Great Roots …

22/04/2013 // by Jan Moran Neil

Great Roots.

“Like the trees
we come to lose our leaves
and draw our strength
from the Great Roots … ”

Robert Bly

Last blog I said I had a notebook which has – ‘writers I have known and liked’ – on the front and that I was going to ask writers to place some words therein. Yesterday I received the above words written by Robert Bly from a lovely writer who has just lost her young sister.
I shall place Bly’s words in my notebook for this lovely writer. It occurred to me when I read these words that we are heading for spring. My writer friend is one hour ahead of me in South Africa where their beautiful summer is turning into russet autumn as many of us are. We are all on different time scales.
Some people have their summer ahead of them and some of us lose watches at Heathrow airport as they are boarding flights and some have belongings and people returned to them and some do not.
Even when belongings and people return to us they are slightly altered. My reclaimed watch was one hour behind UK time as the clocks here have sprung forward since my loss. Ah, to that lost hour.

Phillip Sheahan wins a poetry assessment for spotting that the correct wording of Robert Frost’s poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ was ‘Way leads on to Way’ not the plural ‘Ways lead on to Ways’. But how they do.

Creative Ink summer classes are now full. But you can book a free taster whenever I have an absentee writer.

Ways Lead on to Ways

10/04/2013 // by Jan Moran Neil

Blog 63 – Ways lead on to Ways … Ms Paige Turner makes an intentional error on each blog. Spot this bi-month’s error and get a free poetry assessment.*

I’m sorry this bi-month’s blog is tardy. It’s not because I was returning from five glorious weeks in Cape Town but because my laptop was comatose for the last few days of my stay.
We strongly suspected flu but Michael gave a different diagnosis. I must have pressed some odd button. I was out of action for a whole week in Fish Hoek, Cape Town with only the beach and the yellowtail to distract me. Mr Justin Case and I booked Michael from an internet café six thousand miles away. He turned up on our Beaconsfield doorstep last night and here I am to tell the tale. I’m okay, a little shaken but in working order and for those of you who send me words to assess, a new laptop is imminent and I will soon be able to receive doc x.
Whilst in Fish Hoek (and there is a Fish Avenue in Fish Hoek) – what an address to have – I met up with the lovely Fish Hoek Scribblers and then I was off to Milnerton to lecture ‘Writing Your Life Story’ to West Coast Writers. I don’t know if it’s the Table topped Mountain or something in the air over there – but I love being with these writers in Cape Town. I bought a book in Kalk Bay – with ‘Writers I have met and liked’ on the front and some writers have started to jot some words therein. I’m going to build a collection.
I’ve met and taught writers from aged 10 to aged 98 and they all teach me. I met Kools last week. She and Sim and Earl are starting a theatre company at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation in the township of Masi. I found myself in the privileged position of ‘consultant’. Kools and Sim and Earl re-ignited that excitement I felt when I started the first of my three theatre companies in 1978. It was the Ruddles Theatre Company and I found myself in Rutland counting sheep. Months earlier I had been lecturing Voice in Montreal but you get it … ways lead on to ways as Robert Frost wrote. There was a major turning point in my life and though I meant to return to Canada, I never did.
My second company – better than the first was A-One, and so we were, but ten years ago I was inspired by a group of young people to start Creative Ink for Actors. And this Saturday we are celebrating our 10th Anniversary and our 9 productions.
Earl, Sib, Kools – if you have a tenth of the joy I’ve had with Creative Ink actors and techies (and in their time they have been very, very naughty) then you will have a ball. I gave Kools a handwritten copy of Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ – I had been lecturing ‘Writing Your Life Story’ remember? She accepted it with the same gratitude as if I had given her 20,000 Rand. May your way lead on to a gleaming path, Kools and Creative Inkers, I look forward to seeing you all this Saturday and finding out about your pathways.

Only one place left on Thursday am ‘Get that Book out of You’. Tuesdays full.
‘BLACKBERRY PROMISES’ available on Amazon – £6.99 – please post a review.
In erratum – Elizabeth Glanville wrote ‘The Imaginist’ available on Amazon – not Beth Glanville.
* Must be taken up within six months.

