I Have a Dream

Best writing competition for children in a long time – Dream a Big Dream. It combines encouraging children to think big with practising their English skills by describing their aspirations and writing down how they might achieve their goals. How fantastic is that? Official recognition that reaching for the skies is the way to go.

When I was eleven, I wanted to be a gymnast. My teacher told me: ‘You’ll never be Olga Korbut.’ And that was that. My happy delusion of pirouetting gracefully on the beam or backflipping across the mat to Beethoven’s Fifth was splatted into smithereens by one careless sentence. Never mind that I had the flexibility of an ironing board and the co-ordination of someone venturing out on roller skates for the first time. Everyone but me knew I’d never do a one-handed cartwheel. Which is why big dreams are so fabulous…they can evolve as you mature.

From gymnast to novelist,
still dreaming big

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

But not every castle in the air has to be swept to the ground with a broom and smashed to pieces until it lies wheezing and gasping at the ridiculousness of having dared hope in the first place. Some daydreams – like being a world champion gymnast – need a modicum of natural talent. But often enough, fantasies can be turned into reality by hard work, persistence, determination and a little bit of luck.

Luckily, I had a Plan B dream up my sleeve – I wanted to be a novelist. I started writing my first novel when I was thirty-two. I didn’t finish that one. Not enough belief in my vision. Or maybe not enough belief in myself. Whatever, I decided that novel-writing was for other, more talented people. But that dream wasn’t going away anytime soon. It sat there, pecking away for the next decade, until it was easier to confront it than ignore it. So little by little, I made my goal achievable, in workable, writable chunks. I took online classes. I wrote ten pages a week. Then five hundred words a day. Then a thousand words a day. Then a novel a year. Finally – three novels, a ton of agent rejections and a huge, confidence-sucking amount of ‘Aren’t you published yet?’ later – my ambitions were looking pretty battered round the edges, if not stiff on their back with their feet in the air.

With a huge black crow of doubt twitching away on my shoulder, I forced the big dream out into the sunlight. I self-published The Class Ceiling on Amazon Kindle. The second I committed to that, I met an agent who signed up my latest novel within a week.

So – to all those children out there, wondering whether they can achieve that whopper of a goal, that immense aspiration that burns away, that people ridicule and dismiss – I say go and watch Cool Runnings, the film about the Jamaican bobsleigh team making it to the 1988 Winter Olympics. That was an enormous, impossible, outlandish dream. But it did come true.

Final thought comes from Harriet Tubman, anti-slavery activist and humanitarian:

‘Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.'

Mirror, Mirror

Since The Class Ceiling was published, one of the questions I’ve been asked a lot by people who know me is ‘Will I recognise anyone?’ Or in a more quivery voice, ‘Will I recognise myself?’

The truth is the characters in all my books start with a whisper of someone I know. A messy house, a turn of phrase, a funny little obsession, an idiosyncrasy of some sort. Sometimes I don’t even realise I’ve absorbed and retold a story that someone has mentioned in passing. (Note to friends: I am NOT the person to tell about your affairs, haemorrhoids or secret nudist holidays.) But while I’m sure that many readers might recognise a certain ‘type’ of person, it’s highly unlikely they will recognise themselves even if I’d copied them on to the page, personality trait by personality trait.

And how can I be so certain? Because we rarely see ourselves as other people see us.

Unfortunately I know this first hand. I am scarred for life from announcing to a group of my close friends, ‘I think I am very easygoing.’ There was a pause. Then that face that people pull when they’re trying to understand someone foreign. Then laughter so loud it made the cutlery rattle. That was about twenty years ago and they’ve never let me forget it. While I was seeing myself as a jolly, conciliatory, live and let live, anything goes model of laissez-fairedom, my friends were seeing me as an uptight, demanding bulldozer of a woman, rooting her feet as deeply as dandelions with her ‘my way or the highway’ approach to life.

'I'm very easygoing, I am'
(Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

It’s one of the great conundrums of the human condition that our view of ourselves is so divorced from the vision that others have of us. Let’s take someone afflicted with that most unattractive trait of meanness. Do they look in the mirror and think I truly am the tightest wad that I know, the most clenched together duck’s behind of the entire animal kingdom? No. I swear they are clapping themselves on the back, applauding their lack of truck with fripperies and frivolities. Not for them the superficial life of splashing out on new mugs when the chipped ones haven’t yet cracked in half. Why offer to buy someone a coffee when caffeine is so bad for one’s health? Why be first to the bar when they’re only having one pint because they’re driving? They’re doing everyone a favour – they don’t want the others to feel they haven’t paid their way.

