Only 5 Shades of Grey

I brought the snow home with me as well as another boiler breakdown, which the lodgers and cost centres can’t have been too enamoured by. It takes two days to get the Kerry based service engineer to have another look. This time it’s my thermostat he says, nothing to do with him, but he’ll disconnect it.

‘But,’ I say, ‘what about the expansion valve inside that you said was causing the pressure to drop,’

‘Oh, yes,’ well I can’t get at it, your cupboard, the boiler and the pipe work would have to come out, it’s a day’s work, very expensive.’

‘But I’ve no heating or hot water,’ my teeth chatter.

‘You need a plumber to put an expansion valve in your hot press.’

But I thought he was a plumber. He gets it going again for me but it won’t work on a timer, I’ll be legging it down to the kitchen at 6am to turn it on so the princes and princelings will arise from their slumber in relative warmth, as is their birthright.

I’m only writing a boring boiler blog because they emailed me a bill straight after, that would bring the non-repairs to 400 euro so far. In a departure from my usual indignation, I wrote and explained that I didn’t think this was fair. The thing is they have my VISA number and can charge the cost straightaway.

Well blow me, if I didn’t get an email back, agreeing with me, and apologising, saying it was sent in error.

I am not over the shock.

Now with a bit of heat, and the skiing cut short, there is no excuse but to plough on with Edit Eight of my novel. I am doing this in response to a lengthy analysis I received from a well known publisher, who enjoyed it but said it wasn’t for them. I’ve been going through it with a fine comb, trying to figure what bits weren’t for them. Maybe the fact that it has only 5 shades of grey? After being asked by sailing men all last summer was there any sex in the book, I had to put in five scenes, indoor, outdoor, upstairs, downstairs, and I can’t remember the last place.

It has been the longest edit so far as, of course, I’ve been blogging all the time and landladying, composing endless CV’s, riding and well a few hours skiing and all that takes quite a bit of prep and packing.

It’s Easter Saturday, Absentee Boyfriend delivered an unseemly gigantic chocolate egg, a sight for sore eyes, both of them. Is it churlish to wonder does he know that if I ate it, there would be six inches of girth added to my middle and that’s not such a good look. Or that big chocolate egg does not equal an actual date, like going out, but as gestures go, as he departs for the airport yet again, it goes in the ‘thoughtful’ pile.

A Swiss Easter Bunny

I spent Good Friday with Blonde Racquel (because we Irish have to go somewhere for an illicit drink, just to outdo the system) and we got to talking about books we liked, my book club is long dissolved and when writing a novel, there are only certain books that can be read to avoid distraction or worse, desperation. Racquel has promised to read my final draft. She will be one of only five friends to read it before publication and so it spurred me on to lash into the last bit this evening. When you ask someone to read your manuscript, you budding authors out there, give them a simple job, two questions:

Where does it slow down, make them yawn?

Do they spot any continuity lapses, ie. drinking tea when the character started with coffee…

They’re not necessarily proof-reading it, but if they want to, that’s very helpful. They’re not expected to correct your grammar either.

Which brings me to the marketing bit; I met an A&R man at a launch a few weeks ago. He said he used to work for Sony and EMI, but he’s freelance now. I said it sounded like a great job, why did he leave? ‘They didn’t need me anymore.’

Cheekily I asked if I’d know any of the acts he discovered. ‘The Corrs,’ he replied.

Heard of them.

He told me he gets a lot of his work online now, through Linkedin.

‘Are you serious? I’m on that and I never get work from it.’

I explained what I did while he yawned (architectural historian, art historian, building conservation, that kind of thing)

But, I said I don’t do much of that anymore what with no money in the country and all. ‘I’ve written my first novel,’ I say.

‘So why don’t you change your profile and say what you’re doing now?’ he asks reasonably.

‘Oh, I couldn’t do that,’ I reply in dismay, ‘I only want to share that when I’ve published.’

‘So, let me get this, you’ve done something new, finished a book, but don’t want to tell any of your 500 contacts about it, because in fact they might even know the perfect person to publish it…’

A hail of pennies drop…

Hmmm, I see his point. I’m trying to do the traditional, in your dreams sort of thing, be discovered with my first book, when it rarely, I believe, happens like that. I contacted +Helen Shaw of +Athena Media to find out how I'm going to get it out there, she's got a day course running in April, we shall she how I get on.

So, I’m going to get brave about this. Even though it’s sitting on two agents desks in the UK, they are mighty slow to come back to me. And time is ticking, banks are waiting, and frankly I want to write another one, a funny, thriller this time.

Happy Easter