Sheer Delight: Chocolate. Happy Easter Bunnies …

22/03/2013 // by Jan Moran Neil

Blog 62 – Sheer Delight – Chocolate … Happy Easter …

What do the Maya, the Aztecs, Hernán Cortes, Queen Anne of Austria, Sir Hans Sloane and William Cadbury have in common? The last one was a sweet giveaway, wasn’t it?
Considered an aphrodisiac, a symbol of love and with a long tradition of being eaten at all festivals as a luxury, ladies love a chocolate. With Valentine’s Day at our toes and with Easter on an early spring doorstep, our moveable feast is traditionally celebrated with the chocolate egg. But its journey to our coffee table has been long.
Chocolate began 2000 years ago in the tropical rainforests of the Americas. Enter the Mayas who took the pods of the cacao (kah kow) tree, containing seeds which were processed into a spicy drink but not the kind of Hot Chocolate we know. It was a bitter drink and by 1400 the Aztecs were trading with the Maya and using the cacao seeds as a form of money. The Aztecs drank their early version of Hot Chocolate at royal and religious events, offering the cacao seeds to the gods.
When Hernán Cortes conquered Mexico in 1521, the Spanish began to import the seeds back home and they couldn’t get enough of this new drink. It soon became a court favourite and was so expensive that it remained an exclusive
luxury and a Spanish secret for a hundred years. The Spanish drank the chocolate with cinnamon and sugar and blended it with a molinilla, a wood stirring stick which whipped the chocolate into foam giving birth, after a fashion, to the Hot Chocolate. Chocolate has been viewed with sweet affection for centuries: the Spanish believed it had restorative and nutritional properties and so the Catholic Church allowed people to drink it in liquid form during fasting periods.
The sweet Spanish secret slipped in the seventeenth century and European royal courts began tasting the delights. This is where Sir Hans Sloane, president of the Royal College of Physicians comes in. Sir Hans introduced mixing the chocolate drink with milk and in 1657 the first chocolate house opened in London, before the advent of coffee houses. The chocolate houses were ‘Men Only’ venues and must have suffered commercially in their choice of exclusive target market.
And so to the solid chocolate bar as we know it, and treats for the masses … Both were a result of the industrial revolution when machinery made it possible to create chocolate in solid form and mass produce cheaply enough for the common man, and woman, to purchase and enjoy.
In fact the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said to accompany a box of chocolates in 1820, “Enjoy this whenever it suits your mood, not as a drink but as a much loved food”.
Thus the bar of chocolate and the commercial slogan were born in a double helping.
In 1875 Nestlé introduced condensed milk to chocolate whilst less than twenty years later Hershey produced chocolate-coated caramels with Mars, not a planet away from here in Slough, (sorry I couldn’t resist that one) creating their malted-milk filled Milky Way.
There have always been slaves to chocolate but the commercial demand for luxury products like sugar and cacao forced cheap labour in the Americas and on the Equator. In 1910, William Cadbury refused to buy cacao from plantations where there was slave labour and harsh working conditions. Their factory – Cadbury World – in Birmingham, UK is a veritable Willy Wonka factory and well worth the visit.
So where does Queen Anne of Austria fit in? Probably, not into very much as her claim to fame was that she was ‘self-confessed chocoholic’. It’s satisfying to know that women have made their contribution to the history of chocolate …

Quirky chockie facts:

1. Queen Victoria got her soldiers hooked on chocolate in the late nineteenth century by sending them chocolate gifts.
2. It’s difficult to get hooked on chocolate as is possible with nicotine or alcohol. To get a ‘high’ one would have to eat more than 25 pounds of chocolate in one sitting.
3. By 1930 there were nearly 40,000 different types of chocolate.
4. The Chinese eat one bar of chocolate for every 1000 eaten by the British.
5. The Marquis de Sade’s wife sent her husband chocolate when he was in prison. (She was obviously no sadist.)
6. A Harvard University study found that men who ate chocolate lived a year longer than men who didn’t. Gentlemen, if this isn’t enough to get you nibbling then read …
7. Casanova drank chocolate daily and preferred it to champagne. Now, who needs Viagra?

