People's Friend website and musings

Apologies to those who aren't the slightest bit interested in writing, but after looking for something on the PF website, I thought I'd talk a bit about it, as there is so much to say. It is a fantastic research area and a bit of a rabbit hole. Once you go there, you can be down there for hours, poking around.

This is the link https://www.thepeoplesfriend.co.uk/

This takes you to the website's Home, but once there you'll read about this week's magazine, there's a writing prompt story starter to oil the creative wheels (there's also a backlog of these somewhere about, with what feels like an infinite amount of prompts), a link to Writer of the Week, the Fiction Editor's blog, articles and more. That's just the home page. There's a link to the writer's guidelines, How to get started, tips on writing seasonal stories, Writers' Tools and a lot more besides. There's also something called Writers' Round-up Hour on Twitter every Tuesday at 11am, which I ALWAYS forget about. I am going to set a reminder on Alexa for 10.45am Tuesday to remind me...but I bet I'll be out!

Just checked the calendar. I'm out 😬

Other sections on the website are cookery, craft and lifestyle. There's also free fiction to read.

At the moment, we're watching Strike. We've only just finished season one so there's lots more to go. Before the initial credits, I had no idea it was a Robert Calbraith/JK Rowling novel. I'm a bit out of touch there! Seems like there's a whole series of them (embarrassing). I remembered The Casual Vacancy but lost track of what she wrote after that. We've guessed some of the plot twists but it has been very entertaining and I'm very happy to be watching all the other series until we've caught up. It'll be Happy Valley next. Just waiting for the last one to be aired then we can binge it in a few nights. My memory is so dire, I lose track of the plot if I have to wait a week between episodes. Jon's not much better and we spend more time stopping it and going 'Eh? Who are they talking about?' then we do actually watching it.

I read some more of Richard E Grant's autobiography last night. It has really captured me, but I can see that we will soon be saying goodbye to his wife and I'm not looking forward to that bit at all.

Jon is clearing the loft - a MAMMOTH task. He brings it down and I have to make the impossible decisions as to whether to chuck something or not. A lot has gone to the charity shop. Some has to be thrown out. There is a lot more up there. Boxes and boxes of my stories, published and also rough copies. All my OU books. I will get rid of most of those, but keep all the TMAs and EMAs I did. There are old cards (birthdays, Xmas, Easter, Valentine's Day). Letters to Tooth Fairies and letters to Santa. Toys. Books. CDs. DVDs. Ornaments. Decorations. Mugs. Knives. Crockery. A travel cot. ('Get rid of it', Jon says. 'But what if Tasha has kids?' I reply. 'We'll need it again then...')

Arrrgh.

Had a quick poke about on the Open University's website earlier as I always keep a tab open (hahahaha surprised?). Fatal really. I saw what looks like a fantastic free course about film, and another about politics and media. It's almost breaking me to resist the urge to sign onto it. I really really really want to do it, but I know I haven't got the time. I'm in the middle of the synopsis proposal, then I need to write the first instalment, plus I'm halfway through a 9500 word story. I can't do it. I can't. I can't. I can't!😞

Let's find some inspiration from someone with a billion braincells.

That's a thought, actually. How many braincells do we have? 

Apparently we have 86 billion neurons and 85 billion nonneuronal cells. So we want someone with a lot more than a billion.

Anne Frank will definitely do.

“I can shake off everything as I write; 

my sorrows disappear, 

my courage is reborn.” 

Seems like a pretty decent reason to write.