Sunday, 23 August 2015

Pondering

Okay, the cold did travel south.  It's in my chest and I've been hacking up wads of lung butter for the past few days.  Saw my GP today, and I've been given a medical certificate and a prescription for antibiotics.  Have had enough of visiting the doctors.  It's all I've done in the past few weeks after my son reported a seizure, and I had to make an enquiry about my own health, and I had to have my biennial womanly check-up, and then I come down with this rotten bug.  Also, this lurgy is draining me of all energy, like a bacteria-based vampire.  All I've wanted to do is sleep.  I'm too bung to even think properly.  I reckon I will print off another copy of my work in progress later this week - it's been at least a month since I looked at it, so surely my eyes are fresh enough to go over it again.

What I discovered the other day on Goodreads: my first novel has been given some ratings.  One reader gave it four stars out of five.  Another rated it one star out of five.  I will admit to feeling somewhat bummed at the low score on the latter, but I must try and remember the old adage: you can't please all of them people all of the time.  People are buying and downloading it.  People are reading it.  For this I should be grateful.  My first novel is a satire about a young woman who is charged in relation to the death of an elderly woman, who turns out to be the mother of a popular politician.  Here's a link to the first chapter: http://www.zeus-publications.com/calumny_while_reading_irvine_welsh.htm.  I do much of my marketing on social media, and I have recently been befriended by someone from my old home town.  I don't remember this person, but he was a good friend of my late older brother (there was eight years between us, and this is possibly why I don't remember this guy too well at all).  He purchased the book and enjoyed it, he tells me.  I wondered how he would take to the portrayal of some of the police officers in it, given he is a former serving member, but he said it was pretty realistic from what he remembered.  Hey, I haven't given them a glowing portrayal, but I daresay it's an accurate one.

Also, a tweet in which I am featured has been retweeted a couple of times.  It's an interview a US author conducted with me.  Here's a link: http://t.co/A9NlAIf3fS  It's an amusing little piece, and I talk about different things, like the time I ate a mothball (I was THREE, okay?), and the barney I had with a member of the AFP in a local pub.  Will this lead to extra sales of my latest novel?  I don't know.  This is a link to the first chapter: http://www.zeus-publications.com/silver_studs_and_sabre_teeth.htm.  It's got something for everyone: nude massage, Marc Bolan impersonator, glam rock, and same-sex marriage.  I'm wondering should I target some of the proponents of marriage equality and tell them my novel deals with this subject?  I know how tacky it appears to attempt to profiteer from a matter of equal rights, but my bathroom needs painting, and my dining room needs to be gyprocked and painted, and my kitchen needs a splashback installed, and my kids never stop eating.

My fourteen-year-old's school trivia night is coming up.  One of the other mums has told me to expect an invitation to be on a table run through the P&C.  I have also been informed that at the recent P&C meeting my team mate from last year pointed out we had come in second, which is quite good.  This was owing to the fact they 'had Simone on their table'.  'Simone knows everything!' one of the other P&C-ers gushed.  The school principal said she would have to join the team for the game.  I have informed my son of this, and threatened to embarrass the living daylights out of him if his principal is on our team.  I don't know why I'm writing about this.  I guess I'm bragging.  Oh, no guess; I'm bragging my arse off!  This is very flattering.  My school years were a tide of always being the last kid picked for the team, and now I find I'm in demand.  I cannot catch, hit, or throw a ball with any skill to speak of.  I punctured a basketball on a screw sticking out of the back of the board from where I had to throw the ball back in, and watched in embarrassment as the ball hit the court with a blat and wheezed out air through the tear (at least the PE teacher found it amusing).  I trod in a cowpat on a cross country run.  If any other clumsy young bookworms are reading this, there is light at the end of the tunnel.  You're an adult for longer than you are a kid.  But I must point out the PC-ers don't have it quite right.  Simone does not know everything.  Obviously, sport is not my category.  Heh-heh!

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