I’m doing three new things at once

I’m doing three new things at once and I’m not at all sure its a good idea. I can hear my grandmother clicking her teeth with disapproval and saying ‘you’re biting off more than you can chew.’ This blog is one of them and I’m not changing my mind about all this, so here-goes. The other two are already begun and for one of them I’ve broken a life long rule.

I’ve always accepted that if a writer gives a talk or runs a workshop, they should expect to be paid a fee for what they do. That is certainly the opinion of the Society of Authors and of a good many other authors beside. The argument being, that if you work for free you are devaluing yourself. However times are changing in a brutal way. The moment has come for me to offer my services free to two libraries, so cash-starved and hard-pressed, they can’t afford to offer a fee to anybody nor to do very much in the way of publicity so it will be interesting to see what happens.

The first talk will be in Wells Library on Tuesday 22nd September starting at 7.30pm and it will be about what we can glean from history from our families, their homes and their home towns. Sometimes they take us on more complicated and enthralling journeys than we might imagine. On the following day I shall be in an independent bookshop ‘Hunting Raven Books’ in Frome, signing books and meeting fans and friends from 11 in the morning until 12 noon. Indies need support from writers too. In the afternoon I shall be in the library at Frome running a workshop in which my audience and I will be brainstorming and building a character out of the air, working as a team. This is always fun to do because none of us know what our character is going to be like nor what direction he or she will take. Watch this space.

And yes there is a third new thing but I’ll tell you about that in my next blog!

See you there.