Or arrogant bores with more opinions than manners? Do they regret monopolizing the conversation, barely pausing for breath while their audience slowly slumped to the ground, eyes rolling back into their heads, searching around for a stray fork to jab into a buttock to shock themselves awake? No. They’re probably wishing they’d clung onto the microphone a bit more, educating the great unwashed on the solution to the Eurozone crisis, the reform of the benefits system, the superiority of the latest Range Rover over some fiddle-faddling fast car. Giving themselves a pat on the back for being the most knowledgeable person in the room, struggling to fit in with a bunch of ill-informed losers, who, inexplicably, seemed far more interested in dashing off to get another glass of that dreadful wine just as they were getting to the crux of the matter.

Or bloggers whose wit is so exceptional, so acerbic, so sophisticated that they would be doing the world a disservice if they kept all that cleverness tucked inside their own heads rather than allowing it to roam gaily about on the internet for all to enjoy.

Oh. Oh dear.

Dog days

This year I’m going to become more like my dog. I don’t mean that I’m going to start hoovering up rabbit poo like Maltesers, scoffing twelve crumpets raw out of the wrapper or growing a black beard (I hope). Or God forbid, become like one of our doggy guests over Christmas and find everything from the fridge to the furry bean bag a source of titillation.

But I am going to take a leaf out of her joyful living book. I was watching her on the hill yesterday. Finding delight in simple things - chasing the pigeons and lying in a muddy puddle. Bounding up to her three little canine friends, all different shapes and sizes, without judgment or reserve. Smiling off up to complete strangers, greeting them as though she only expects good things. And then whirling off round the garden with the furry slipper when we got home as though it was simply the most fun she’d had all year. 

Admittedly, in terms of responsibility, she carries very little, which must count for something in the load-lightening stakes. Her tasks  – snuggling up to the son and making him feel that someone in the world is on his side when I’m on the rampage, volunteering to help the daughter finish off her dinner, making sure I don’t let my bum get too big by allowing me a mere four inches of sofa, rushing out to greet the husband when the kids can’t look up from their computers – are not very daunting. But even so, she does them with such aplomb that you can’t help thinking she’s busier than she is.

So, to translate this into human terms, I’m going to make a point of going out to look at my pots on the patio every day and note the exact morning that the first hyacinth bursts through. I’m going to spot the first snowdrop, choose my favourite daffodil in the whole garden when April comes instead of looking out when they’re all over and wishing I’d paid more attention to the signs of spring. I’m going to foster a firm belief that all new experiences will be positive ones and that the people I meet will like me or, at least, tolerate me, as long as I don’t make off with their chicken sandwiches and chocolate mini-rolls. I’m going to find fun in small things – such as discovering the teenage son has downloaded the songs onto his i-Pod that I loved on vinyl. Even my children can’t bicker when we’re all rocking to American Pie or Livin’ on a Prayer.

Yep. It’s going to be a dog’s life this year. And I’m gonna love it.

Nothing like eating a bag of flour to turn the kitchen into Winter Wonderland

Cheers to Britmums

Those lovely people over at Britmums - a great blogging network for parents - were kind enough to let me write a guest post for them to bring in the New Year...pop over and take a look to see what's on offer at Britmumsblog.com and check out my post while you are there: http://www.britmumsblog.com/2013/01/write-a-novel-and-get-published-kerry-fisher-tells-you-how

Happy New Year to you all

So here it is, Merry Christmas

There’s nothing like a peruse of other people’s Christmas traditions on Facebook or Mumsnet to make our household look like a terrestrial version of ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’ Never mind the making of fancy little star-shaped biscuits and jolly felt decorations for the tree, it’s as much as I can do to summon up the enthusiasm to bung up the Christmas poodle ornament with one leg missing and the starry tinsel that’s just purple wire now all its stars have leapt off over the years and rejoined the universe. If it weren’t for the children, I’d probably ditch the tree all together and pile up the boxes of wine into a triangle shape.

Other people have joyous traditions such as inviting people over to sing carols round the fire, which would be the quickest way to find ourselves alone at New Year. The husband sounds like the exhaust on a removals truck and I’ve long taken up miming at the children’s carol concerts. Then there’s all that putting down food for the reindeers and sherry wotnot for Father C, which just makes me think rats. And the dog would scarf up the Harveys Bristol Cream creating her own brand of Christmas doom in the form of a vet on a million-pound callout over the festive season.

And don’t get me started on Christmas cards. All that hanging around, blowing over every time the sitting room door is opened, guilting me into thinking about the people I didn’t send one to. I know it’s the thought that counts but am I alone in finding it weird that people send cards all the way from Australia, actually go to the effort of taking the damn thing to the post office to get it weighed in the middle of November then write, ‘Love Pat’? No news. No family nugget. Come on, guys, let’s tap into our loquacious gene here and make those airmiles worth it.