Useful reading:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Chocolat by Joanne Harris

www.janmoranneil.co.uk
www.janmoranneil.boxofblogs.com

Creative Ink Publishing

08/03/2013 // by Jan Moran Neil

Blog 62 – Creative Ink Publishing

Beth Glanville – author of The Imaginist – which she has published on Lulu.com
recently emailed me as she was writing a feature on ‘Self Publishing’ and asked me to comment on my experiences with MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES.
It’s a tricky one this, as technically, Creative Ink Publishing is a small, if not ‘bijoux’ one might say, independent company. True, my own novel BLACKBERRY PROMISES – has been published by Creative Ink, and I am part of the company. But we started out by publishing Patricia Sentinella’s collection of poetry and parting shots – ‘Dear John, Dear Anyone …’
After Pat’s book launch we did a number of readings in libraries, Missenden Abbey etc and we have sold all books printed and now selling on Amazon Kindle.
Creative Ink Publishing then mounted an international writing competition on the same theme as Pat’s collection and in the broad sense published a dozen of the best monologues from the catch. I say ‘in the broad sense’ as we produced a high quality film ‘Dear John, Dear Anyone …’ available on DVD at £5 for the Heart charities.
It was, at the same time, that MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES – was published by Creative Ink – powered by a superb company – Spiderwize – whose care and attention to writers is second to none. From that we have mounted the international competition on the theme of ‘Promises’ – entry fee of £5 to go to the Heart charities. The best dozen will be Epublished and there’s a view to myself and Elaine Mulvaney – winner of the Dear John comp – turning one of the stories into a film script supervised by Tony McHale, producer of ‘Holby City’.
So in the strict sense I haven’t self published and see Creative Ink Publishing as a new and innovative form of publishing. No-one certainly has lost money. The comp entry fee have raised already over £1000 for the Heart charities and with two books on Amazon and Amazon Kindle we might be able to buy ourselves some blusher.
We hope everyone’s happy.
Do I recommend self publishing? I say, try 5 agents first. I spent two decades with two very big literary agents. They were wonderful people but I kept missing the big five publishers by inches. I then had to do something that Miss Tea Tree Oil has done to my ailing feet. I had to take my literary destiny into my own hands.
Do I regret it? No. But I might have paid someone to proof read my own words – as a writer can’t do that. But that’s in hand and I’m lucky enough or hard working enough to have sold my print run and am printing more with corrected changes. We learn.
I’ve packed Beth’s novel in my holiday suitcase and I’ll take my sunhat off to her.
But if any of you have exhausted the traditional path of publishing, do try Creative Ink before you go Lulu.

• Just two places left on the summer ‘Get that Book out of You’ Thursday morning course beginning April 25th. Tuesdays are full.
• If you have liked MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES – please post a review on Amazon and thank you if you have already done so.

Merely Players -My Performance at the Royal Albert Hall

23/02/2013 // by Jan Moran Neil

Merely Players
My performance at the Royal Albert Hall

Ms Paige Turner is publishing this – available from Serving Bluebird Pie – on Kindle – in honour of Mr Red Hat’s (Mike’s) 60th birthday. This is what we got up to when we were very young …

