Every day seems to be filled from morning to night with things to do. I write a list of things to do and just can't keep up with it as more and more come to mind.
There are so many "Hell in Paradise" books to deliver. I'm so glad that our story has been well received. I asked people to be critical in their comments but, to date, they have only said nice things.
Constructive criticism is always welcome to me, ignorant criticism isn't.
Every so often I will put details of the book on another social media site and that always brings forth more sales. The book is selling well despite the fact that to date we haven't felt the need to promote it in the Media etc. We will get to the point where we will do this but for now we are happy to sell to enthusiasts.
I am so glad that we self published and kept total control of the project. Every book sold, every nice comment is another two fingered salute to the publishers who accepted the book and then changed their mind before they had seen it.
I particularly love it when people buy a book and then come back to order more because of how much they have enjoyed it. I'm not sure that using the word enjoy is correct when reading about a massacre but I'm sure you get my drift.
Yesterday I had more books to deliver and then some more work to do on the Good News magazine. Our new rector is enthusiastic about the publication and I will be meeting with her shortly to discuss the content and a few other things.
Hethersett Herald is coming along nicely as well. A large section of the coming edition will be given over to a major article on the fight against vandalism in the village. This is something that will almost certainly come up at our annual parish meeting at the end of April. I will of course be there with my notebook, although I don't use a notebook. Does anyone else do this? I collect used paper which has writing or printing on one side. I chop the A4 sheets into two and then hold a wad together with a butterfly clip or whatever they are called. Then as I use them and have finished with a page I just peel it off and stick it in the recycling bin.
I seem to have a drawer full of old bits to use. It also has the added advantage that if I go to a meeting I can take the pages of notes from that meeting and staple them together and then throw them away when I've used them.
Next week we will be spending most of it in North Norfolk. On the menu will be walking, taking photographs and meeting up with friends. I am looking to spend the evenings working on one of my next three publications, all of which I'm looking to self publish on Amazon.
But what order should I publish them in and which should I work on next week?
It should be my autobiography which I'm calling "A Charmed Life" because that's pretty much what it's been. I raced through editing and re writing some of the earlier chapters but then seem to have come to something of a halt, mainly due I guess to all the work that has been put into "Hell in Paradise".
I have to say that the chapters from my childhood are the ones I enjoyed writing and reading the most. I seem to be stuck on the bits and pieces that I refer to as vignettes- scenes from my life. But as always I need to grasp that nettle.
Or I might continue my editing of the first year of my blog which co-incides with the start of lockdown. To publish a year's blog means going through hundreds of thousands of words and cutting some of the irrelevancies out like sections on cataloguing the music of Jimmy Webb that's not going to be of use to anyone unless you are an obsessive like me.
Or I might turn to the silly little novel I wrote decades ago about a young reporter in a seaside town. This needs checking and perhaps re writing. It's a light-hearted story although there is a disaster towards the end. I will say no more.
Whatever happens you can be sure that whilst the television may be on I will be writing or editing something and that includes these blogs which I hope will include some reasonable photos.
And I also have Laurie's life story to finish off. More of that later.
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When Ken Bruce left the BBC I, like thousands of others, left with him. I started listening to Golden Hits Radio which was ok but didn't really cater for the poppier side of my favourite music. So in the past few days I've been listening to Boom Radio which plays a lot of my favourite pieces and many that bring the memories back.
And talking about memories. DJ Diddy David Hamilton does the lunchtime show. I couldn't believe it when I looked him up on the internet to find that he's 86 this year. Still sounds good although his voice is a touch more frail. Incidentally he was born with the name David Pilditch. Doesn't quite have the ring of Hamilton.
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Went out yesterday to do some more gardening because that awful Clive Myrie travel programme came on. He went to Rome and what did he do in Rome?
Yes he went to the home of an Australian woman and cooked lamb. There was one of the great cities in the world and there was good old Clive cooking with somebody from Australia which I believe isn't in Italy, although I may have got that wrong of course.
Then he started talking to somebody about being on a coma after an accident and capped it all off with a great piece of history at the Trevi Fountain.
"The Trevi Fountain goes back to Roman times, " he informed us. And there was I thinking it was late Victorian.
ENOUGH