My book,The Blog of Maisy Malone, is free on Kindle for 3 days (23rd Nov – 25th Nov)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Blog-Maisy-Malone-ebook/dp/B00A3B4BZ6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353705929&sr=8-1&keywords=the+blog+of+maisy+malone” title=”here” target=”_blank”>

Don’t miss out!

The paperback is nearly ready.

Quite excited to finally have Maisy Malone in my sweaty palms!

Working with troubled teenagers is certainly a new experience. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. Really love it. But the abuse you can get is pretty eye-opening.

The usual ‘f’ off’s are expected. It’s part of the culture. But some of the insults are so bad, they’re quite funny. Here is an example of the recent outbursts:

- Er, miss, how can you remember school? You’re soooo old. (I’m 33)

- Er, miss, you look like that really minging social worker. Like, that one that took the baby in Eastenders. But, like, she weren’t really that minging, but she was like, proper moody. Except you don’t have her squeaky voice.

- Miss, you’re not that old. You’re, what? 45? (I’m 33!)

- Miss!! Are you and sir married? (no, and he’s about 60 – thanks…)

- You look like an emu.

I guess one good thing is, I’m growing a thick skin.

I think I’m going to need it.

I took the decision a few weeks ago to put the first few chapters of my novel on Authonomy (anyone who’s interested can check out the link out here –

www.authonomy.com/books/42657/the-blog-of-maisy-malone

I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to grab a little exposure, gain some feedback and perhaps find my way onto the Editor’s desk. Because that’s the point of it I guess, the secret hope that your novel will end up on the Publishers highly polished desk and be recognised as the next best thing since the last ‘next best thing’.

But sadly, I don’t think it really works that way. After a few weeks of having my book going up and down the charts more randomly than Cliff Richard on acid, I have concluded that there is no logic in the rankings. Nor sadly is there much to be gained in the feedback you receive, although it does plump your ego, the majority of users heap glowing praise at you in the hope that you will respond in kind. And of course you do, because we’re British and good like that. Also, who doesn’t like positive comments? You would have to have a heart of steel not to get a tiny glow from the sugary words that are thrown at you. But then the doubt creeps in. Along with the million requests to ‘read and rate my book’.

All of this is undertaken in the hope, the desire, to fall into the top 5 and be plucked out by the fat fingers of the editors for a further review. A review, not a request to read your novel. I have a feeling that you have more chance of becoming Simon Cowell’s adopted love child than securing a publishing contract this way.

So I guess I will bow out. And continue to search for an agent/publisher in the usual, bog standard way. It’s hard, it’s soul-destroying at times, but its real. And that for me is enough.

Wish me luck!

It’s my brother’s birthday today. He died over ten years ago. It’s weird how quickly time whizzes by. Before long I will be the age he was when he died, there is just something sadder about that somehow.

I’ve spent the day trying not to be maudlin, but instead have been playing the music he loved – the music he taught me to love – Beatles, Bowie, Bolan, Led Zeppelin. Unfortunately He also liked Gary Glitter and Mud but we won’t go there.

My 4 year old is a bit perplexed about the whole thing.

“How can it be someone’s birthday if they’re dead?” she asked. “They’re not getting any older…”

I suppose she has a point. While I’m getting older, he will remain forever stuck at 40 – the age that he predicted he would die by.

He wasn’t perfect by any means. He made many mistakes and I have so many things that I wish I could say to him, if only I had the chance.

One thing I would tell him was how sorry I was for not understanding him better.

Happy Birthday Bruv – rock those clouds for me

This was a post for the #dosomethingyummy campaign, inspired by the “why family is important to you” question.

I don’t suppose anybody actually likes going to the dentist. It’s just one of those things that you have to do every once in a while. Like having a smear or visiting a senile relative. It has to be done, but you just wish that some other poor bastard was going through it instead.

The niggling and constant pain in my wisdom teeth was not a good sign and I could no longer ignore the fact that my canines were fucking up once again. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I think it’s because I was the seventh child and therefore deprived of calcium by my mother’s poor worn out body. My husband can quite happily crunch on a boiled sweet or chew a toffee for an hour or so. But I only have to lick a wine gum and my tooth will dissolve in protest.

I hate everything about dentists – it’s just so bloody primitive. How can we be in the 21st Century and yet still be pulling out teeth with pliers? Surely that’s not right? And don’t get me started on those shitty clampy things they use.

I even hate the waiting rooms. Barren, sterile places containing ashen faced patients preparing for their fate. All pretending to read the ancient copies of Reader’s Digest, but never actually turning a page. All the while, posters warn of oral cancer or display alluring images of rotting mouths.

Tomorrow I will face my fear yet again. I will once again sit in that chair, staring helplessly at a picture of a mountain range (which is meant to relax me, but actually leaves me feeling rather nauseous) and will allow a man with a masked face to poke around inside my mouth. I know he will tell me that my wisdom teeth will need to come out.

Extraction brings problems of its own. My sister had her upper molar removed last week and was told quite sternly that she must avoid blowing her nose. For a month! My sister panicked. What would happen if she did? Would her part of her brain come out of the hole?

Bloody teeth. And bloody dentists.

As my Dad always says “you never see a bloody poor one!”

2012 is meant to be the end of the World isn’t it? Didn’t some bloke say it? I’m not sure who. It’s usually a bloke with a beard. Or people from ancient times, because of course they were experts at such things…..

My mad old neighbour down the road (the one that collects newspapers, has hairs on her chin and permenanty smells of chicken) seems convinced that this is fact. 2012 is the year we WILL die. This neighbour in question is about 102 – so I’m guessing her own personal odds are pretty good.