It’s circuitous – how I got to be there. David Putnam saw me in a play and cast me as one of David Essex’s many girlfriends in the film That’ll be the Day. Twenty quid for two days’ filming and the all elusive Equity card would be mine. Jackpot: if I hadn’t just started at drama college where there was a veto on outside professional work. You could busk or sell beer, but not work in the profession for which you were training.
“So, you want to be a film star and no-one will let you.” The new principal was sympathetic but firm on the issue as he poured me a dry sherry – a sweetener for the lost opportunity of gaining my union card. Forget the ride on the roller coaster with David Essex.
The bearded god scanned his desk for something to appease this block on my ambitions. He reached for a piece of paper and said, “Could you do me a favour?”
Rich, I thought, under the circumstances.
“Shelter is in need of young actors to perform some kind of …” and here his forefinger went into circular orbit, “scenario at the Royal Albert Hall in a charity show. It’s for about fifty or so. Give Thekla a ring on this number.”
Thekla asked – Could I find a male friend for the other speech and a girl to hold the baby? I asked my flatmates Mike and Charm. Mike asked if he had to learn his speech and I said, “Nah,” as I was drawing a trachea for my voice notes, “there’s only fifty in the audience.” So Mike didn’t bother to learn his speech and I became ‘acquainted’ with mine – which means you know the lines well enough to look up when you are reading.
Thekla – a snapper of a Greek, showed us our dressing room prior to the dress rehearsal. Charm remembered her doll and I remembered my script. Except Thekla said afterwards that we should ‘say’ the lines and not ‘read’ them. We had two hours to go before the afternoon performance. I said that lines needed a long term memory to be like – well – remembered. (I was eighteen at the time.) Then, can you believe this? Mike actually started learning his lines. How can anyone learn their lines two hours before a performance? Charm said, “Oh, have a go, Jan.” I told her to shut up as she was only holding the baby. I refused point blank to go scriptless and I think Thekla got a bit cross.
Anyway, when our time came, she led us to the pit beneath the stairs which led up to the arena. It was very noisy. I said, “That’s a bit noisy for fifty in the audience, Thekla.” She turned and frowned at me. “Fifty charities,” she said.
“Fifty?” I said.
“That’s eight thousand people,” she said. Only I was hardly conscious. I was certainly in the pits.
We ascended the stairs to our arena above – less like gladiators more like galley slaves. As I grabbed the handrail of the short flight of stairs which led upward, I felt the Greek at my elbow. “Be brave,” she said as she ripped my script away from me. Our overture had begun.
Mike was wonderful on the microphone. He pranced around calling ‘Shelter care – do you?” I discovered years later when I called him in to play Peter Quince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at twenty four hours’ notice that he just made lines up. In later years Mike became a disc jockey which says something.
I got through because you do.
Thekla was thrilled. So was I. It was all over.
But no, the ordeal must happen again. Thekla had failed to inform us there was an evening performance. Sold out. And Thekla had hidden my script. We were lacking our mother and babe. Charm had a party to go to.
When Mike and I walked out of the Royal Albert Hall and made our way towards the underground, we didn’t speak for a long time. Then he said, “Cor. Cor, we’ve just performed to sixteen thousand people today. I’ve never done that.”
Neither had I. The sad thing was, we were never likely to again. Not live. Unless anyone offers me a floor show.
I still have the nightmare. It recurs: Thekla at the bottom of the pit, ripping my script away from my right hand and above me there are sixteen thousand lions in the Royal Albert Hall smelling my fear. But in my nightmare, I am, of course – naked.
Now that’ll be the day. Yah!!

Happy Birthday, Mr Red Hat
If you have read – MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES – and enjoyed please leave a short review on Amazon.

Last bi-month’s intentional error was the spelling of ‘Connecticut’.
A few places left on both Tuesday (Get Inspired) and Thursday (Get that Book) Creative Ink courses. Both courses are running
Dermot Fitzpatrick’s Creative Ink talk – An Acre of Diamonds – and my Beaconsfield Library talk on MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES – went swimmingly.

9/10

09/02/2013 // by Jan Moran Neil

9/10 – On every blog Ms Paige Turner tells a porkie pie or makes an intentional error. Be the first to spot it and you will get an invite to Dermot Fitzpatrick’s talk at Creative Ink for Writers this coming Thursday 14th February at the Fitzwilliams Centre, Beaconsfield. 11.00am

