Novel update and bored of the rain

God. What a month it has been. I have been dealing with my Difficult Situation, and there have been tears, laughter, glittery cupcakes and banging of heads against walls, but, I would now like to declare OFFICIALLY that I am (cautiously) back in the land of the living, and I would like to update you on my novel. I have gone through, rewritten bits and checked the spelling, and I have it now as a pdf and a word document which I am going to make a start at trying to upload to something or other tomorrow. As I do not know entirely what I am doing and how successful this is going to be (or indeed how long it is going to take…), I thought I would say that, in the meantime, if anyone just wants me to send them the pdf (obvs free of charge, indeed I should probably be paying you…), then email me at uselessbeautydesigns [at] googlemail.com, and I will email you back with the pdf attached.

Remember: no matter how bad this book is, I guarantee you it is inner-goddess free. And no-one, at any point, ever says ‘Oh my!’ when confronted with bdsm paraphernalia. These things I promise you. And although it starts off a bit slow, if you can get through a few chapters it starts to pick up a bit, and, if you can get through the whole thing, then you will know who the characters are and be able to read number two, which is better. I bet I’ve sold you on it, haven’t I? I’ll wait for the flood of emails. (It’s alright, that’s self-aware irony).

I think it has now rained in Cambridge every day for three months. Every single day! And our front door is swollen and we cannot open it, so every time I leave the house I have to walk through the back garden, and fight all the greenery, which is overgrown, because I cannot get out to trim it, because it has rained EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR THREE MONTHS. I am very bored now of the rain, and would like to request some sunshine, please, although Partner says there will be no sunshine for another three years, as actually we are in year three of a strange six-year weather cycle, and he knows this because he heard someone say it on the cricket. Luckily, I have decided not to listen to Partner, and I decided not to listen to him anymore even before he told me that my hair made me look like the albino monk from the Da Vinci Code. But I still wish we could have some sunshine. Please?

A post in which I am deeply uncool and ask you to read my novel

Right. After the blinding success of your advice on my hair, (and I want you to know that I wore bright red lippy with it yesterday and it looked very cool), I have one final favour to ask you lovely readers, and then I am so going to leave you alone. Not only will I make no more demands, but I will post constructive things about knitting and take some nice pictures (not of mad cats) and be helpful. All this do I pledge. One more favour only.

Have some Waitrose Lemon Cupcake. Yum, taste of the middle classes, on offer, £2.45 for 4

This is how it is. Years ago, I used to write and it used to amuse me more than most things amuse me (obviously not as much as mad cats. I’ve met someone else who knows where the Mad Cats of Cambridge are, and now I’m stalking a particularly bold furry black one she’s told me about. I know this is an unhealthy development. I’ll let you know if we start work on a Cambridge Cat Map App). Before it stopped amusing me, I cranked out 2 1/2 novels, and I thought they were ok. I mean, Tolstoy wasn’t quivering in his grave, but there were a few bits in them that were funny and sometimes I used to drink wine, read them, and snigger, hur hur hur. Then life got silly and fiction couldn’t compete, and then I couldn’t even read, never mind write, because everything seemed Very Very Serious. Well, now I can write again, and I need to move on to the next novels or poetry (God help me) or whatever is to come, so I want these ones off the table, and I want someone else to read them who is not me. Because, they might be amused, and if not, they might think, this is rubbish and I could write something better and will do it, and then I will have something new to read myself. Who knows? It’s fine by me either way.

The pen is mightier than the sword, although, today, I am ashamed to admit, we brainstormed ways to kill a particular person with my new 2.25mm sock needles (blow them through a tube like darts), so, sock needles are probably mightiest of all

So I am going to try to self publish my novels as ebooks. I don’t know how ebooks work, I don’t know what I am doing, and I am certainly not intending to make any money out of it – it’s a clearing-the-decks exercise which will pay me back spiritually not monetarily (ha!): here is the favour I am asking. I don’t want your money: I want your souls. I know some of you nice people must read books sometimes. If I haul my reluctant arse off to the library with my laptop within the next month or so and work out what to do, would someone read my book? Please? I will do codes (if I can work out how!) so that there are free copies for blog readers. I cannot promise you much, but I can promise you it is not as bad as Fifty Shades of Grey (look, I read the blurb, it did not look good), it is a bit funny, there is a ginger cat in it, and it is not depressing. OK, that’s probably all I can say, but – not depressing! A bit funny! A ginger cat! That’s surely a start! Come on, you’ve read worse than that!

And it would be nice for me, because, when I am sitting grinding my teeth over my laptop in the library, all confused about what a Kindle is, I could think, I am fifty shades of despairing over how to upload my file, but, I will persevere. Because I, Susie, have a potential reader, and, as God is my witness, I will upload this file for them. Hell, I will even run the spellcheck. Because I care.

(OK, I’ve looked at Lulu quickly. This might be doable. OMGosh! Exciting. Off to rewrite chapter bloody 1).