Bernardine Kennedy

A chatty and newsy blog about author Bernardine Kennedy, her books, her writing career and her life. Check out the latest news, views and recommendations along with the occasional irrelevant photo.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

SPRING HAS SPRUNG. Maybe!

Happy Spring Everyone! Yes I know its been a long time but I'm really not as good at this blogging thing as I thought I would be when I started it. I know many who blog nearly every day or at least once a week and although I always intend to do better I forget! Maybe because my to-do list is so long the things at the bottom start to fall off and forgotten!

I did start a blog on Mothers Day but it was soon out of date.... here's the precis... I had a lovely day, a gorgeous orchid and full Sunday lunch from Kate the daughter and a bouquet of flowers from Stephen the son who came round without the gorgeous Riley baby who was poorly with a bug. He's better now though thankfully. He's growing rapidly and is well on the move... off like a rocket on knees and bottom. Soon be time to start moving things upwards, there hasn't been a baby around this house for many many years so I'm not prepared!

March has been a funny month taken up with everything BUT writing.
The first two weeks I spent on jury service. Interesting from a research point of view but there was lots of hanging around in between cases. I'm glad I did it though. I now know the inner working of a jury which is always helpful for a writer. I can't imagine how anyone copes with a really long complex trial running into months... my nightmare would be a big business fraud or somesuch. I'm such rubbish at that sort of thing! I do words not figures.

Then the next week it was off to London for the Romantic Novelists Association Awards Lunch at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington. I went up the day before and came back the day after managing to turn it into a three day lunch with a quick whizz around the handbag department of Selfridges thrown in!
I always stay at The New Cavendish Club, an olde worlde faded glory private hotel just down from Marble Arch and therefore Oxford Street. I love it there and as the RNA and Society of Authors have corporate membership there are usually several of us there at times like these to sit around in the bar and compare notes and generally socialise. Brilliant.
After the lunch we went over the road to the pub, The Goat, for several hours before heading around the corner to eat. Great fun. Many have blogged about it... check out:

http://romanticnovelistsassociationblog.blogspot.com/


Nope, I'm not in any of the photos anywhere... I now duck when a camera comes near me after seeing one of the most scary pics of me ever up on screen a few months ago! aarrgghh.

The next week Ian and I headed down to the New Forest for a few days. I love it there, I've been many times over the years, initially on Press Trips then just for fun. We managed a trip to Lymington and Burley before disaster struck and Ian went down with a bug of some sort. We ended up coming home a day early but it was nice to get away and we did manage a drive up over Godshill to see the roaming ponies and donkeys.

But when we got home the drama continued... we had intruders, badgers in the garden! They really are a bit thuggish, digging up the lawn, breaking fence panels, chucking furniture around and trying to get under the sheds. But the worst thing they done is kill my toads! We've had toads in the garden as long as we've been here and I'm rather fond of them, all part of the eco-gardening system. (We don't do chemical of any sort out there, no slug pellets etc YUK). The badgers have rampaged over their territory and them.
I've been in touch with the Badger Trust and they'll come round and advise. badgers are so protected it can be hard to know what to do if they start really digging.

Anyway... back to writerly things. Today was the day I decided that the current book was going in the wrong direction and I needed to cull around 15,000 words. That is a writers nightmare. The words have been written and much time spent so its hard but it must be done! I'm also working on another book alongside WHATEVER THE COST. It's a trial project for me in a different genre so we'll see where it goes!

My new website is now up and running. More subtle than the previous one. let me know what you think.
http://www.bernardinekennedy.com/
connect with me on Twitter: @BerniKennedy

Well have a very good Easter everyone....

Bernardine

1 Comments:

  • At 7:04 PM , Blogger margaret blake said...

    Interesting blog, Bernadine, love to read of your doings. So sorry to hear about the toads - does it say something about me that I love these little creatures?

    Hope the writing goes well.

     

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