So, I made the tarte tatin, and it was half a disaster and half a success: having taken notes from the GBBO masterclass, I slightly deviated from Mary Berry’s demo and used a spring form cake tin so the caramel I’d lovingly made all dripped out the bottom of the tin into the oven. I rescued it and, served with a dusting of icing sugar and cream, (which covers a multitude of sins) it tasted delicious. Next time I will use a container with no cracks or holes.
I’ve just taken delivery of my light box, which should help with the winter blues I normally suffer from at this time of year. I’ll let you know how I get on with it, and the vitamin B supplements I’ve also just started taking. I’m thinking of it as a multi pronged approach this season, so wish me luck.
Last week I was smugly extolling the virtues of a sat nav, as opposed to old-fashioned printed maps, and the following day came completely un-stuck with my so called perfect sat nav: it smartly navigated me to a golf course for a meeting, and I drove onto the course, no sign of a club house, gradually getting deeper and deeper in the mud track, driving up hills and down dale, with a fair bit of wheel spinning, until I arrived in the middle of the fairway (is that what it’s called?). I climbed out and approached a friendly golfer who explained I’d arrived at the rear of the course, hence the lack of club house, and I had to re-trace my steps, back to the main road and drive three lefts to the proper entrance. The car was covered in mud and my technological smugness greatly diminished when I finally arrived.
I was pleased that the amazing ‘Weekend’ film was on Filmfour last week. I can’t believe it’s already on TV, it was only this time last year when I saw it at the cinema. I was skipping through it last night and reminded me how beautiful it is. At its heart is a sad and tender love story, and it’s also got some pretty hot scenes too, which can’t be bad.
Without my car friend James, my usual wingman, last weekend I visited the NEC Classic Car show. With no James to tear me away, I accidently got caught in a bit of a feeding frenzy at one of the stands selling old car brochures once I noticed they were all £1. I’m now the proud owner of a slightly odd selection of brochures from various French cars from the late eighties and nineties. There’s something comfortingly optimistic and nostalgic about old brochures, ‘The 205 is a revelation. Its roadholding unrivalled. Its finish superb.’ I also love the period touches: beige upholstery, vinyl roofs, a woman in a red head scarf and flared white trouser suit sitting in the boot of the car in the seventies; an orange ra-ra skirt and matching plastic beads for the optimistic have-it-all woman in the eighties as she stares longingly at the car while pushing a trolley of plants, for no apparent reason; or how about five women in top to toe pastel shaded sportswear and side swept hair draped around the car in the, you guessed it, eighties!
Among this I’ve been putting more thought to the chapter outline and character biogs for book number two. One of the ‘rules’ writers are told to stick by is ‘write every day’ well I’m not sure if I agree with that. See what Becky Black has to say on the subject. I do write something every day, as I keep a journal, which apart from in exceptional circumstances, I write every night, but it’s just not physically possible to write (towards a book etc) every day. Once I’ve planned the book and worked out each character’s biog, I give myself a word target for the week, and try to stick to it. At the moment I’m definitely at the planning stage, changing things around and seeing how that affects the story later on. I plan to start ‘properly writing’ if that makes sense, in December. Does it matter to the readers whether the book was written in bursts of 400 words per day, or 4000 words over a week, or heaven forefend, I last minute 40,000 words in a fortnight with no sleep? No, I doubt it does, as long as the story moves the characters forward, in an interesting way, readers probably don’t really mind either way.
I have been tagged by Clare London for Blogging The Next Big Thing, so will post my answers to her questions on 5 December, and the authors I tagged will post their answers on 12 December. From what I’ve gathered, it’s a blog version of a chain letter, but without the angsty ‘if you don’t pass it on, your hair will all fall out and you’ll never laugh again’ element. Which is good.
Until next time
Liam x
I’ve just taken delivery of my light box, which should help with the winter blues I normally suffer from at this time of year. I’ll let you know how I get on with it, and the vitamin B supplements I’ve also just started taking. I’m thinking of it as a multi pronged approach this season, so wish me luck.
Last week I was smugly extolling the virtues of a sat nav, as opposed to old-fashioned printed maps, and the following day came completely un-stuck with my so called perfect sat nav: it smartly navigated me to a golf course for a meeting, and I drove onto the course, no sign of a club house, gradually getting deeper and deeper in the mud track, driving up hills and down dale, with a fair bit of wheel spinning, until I arrived in the middle of the fairway (is that what it’s called?). I climbed out and approached a friendly golfer who explained I’d arrived at the rear of the course, hence the lack of club house, and I had to re-trace my steps, back to the main road and drive three lefts to the proper entrance. The car was covered in mud and my technological smugness greatly diminished when I finally arrived.
I was pleased that the amazing ‘Weekend’ film was on Filmfour last week. I can’t believe it’s already on TV, it was only this time last year when I saw it at the cinema. I was skipping through it last night and reminded me how beautiful it is. At its heart is a sad and tender love story, and it’s also got some pretty hot scenes too, which can’t be bad.
Without my car friend James, my usual wingman, last weekend I visited the NEC Classic Car show. With no James to tear me away, I accidently got caught in a bit of a feeding frenzy at one of the stands selling old car brochures once I noticed they were all £1. I’m now the proud owner of a slightly odd selection of brochures from various French cars from the late eighties and nineties. There’s something comfortingly optimistic and nostalgic about old brochures, ‘The 205 is a revelation. Its roadholding unrivalled. Its finish superb.’ I also love the period touches: beige upholstery, vinyl roofs, a woman in a red head scarf and flared white trouser suit sitting in the boot of the car in the seventies; an orange ra-ra skirt and matching plastic beads for the optimistic have-it-all woman in the eighties as she stares longingly at the car while pushing a trolley of plants, for no apparent reason; or how about five women in top to toe pastel shaded sportswear and side swept hair draped around the car in the, you guessed it, eighties!
Among this I’ve been putting more thought to the chapter outline and character biogs for book number two. One of the ‘rules’ writers are told to stick by is ‘write every day’ well I’m not sure if I agree with that. See what Becky Black has to say on the subject. I do write something every day, as I keep a journal, which apart from in exceptional circumstances, I write every night, but it’s just not physically possible to write (towards a book etc) every day. Once I’ve planned the book and worked out each character’s biog, I give myself a word target for the week, and try to stick to it. At the moment I’m definitely at the planning stage, changing things around and seeing how that affects the story later on. I plan to start ‘properly writing’ if that makes sense, in December. Does it matter to the readers whether the book was written in bursts of 400 words per day, or 4000 words over a week, or heaven forefend, I last minute 40,000 words in a fortnight with no sleep? No, I doubt it does, as long as the story moves the characters forward, in an interesting way, readers probably don’t really mind either way.
I have been tagged by Clare London for Blogging The Next Big Thing, so will post my answers to her questions on 5 December, and the authors I tagged will post their answers on 12 December. From what I’ve gathered, it’s a blog version of a chain letter, but without the angsty ‘if you don’t pass it on, your hair will all fall out and you’ll never laugh again’ element. Which is good.
Until next time
Liam x
RSS Feed
