Looking on the bright side

The die is cast and the novel revised and sent to my agent. I shall be far too busy to worry about what is happening to it, what with finishing the December edition of Armadillo, researching the next Stravaganza and organising family Christmas.

There was a piece of "fanmail" this week from France, asking for anything promotional with my name on it and saying that the autrhor's 19 year old son was a "huge fan" of mine. I passed it on to my publisher but then found, through the SAS, that lots of other people had had it too, even those who have had no books published in France or who write for under tens. I felt really cheated to realise this was a mass mailing.

This kind of thing is on the increase. I also had one from America asking if I could supply hundreds of copies of my book [sic] at a special rate. And the book report and dissertation writers continue to send in their questions. There's obviously a set form for students to fill in, since one said "I can find only seven significant life events in your website biography and I need ten!"

On Monday, after a morning spent printing out, I went to London and saw Spamalot with Bex. We agreed it was the silliest thing we had ever seen on stage and it was just exactly what we both needed. Tim Curry made a great King Arthur (silly variety) but the rest of the cast was very strong too. The audience knew Monty Python and the Holy Grail very well, even the Americans sitting behind and beside us. There was a spontaneous standing ovation at the end and everyone joined in "Always look on the bright side of life.".

I read An Unquiet Mind by Kay Jamison - a much praised account of bi-polar disorder by a sufferer, who is also a psychiatrist. I found her writing style quite maddening; far from being "beautifully written" as the review quotations on the back say, she even writes "like I" - twice! But it was extremely readable, as perhaps all personal accounts of unusual lives are.