My Dad’s not concerned. “We’ll all die one bloody day anyway” he said matter-of-factly, sucking on his pipe. “What sodding difference does it make?”

Would it be nice if we knew? It’s not like you plan for the end of the world, is it? You can’t really have a party. But knowing this sodding country, we’ll all run down to ASDA and stock up on bread. That’s what we usually do in moments of panic (like when there’s an inch of snow).

What I don’t understand though, is why people feel the need to wear sandwich boards and parade up and down the streets, sharing their message of doom. If they are right, why the fuck would we want to know about it? After all, there’s nothing we can do to stop a natural phenomenon such as the explosion of the sun, or an incoming meteorite – so why send people into mass panic? Haven’t we got enough to cope with in the country at the moment? Aside from the fact that none of us (normal people) have any money, the music in the charts is piss poor, reality TV is taking over and a bunch of tossers are in No 10.

If 2012 is the end, stop bleating on about it. Let us all die in blissful ignorance, watching our last episode of Eastenders and scratching our sad, pathetic bottoms.

I’m sure the dinousaurs did something similar….

He’s such a smug little bastard…

I have this real feeling of hatred for my hoover. I’m not sure whether this is normal, or whether it’s a sign of a very slow mental decline. But honestly, the bloody thing is the bane of my life. He’s old and knackered and there is just something about him that freaks me out– with his inane grinning face and large staring eyes.

I mean, who honestly thought putting a face on hoover was such a great idea? It doesn’t improve suction (as I’m sure many a teenage boy will confirm) and it certainly doesn’t make it go around corners any better. Instead, it just stands there in my hall with its red fat shiny belly, smiling stupidly at me, its wide eyes following me around the room. Smug little bastard!

I wouldn’t mind if it did the job I wanted it do, but It’s like a useless work experience kid. One tug and it falls over pathetically, its bloody wheels spinning hopelessly in the air, like the fuckwit it is. Lying there like a stranded red whale on my carpet, making a wheezing similar to my Dad when he gets up too quickly from his chair.
He bumps into the corners (the hoover, not my Dad – although come to think of it….) and he refuses to suck up the smallest of crumbs. Yet he is quite happy to gobble up my earring and look bloody pleased about it too, leaving me for hours, searching in his sooty guts to retrieve it. Bastard.

And even more annoying, his bloody nose has fallen off more times than Michael Jackson’s. He has gaffer tape around it now, so he looks even more freaky (the hoover not Michael Jackson, although come to think of it…)

I long to trade in this old bugger for something newer. Or something more slim-line and zippier. Maybe something that doesn’t come complete with a moronic smiling face.

But I can’t. Why? Because my kids love him. They treat him like part of the family. It would be like getting rid of the cats, and believe me I’ve tried that. Twice.

So for now, I’m stuck with him.

Smug little bastard

I know the one thing that’s likely to bring down the most positive of souls. No, it is not the TV listings for New Year’s Eve (same old crap, different year) nor is it the fact that we are entering January – the bleakest, brokest, longest month of them all.

No – the one thing destined to make a grown man’s soul plummet, is the sight of the lift attendant at my local shopping centre. He really is the epitome of despair.

As you step inside the small enclosed space, his shoulders slump and his tiny fingers reach for the buttons. He doesn’t bother to ask what floor, I think he lost the power of speech a long time ago. In fact, I think he no longer has the energy to open his small, pursed lips.

“Third please,” I say and flash him my politest smile.

He sighs and his shoulders slump further. He presses the button and sinks back against the glass, his small frame pressed away from the crowd. You can tell he hates people. You can tell he hates the lift. You can tell he hates himself.

I can imagine that once this smartly dressed, middle aged man had a high powered job and did much more important things than pressing lift buttons. Not that there is anything wrong with doing such a job, but you can tell that just doing it is destroying every essence of this man’s being. Somehow he seems out of place. He should be behind a desk, on a phone, or typing long numbers onto a spreadsheet.

Maybe this man was once a banker. Maybe he was one of the bastards that caused the pile of economic shit that we are in now swimming in. Perhaps I shouldn’t feel sympathy for him at all. Perhaps I should be laughing at his current fate.

But this is highly unlikely as everyone knows bankers will never acknowledge lifts go down as well as up….

So this New Year’s Eve I will be thinking about this little Lift Man and his sad, pathetic face. I hope one day I will see him even show a glimmer of a smile, but somehow I doubt it.

To me the Lift Man represents 2011 – bleak, miserable and lots of men in suits looking like they might top themselves. But like the Lift Man – surely the only way is up?

Christmas is an odd time for my dear old dad. I guess because it combines the two things he loves and loathes the most; beer and family.

That’s not to say that he hates our family. I think he loves us all in his own peculiar way. It’s more that he can’t stand a group of us arriving en mass, singing bawdy Christmas songs, giggling over our presents, or trying to coax him into a round of Charades (he does Gone with the Wind every bloody year and still grumbles about it).

This year was particularly interesting, as his grandson was there. The grandson in question had recently leapt out of the closet, and although my Dad had accepted this, he couldn’t quite understand it.

“Such a lovely looking boy…” He said at first, with such sadness. “He could have had any girl..”

Then a few more drinks entered his bloodstream and his tongue became a little looser.

“I just don’t understand homosexuals.” He said finally. “I mean, if it’s all about the bums. At the end of the day, nothing beats a girl’s bottom…”

I honestly don’t know what is worse – having a father who fails to understand basic sexual compulsions, or having a father discussing his own penchant for female arses – all whilst we’re sitting cracking nuts and talking about the state of the country.

Luckily his Grandson burst into laughter, kissed him on the head and told him he was a “’legend”

I guess that’s one word for him….