Penny Jordan's Weblog

Am in mad rush mode this evening as I leave for the RNA conference in Leicester tomorrow morning. As those of you who do not go to conferences have always suspected this really is just an excuse to eat and drink and talk far too much with people who are definitely much too much fun to be with!

No seriously, the RNA does a magnifient job of helping its authors in a wide variety of different ways.

I have actually had a miserable couple of days one way or another - I am still working flat out to finish my mainstream relationship book, having found a major flaw right in the middle.

One of the things writers of 'women's fiction' learn to get used pretty early on in their writing careers is that they do not exist, at least not in public. Society insists that our readers should feel ashamed of reading our books. 'love stories = rubbish' and you shouldn't be caught dead reading them!

But why there is this antipathy toward books about people resolving problems in their emotional lives and then making a commitment to one another, I really do not know. Nor why they should be derided as "rubbish"

Love and the way if affects every facet of our lives is surely something we can all relate to?

But everyone in the country is apparently desperate to read 'lite literature' which is why increasingly you will not find our books prominently displayed on bookshop bookshelves, - we are the read whose name dare not be spoken!

So how come so many of us earn the maximum PLR payment beause of the number of times our books are borrowed from public libararies?

I'm thinking of starting an underground subversive movement - a Society for the Readers of Romance and Proud to Say So.

Scarecrows

Thanks to a fellow member of the RNA,who emailed me, and my next door neighbour I now know that Wrenbury has a website for its scarecrows, and that the annual Scarecrow weekend walk is this coming weekend. The money raised by buying a £1 programme from Wrenbury Post Office goes to support the village school.

Sheepdog Jack

Sheba disappeared last night and I was worried sick - she never goes anywhere without me. I searched the house twice, checked the big garden gates, - nothing. This was at ten in the evening - I couldn't believe it when I went into the garden and saw her sitting by the gate to the paddock.

Harold and Jack had arrived and Sheba obviously didn't want to miss out on the floor show (or sheep dog show)

Harold is a real 'story teller' When training was finished he leaned on his crook and I asked how Jack was coming along
"Well I think I can see signs of something there.....Mind you he's got a hell of a lot to learn..." he answered me.
So it looks as though Jack is staying!

Ah love! Personally I'd rather celebrate it than denigrate it!