New September's Story...

I've just posted a new story in my September's series - but it's a weepie!

The story follows Bert Mottram, one of Northbridge's most noticeable characters. Read it with a hanky handy - you have been warned!

Pop over to www.septembers-cafe.blogspot.com to read it - and be sure to let me know what you think!

Bored at work...?

So, you're enduring yet another life-draining day at the office...

How can you lighten up your day?

Answer: The Great Sticky Note Experiment!

I came across this amazing video on YouTube today and it made me want to buy Post-It notes! This is dedicated to everyone stuck in boring offices waiting for something exciting to happen. Enjoy!

Buy My Music!!

At long last you can now buy my music!

To hear some of my tracks, scroll down to the bottom of this blog to find the player, click to preview and head to my store on indiestore.com to buy four of my songs for only 99p each!

Go on - treat yourself!

Rain, holidays and random publicity!

British holidays - don't you just love 'em?

Well, I do - but, of course, in doing so I run the risk of encountering the Great British Weather... So, I've just come back from a week in the gorgeous Lake District and guess whst? Yup, it rained.

Having said that, it's been an incredibly wet year and with people currently facing having their homes flooded, I'm not going to complain about a few soggy days in Cumbria. Despite the frustration of being rained in (albeit in an impossibly lovely Lakeland cottage) I still found enough to do. Catching up on reading, for example - I managed to read a whole book in a week, which is a major achievement for me. In my day job as a Copywriter I've become a 'professional reader' - meaning that I scan text for errors and flow rather than actually reading it. It makes it incredibly difficult to read a book for fun - but I've been making myself do this because I truly believe that my writing suffers if I don't read regularly.

It was also good because I got to do some serious work on my novel, The Mystical Wombat's Guide to Life©. I've completely reworked the ending after finding, during editing, that it lacked pace and resolved too quickly. I'm really pleased with the new ending - even though one of my major characters has suffered as a result. The decision to injure or even kill a major character is always a scary one, but I think it's the right one... Ah well, we'll see soon!

I just need to devote time to complete all the work on the novel - the response from my Wombat Proofing Posse has been incredibly positive so far, so it's all looking promising...

One lovely - if a bit random - thing that happened last week is that the interview I gave to the Stourbridge News was published. It was decidedly odd to be interviewed but a very pleasant experience and the article is fab (even though they got my home town wrong - it's Wollaston, not Wordsley). You can read it online here...

All in all, quite a positive (if soggy) week!

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...

Cats, Coffee and Cafés...

We've been adopted by a cat.

Well, to be exact, my boyfriend Bob and his housemate Leanne have been adopted by a cat, so I've been adopted by proxy...

Magic (or Madge) turned up in Bob's back garden about two weeks ago, very timid but curious and seemingly never away from the garden for longer than a few minutes. Gradually, she dared to come nearer to us and, by the weekend, was sitting happily on Leanne's lap when she was out in the garden. Of course, Bob and Leanne were adamant that they weren't going to get attached to the moggie and that they were only being friendly. Of course she wasn't going to become a pet, they said.

The first indication of a sea change in their thinking was on Saturday, when a large bag of Kit-e-Kat cat food appeared in the kitchen. Shortly followed by a couple of tins of Whiskas. And 'the cat's bowls', which appeared outside the back door...

By Monday, Bob was taping plastic round the space underneath the barbecue to create a weatherproof hideaway 'in case it rained' and last night we just gave up resisting the inevitability of the situation and Madge officially moved in.

Someone once said that you don't choose a cat; the cat chooses you - and I'm beginning to agree. Madge is quite happy sleeping on anyone who sits down for longer than five seconds and is particularly fond of tummy rubs. It's amazing that, in such a short time, she has established herself as part of the family. We don't know where she came from, or how long she's going to grace us with her presence, but I have to say her arrival has been a pleasant surprise and she has managed to win everyone's hearts already.

**UPDATE: Shortly after posting this, we discovered that Madge was actually a 'he' - so the name was changed to 'Maj' (as in 'His Majesty'). When Bob was worried that the cat's weight might mean a pregnancy, the vet's reply went something along the lines of this:

VET: Well, the good news is that 'she' isn't pregnant. The bad news is that 'she' is a 'he'...

It's taken a while to see the Majster as a boy and we still end up correcting ourselves. Maj, meanwhile, appears to be singularly unfazed by the whole thing. He's enjoying the 'guilt-treats' bestowed on him whenever we accidentally allude to his femininity!

In other areas of life, September's, my short story blog, is doing really well - there are now four stories (Nessa, Blanche, Daniel and PC Minshull) and I've been really thrilled at the response so far. If you haven't popped in for a coffee yet, why not head over there now?

If you like what you read, leave a comment to let me know what you think!

Fancy a Coffee?

Now, you know me - I can't resist the odd visit to my local coffee shop for a spot of people-watching over the rim of my cappuccino...

I was chatting to my best friend Helen, who works in a coffee shop, and we were discussing how often you see people and wonder what their stories are. This gave me an idea (which can often be dangerous!)... Why not create a fictitious coffee shop and create stories for its customers and staff?

So, I've created a new blog for my coffee shop stories. Called September's, it will feature a new story each week and will give you a unique insight into the characters who visit or work at the small café in Northbridge, a small market town on the River Severn. The tales will cover the whole range of human experience: some sad, some funny, some tragic - there may even be even some fantastical ones every now and again.

Of course, Coffee & Roses and my website are still very much alive - I just wanted to create a home specifically for a series of stories.

If you've got a spare minute, please pop over to September's and be sure to let me know what you think!