I’ve never been so pleased to get 9 out of 10 in my whole life. The Marlow Book Club gave MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES 9 out of 10 last Friday on Marlow FM. It was a nail biting moment, I can tell you. Ms Clare Bones, you are flavour of the month.
Creative Ink for Writers has a busy time this coming week. Elizabeth Davey gets a free invite to Dermot Fitzpatrick’s talk on your ‘Acre of Diamonds’ for spotting that it takes place on Valentine’s Day and not Thursday 15th. Elizabeth, where in the world are you? I thought you were in Connetticut.
It’s my author talk on MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES – on Friday 15th February (10.00am) at the newly refurbished Beaconsfield Library. No prizes for spotting that bit of dead wood or tautology in the last sentence as Di Morrish spotted on last bi-month’s ‘nib point’. But I rather like ‘nib point’ so we can all break the rules now and then.
Enrolment forms are out for Creative Ink for Writers’ summer term – both Tuesdays ‘Get Inspired’ and Thursdays ‘Get that Book Out of You’ are running with some places left.
In between terms I will be off to Fish Hoek Scribblers and West Coast Writers in Cape Town and a new adventure for me: improvising with young Africans at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation in Cape Town. Then it’s back home for Creative Ink for Actors’ 10th reunion shin dig. Where does the time go to we may ask. It goes. It just goes and one minute is equal to the next.
Ms www.silverscreensuppers.com makes me laugh. She made me laugh when she played Zelda Mabs in my play ‘Blackberry Promises’ but I had to smile when I read her posting on my last blog. I asked if anyone read my blog at all and she posted, “I do, dear”. Well, Ms www.silverscreensuppers.com I hope your arm is recovering. We both give an arm and a foot for our Art. And if you don’t get that last joke – read my past blogs.
9 out of 10 for you, Ms www.silverscreensuppers.com

• Beth Granville  fellow journalist chum and Fiona McCready  Dear John finalist have a joint book launch. The Imaginist by Beth and Patchwork by Fiona will be launched at a joint event on Thursday 21 February, at 4 Crowndale Road, NW1 1TT. The event will begin at 7pm and Elizabeth and Fiona will be reading from their books at 8pm.

Making Waves

28/01/2013 // by Jan Moran Neil

Blog 59 – Making Waves – Ms Paige Turner tells a porkie pie on each blog – spot this one and you will get an invite to Creative Ink’s Guest Speaker – Dermot Fitzpatrick’s talk on Thursday 15th February at the Fitzwilliams Centre, Beaconsfield at 11.00am.

My first entrée into The World of Radio was as a Jingle Voice for Hereward Radio in Peterborough. Yes, I’ve embraced the spoken and written word from all angles.
My claim to Radio Fame was in the 80s when for a fiver a jingle – selling anything from ice cream to wholemeal bread, I earned a crust. One had to work quickly in the allotted couple of hours. The faster you talked, the less you blooped, the quicker came the five pound notes.
It was then with some horror – having been invited to sell Creative Ink’s wares and MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES – for five minutes ‘on the BBC Radio 5 Counties waves’ that when re-played to me Mr Justin Case said, “Was it possible for you to speak any quicker?” Well, I’d had years of training in getting the information out there.
I was also asked to speak, and this time at some length on Marlow FM Radio, – interviewed by Dermot Fitzpatrick and his dulcet tones. Dermot is a riveting motivational speaker who happens to be coming to talk to Creative Ink writers this term about your ‘Acre of Diamonds’.
Yesterday I played back the hour long interview. Dermot’s Irish Brogue is a balm for sore ears and I wasn’t that bad, but if you gave me a fiver for every time I said the word ‘actually’ then I could take a long holiday. Horrors. It made me realise that Responding on Radio is not a piece of strawberry jam cake and there’s an awful lot for this voice teacher to learn.
Okay, I’m now coming round to the nib point of this blog, dear Readers, and how do I know anyone reads this at all if you don’t leave a posting and how do I know you are ‘dear’. Subsequent to my making my own waves with Dermot I was asked by Marlow Book Club to give another few minutes on Marlow FM about MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES. I tried to speak a little slower and this coming Friday 1st February between 9.30am and 11.00am MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES – is being reviewed. How scary is that, chickens?
Tune in.

Read my ‘Write for Radio’ series in ‘Writing Magazine’.

If you’ve read MY NOVEL – BLACKBERRY PROMISES – and liked it, will you leave a review on Amazon?

Start your short story on the theme of ‘Promises’ for Creative Ink’s new competition.

Slightly late blog this bi-month – busy teaching that lovely group of writers who came to the Missenden Abbey ‘Get that Book out of You’ course this last weekend.