And then, deep happiness, there’s the present minefield. The children start making constant white noise about their present lists back in October, which I let blend in with the sound of the dishwasher until about 21 December, then pay out one third of the Christmas budget on presents and two-thirds on next day delivery. The husband gets stressed about what he’s going to buy me as I don’t need or want anything. To me, this seems a fine characteristic in a wife, but the embarrassment of being the only husband in the room who has bought nothing for his beloved seems to turn this fabulous quality of mine into a fault. So although a recent survey made mockery of sensible presents such as saucepans, socks and slippers, I think I would be delighted with just about everything in the top ten worst presents list with the possible exception of diet books, clothes in the wrong size and granny knickers, though better the big bloomers than some cheese-gratery thong that makes you scared to sneeze.

Last year the husband bought me a welly boot mud scraper, the year before a fridge, both of which filled my heart with much more joy than unwrapping a trinkety little box containing something sparkly. The pressure of having to like something expensive makes me back away, a bit like the dog when I try to wash the mud off her with the hosepipe.

But yet…when the extended family gather round on Christmas Day, my Dad raises a toast and says, ‘May these be our worst days’, the kids go into raptures over the nail clippers and plastic earrings from the crackers, the dog appears with a perfect (snaffled) triangle of Brie in her mouth, the husband is just such a damn good egg, barely raising an eyebrow that the family and friends this year come with an extra three dogs between them…well, I have to consider myself blessed, Christmas humbug and all.

P.S. If anyone needs a last minute present…I know of a fantastic book on Kindle…http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Class-Ceiling-ebook/dp/B00ANUAN72/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1356013757&sr=8-1

Everyone Does It Better

There’s nothing like achieving something I really, really want to chop the celebrations off at the knees before they’ve begun. In the time it takes for someone to say, ‘Whe-hey you did it,’ my mind has already shifted from the ‘Crikey, I did actually do it,’ to the ‘Now they’re all going to find me out.’ There’s barely time to unknot the wire round the champagne cork before I’m fretting about getting rumbled. Take this week. I’ve probably been talking about writing a novel for half of my life, writing one on and off for quarter of it, and really cranking up the brain and motivation for a tenth of it.

So The Class Ceiling is finally out on Amazon Kindle. Fourteen versions, proofread cover-to-cover, tried out on all the various Kindle and iPad incarnations, staring at a screen until my eyeballs were bleeding. I know more about hyphens and compound adjectives in the English language than any human being needs to survive. With a big ta-da, I pushed the button and there appeared The Class Ceiling in all its pink-covered glory. The family heaved a sigh of relief, muttered ‘Well done’ and hoped that now I’d stop shouting at everyone. I could have allowed myself, let’s say, thirty seconds, to enjoy the moment. But no. I just felt as though I’d rolled out a big ugly baby in a pram that everyone would to peer into and not know what to say.

The husband is singing from the rooftops, blaring about the wife’s brilliance. The teenage son has stopped telling his teachers that his mother is ‘an unsuccessful author’ and grunted that I’ve ‘done OK’. The daughter keeps showing all her friends the book on Amazon and saying, ‘My Mum wrote that.’ But the wife herself wants to creep into the dog cage and stay there until any danger of someone reading the damn book (and having an opinion on it) has passed.

Is it a gender thing? Maybe I’m being unfair but I feel like I’ve spent quite a lot of time with blokes lolling back in their chairs, one foot over a knee, steepling their fingers and sharing their fabulousness on subjects I swear I know more about. I mean, I’m not a genius but my brain doesn’t make clanking sounds if we’re talking about language, writing or how to make good banana bread. I’ll grant that there are a few more creaks and grating noises if we’ve drifted onto quantitative easing and those Libor rate thingies. But the point is, why do some people (sorry, guys, but it is usually men) feel absolutely fine about holding forth on subjects when their knowledge would fit comfortably into an eggcup, while I think twice about speaking up even if I’ve got a degree in the subject?

Time to man up – or rather woman up. My New Year’s Resolution? Carpe Diem. Dance in the dew. Parp own trumpet, quietly and in tune, on occasion. Small sedate clap for self without immediately being bulldozed by doubt. Accept that sometimes I can do well without needing a caveat emptor as big as a house.

But if you do read The Class Ceiling, please don’t let me know if you find any typos, the dog’s getting a bit fed up with me crowding into her cage…

The Class Ceiling is available on Amazon Kindle. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Class-Ceiling-ebook/dp/B00ANUAN72/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355817516&sr=8-1