it appears I made the semi-finals! 5,000 people entered this year and my entry, Man Behind The Smile, was in the top 23%... Not bad for a warbler from the glorious Black Country, eh?!

Being the eternal optimist that I am, I will of course ignore the fact that my song is, actually, FAB - and a million times better than the 6 out of 10 score I got... Instead, I will be quite chuffed that A: I entered in the first place; and B: I actually did quite well!

To hear the song, visit my website at www.mirandadickinson.com or go to my profile at www.broadjam.com

I think I will allow myself a very small helping of smugness... Yay!

Comfy duvets of doooom...

Life is full of eternal conundrums.

Like, for instance, why is it that your hair always looks fabulous on the day you've booked a haircut? Or how come every time you park your car (or return to your parked car), there's someone trying to get into or get out of the space next to you? Or why is it that you always end up with an odd sock when you've done your washing?

Well, I thought of another one this morning... Why is it that your bed is sooo comfy when you wake up in the morning, even when you've had the worst night's sleep the night before? No matter how much you've tossed and turned during the night, desperate to get to sleep; no matter how lumpy your bed has felt or how heavy your duvet has been - when you wake up and it's time to jump into the day ahead, suddenly your bed becomes a safe, warm, cocoon and your duvet light as a cloud around you...

I found that this morning. It seemed to take an age for me to finally go to sleep last night. Yet this morning, when my alarm performed its loud, unwelcome fanfare, my bed was simply the most blissful, cosy place in the whole world. I knew I needed to jump out of bed and get ready for work, yet every atom in me was clinging to the nice, warm duvet, like a stubborn child who won't let her mum take her favourite teddy bear when it's muddy and needs a good wash.

Don't get me wrong; I love mornings. Once I'm up, that is. But that bit between waking up (all snuggly and warm) and actually lifting myself out of bed, is a real toughie!

I wonder if, somewhere in the world, there is a secret society of Bed and Duvet Manufacturers, who are in clandestine cahoots with an Anti-Capitalist cell... Their main aim is to disrupt the global economy, challenging businesses and international corporations with their subtle, cynical schemes.

"We will conquer them, my brothers, one comfy bed at a time!"

They quietly design their weapons - beds, duvets and pillows that take on an unearthly snuggliness as soon as the daylight hits them, rendering their owners helpless against their cosy charms. Unwilling to get out of bed, the hapless occupants remain, lost in comfort, missing their train or bus or forgetting the drive into work. Slowly but surely, offices and businesses, airports and factories all grind to a halt, as their workforce disappears - thus causing massive companies and industries across the world to collapse...

Hmm. I think my lack of sleep is showing now!

Sometimes, I make Pollyanna look morose...

I'm an eternal optimist. I can't help it. And, it's not for want of trying, believe me.

I think I have an in-built Optimism Gene (TM). Somewhere, way back in the depths of my psyche, this little gene sits - probably in a really cosy chair with a nice cup of tea and a blanket over its knees... Then, whenever a situation arises that may cause me to doubt, despair or just plain give up, the little gene jumps into action. Sparkling like a twinkly star in a dark night, my Optimism Gene (TM) dashes round my subconscious mind, spreading its warm, happy glow, making everything feel safe and snuggly again.

Not that I don't occasionally get down and disheartened - sometimes I do (maybe when the O.G. is asleep or just far too snuggly for its own good). But it isn't long before my little happy gene snaps back into action and I'm all positive again.

Rain for 100 days? No worries, I can see a tiny patch of blue sky, so it can't last much longer. And even if it does, I love my big green anorak - and wellies are SO this season...

Unceremoniously dumped? Well, it's just making way for the next adonis who will arrive. Any moment now... Um..
*checks watch, whistles embarassedly*...
Well, even if there's a Handsome Prince Shortage (happens more often than you realise), I can get all those things done that you never get the chance to attend to when you have a "significant other". And I can have sole use of the remote control. Ooh, and I never have to worry about watching my cringingly-embarrassing DVD collection...

See? It's inescapable...

...But then, is that necessarily a BAD thing...?