Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Life
Hi everyone,
Welcome to my weblog diary. Sharing the ups and downs of my day to day life as a writer with you has been something I've wanted to do for ages. Unfortunately my techie skills have simply not been up to it. But - enter stage left my Techie Fairy Godmother in the shape of the Wonderful Wendy Woo,and here I am!
First a bit about me. Some of you may already have read some of this and if so, please bear with me, whilst I give a brief resumee of where my life is today for those who haven't.
I've been writing for Mills & Boon for over twenty five years. Three years ago I started to write Northern Sagas for Harper Collins as well, but in 2002 the familiar comfortable pattern of my life changed for ever when my husband Steve was diagnosed with terminal oral cancer.
I won't dwell here on Steve's suffering other than to say that he was brave and kind and gentle and I loved him and I will always miss him.
Experiencing life as a widow - and by that I mean the way I live my life or rather am allowed to live it, rather than my life without Steve, has has taken me into a world I never knew existed. That is the world of the woman alone. This is not a good world to be in! It's a world where people have set ideas and expectations of how a widow should behave; it's a world where some people believe a woman alone is vulnerable and therefore a soft target. In short it's a world were astonishingly a woman of a certain age alone is considered to be a 'second class citizen'
Luckily I have my friends and my work.
But prepare to find me letting off steam about this subject from time to time!
I don't have any children sadly but I do have a cat - Posh and a dog - Sheba.
I still have days - many of them - when I wake up to wonder why I have had to wake up to a world without my Steve in it with me - but there are fewer of them now.
And life is not all dark moments of loss - tomorrow for instance I am going to London to attend the Harpercollins Summer Party at the Serpentine Gallery. Ooh er!!!!!
As a very very junior Harper author, I am dying to get a chance to gawp at the really big literary stars who will be there, and of course I shall be reporting to you on the whole event.
For now though I have to go and (a) find something to wear that atually fits (what is it about being post menopausal that adds so many inches to the body?) (b) pack my case somewhere where Sheba can't see it, and (c) clean the house ready for Sheba's dog sitters to come and stay.
Welcome to my weblog diary. Sharing the ups and downs of my day to day life as a writer with you has been something I've wanted to do for ages. Unfortunately my techie skills have simply not been up to it. But - enter stage left my Techie Fairy Godmother in the shape of the Wonderful Wendy Woo,and here I am!
First a bit about me. Some of you may already have read some of this and if so, please bear with me, whilst I give a brief resumee of where my life is today for those who haven't.
I've been writing for Mills & Boon for over twenty five years. Three years ago I started to write Northern Sagas for Harper Collins as well, but in 2002 the familiar comfortable pattern of my life changed for ever when my husband Steve was diagnosed with terminal oral cancer.
I won't dwell here on Steve's suffering other than to say that he was brave and kind and gentle and I loved him and I will always miss him.
Experiencing life as a widow - and by that I mean the way I live my life or rather am allowed to live it, rather than my life without Steve, has has taken me into a world I never knew existed. That is the world of the woman alone. This is not a good world to be in! It's a world where people have set ideas and expectations of how a widow should behave; it's a world where some people believe a woman alone is vulnerable and therefore a soft target. In short it's a world were astonishingly a woman of a certain age alone is considered to be a 'second class citizen'
Luckily I have my friends and my work.
But prepare to find me letting off steam about this subject from time to time!
I don't have any children sadly but I do have a cat - Posh and a dog - Sheba.
I still have days - many of them - when I wake up to wonder why I have had to wake up to a world without my Steve in it with me - but there are fewer of them now.
And life is not all dark moments of loss - tomorrow for instance I am going to London to attend the Harpercollins Summer Party at the Serpentine Gallery. Ooh er!!!!!
As a very very junior Harper author, I am dying to get a chance to gawp at the really big literary stars who will be there, and of course I shall be reporting to you on the whole event.
For now though I have to go and (a) find something to wear that atually fits (what is it about being post menopausal that adds so many inches to the body?) (b) pack my case somewhere where Sheba can't see it, and (c) clean the house ready for Sheba's dog sitters to come and stay.