Creative Ink Publishing Short Story Competition – 2013

11/01/2013 // by Jan Moran Neil

The Promises International Short Story Competition 2013
A Dozen Promises
Following the highly successful ‘Dear John, Dear Anyone …’ monologue writing competition which resulted in a dozen pieces being filmed by Creative Ink for Actors and £765 raised for charity, we are inviting submissions for short stories up to 2000 words on the theme of ‘Promises’.
This competition is being mounted in conjunction with the launch of Jan Moran Neil’s novel Blackberry Promises available on Amazon.
Your story should reflect the theme of ‘Promises’: broken promises, fulfilled promises, engagements, lacking in promise, unfulfilled promises, promising the earth, promise of a good time.
Send your entry and a £5 fee to creativeinkpublishing@gmail.com Bank no 71335715/Sort Code 40-09-29 or send a hard copy and a cheque made out to Creative Ink Publishing to 11, Pitch Pond Close, Knotty Green Beaconsfield, Bucks.
Your £5 entry fee will be donated to the British Heart Foundation and Hearts & Souls.
The dozen most promising short stories will be EPublished with a view to turning the best one into a film script written by ‘Dear John’ winner Elaine Mulvaney and Jan Moran Neil.
The deadline is October 1st 2013 and the winning entrants will be notified by the end of the year.
Script Consultant: BAFTA award winning ‘Holby City’ producer and ‘EastEnders’ script writer – Tony McHale.

The Judges
Tim JA Cox
Author of ‘Here’s Looking at You’
Kindle version £3.25 Available on Amazon Kindle
Also available at www.feedaread.com in Paperback for £7.99.
Creative Ink Publishing/Marketing
Patricia Sentinella
Creative Ink Publishing/Author – Dear John, Dear Anyone –
a collection of poems and parting shots.
Paperback available at £7.99 from Amazon
or on Amazon Kindle for £1.02.
Jan Moran Neil Creative Ink Publishing/Editor –
Author of Blackberry Promises – £6.99 available on Amazon and www.janmoranneil.co.uk
also Serving Bluebird Pie £2.06 On Amazon Kindle.
DVD – Dear John, Dear Anyone … £5.50 to include postage and packing.
Pay online for books or the DVD and goods will be sent to you or send cheque to the address above.
Competition Rules:
1. The entry should include the author’s name and contact details.
2. The entry should be accompanied by the entry fee in the same name as the author.
3. The entry must not have won any writing competition and must be the entrant’s own effort.
4. Creative Ink exerts the right to cut and/or edit entrants’ words.
5. The judge’s decision is final and the judge and organisers cannot enter into any correspondence.
6. Creative Ink Publishing reserves the right to use one or any number of the stories as a basis for a theatre or film script and screening, acknowledging the author.
Make a promise to yourself and write it …

Caroline Francis was the first to spot that Charlotte Bronte wrote ‘Jane Eyre’ and not her sister Emily.
Creative Ink classes are full this term but email me if you would like a free taster session on a Tuesday or Thursday morning.
If you have read and liked my novel: ‘Blackberry Promises’ please post a review on Amazon.________________________________________

Footloose in the Caribbean …

28/12/2012 // by Jan Moran Neil

Blog 57 – Footloose in the Caribbean …Ms Paige Turner makes an intentional error on each blog. Spot this one and she will edit a 200 word blurb for you

You need to have read Blog 51 – On Foot in the US of A – to get my drift on this one.
Two weeks before Christmas I was out to sea on the Thomson’s Dream Boat – and billed as ‘Live the Dream with Jan Moran Neil’ – I know, I know, it’s surreal – but there I was – crossing the Atlantic – things hotting up as we head for Antigua and all going swimmingly until a sun bed stabbed the fourth right toe on my right foot. (Bit of ‘dead wood’ with the repetition of ‘right in this last sentence.)
What is it about me and my feet? Why have ‘feet’ been the running (whoops) theme for me this year? Is it Divine Providence as my daughter Miss Trial secured her criminal barrister’s feet in April? I had verrucas on my right heel in an autumnal Los Angeles and as I entered the year and Missenden Abbey for a ‘Get that Book out of You’ course I slipped on black ice. I’ve been like Quasimodo all year.
The Dream Cruisers were a delight. Terry Flannery won the writing competition – entitled – ‘A Christmas Promise at Sea’. I wasn’t the Christmas Promise but sun beds featured prominently in this piece of winning flash fiction.
Ross and Brett were delightful assistant cruise directors – roughly about the age of Creative Ink actors – so I was able to discourse with them – and two amazing coincidences happened to me. The first was that Mr Justin Case (who was on a free cruise as a result of my lecturing Dream Cruisers) and I went to Antigua where we honeymooned 27 years ago. We re-visited the hotel where we stayed all those years ago and then caught a cab back to the Dream Boat. Who should take us to the port but GG – our driver from all those years ago?
The other coincidence was that the assistant cruise director – in his ‘on deck’ quiz asked who wrote ‘Jane Eyre’. Not much of a coincidence that I knew it was Emily Bronte – but that he should then ask if anyone was reading it and there a hard back copy was – in my sun bag. I was on my feet – yes – I was – waving Emily’s oeuvre at him. I don’t think a sea soul believed me but I was pleased to have packed it. It’s 50 Shades of Grey without the sex and my Kindle had lost its battery.

Creative Ink Classes – 2 places left on ‘Get Inspired’ – Tuesday mornings. Thursdays – ‘Get that Book out of You’ is full.
Saturday 26th January – ‘Get that Book out of You’ day course at Missenden Abbey is running – Tel: 01296 – 383582
Creative Ink Publishing‘Promises’ Short Story comp – full details on my website www.janmoranneil.co.uk

Carrots in Erratum

26/11/2012 // by Jan Moran Neil

Blog 56 – Carrots In Erratum – the first person to guess Ms Paige Turner’s intentional fib or error will get a free Creative Ink taster session this week or next and a carrot …

I get Riverford Organic Vegetables. I know that may not have anything to do with writing or making films or book launches – but whoah – steady on – it’s coming.
Every week Guy Watson, owner of Riverford Organic Farms www.riverford.co.uk sends customers an update on how the vegetables are growing. I love reading his missives. I’ve kept the May edition entitled Fickle French Weather in my teaching bag for months and I probably won’t ever part with it. Guy’s May missive laments that awful summer 2012 – which went on and on, of course, and blighted his carrots. He said there had been complaints but that the upside (and there usually is one) was that the courgettes had been intercropped with the parsley and there would be freebies in the box that week. ‘Take it as an apology for the carrots,’ Guy wrote.
Well, after a hugely successful Book Launch of my novel ‘Blackberry Promises’ and a hugely successful film premiere of ‘Dear John, Dear Anyone …’ in the last two weeks, all I can say is please take this as an apology for the incredible clanger on page 207 of my novel. Maybe the printer’s devil was having a laugh at Ms Paige Turner’s intentional errors in this blog.
It was my brand new son-in-law, Master Mind, who pointed out the clanger on the celebratory night of my Book Launch. My daughter, Miss Trial, (so called for newcomers as she is a Criminal Barrister) asked him if he had the EQ of a gnat – but you know something – he was the first person to read my book and say he loved it. For that Master Mind could be forgiven most things – and it had to be said – for the re-run.
So, please, take this as an apology for the carrots.

Well done to Elaine Mulvaney for winning the ‘Dear John, Dear Anyone …’ monologue competition. DVDs available from me at £5.50 to include p&p. Elaine wrote under a pseudonym so you can guess which one won.

‘Blackberry Promises’ – the novel – available from me or on Amazon at £6.99. Please write a review on Amazon – but only if you liked it. Peter Hughes, Jen Dannhauser and Adrian Baker – thank you lovely actors for coming and reading narrative.

New short story comp – theme – Promises – details coming shortly and on my website – up to 2000 words for the British Heart Foundation and Hearts & Souls. BAFTA award winning Holby City producer and EastEnders script writer has agreed to be script consultant.

Creative Ink classes starting second week of Jan, 2 places on Thursdays Get that Book and a few more on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.