Banana Waffles.

Just read this article about a typical night for a paramedic on a weekend night in Birmingham, UK.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1216175/Now-hes-dying-feet-friends-joke-A-harrowing-dispatch-binge-drink-Britain.html

Frightening that people still do not realise that drinking too much can lead to vomiting and couple that with passing out and you have a death happening.
To healthy young fit individuals who happily risk their lives week in week out.

The man in the story was in a group of friends but he still died - purely and simply because 'he loves his lager' more than life itself apparently. More than the newly wed wife who the friends then had to contact to let know that her husband was now dead and she was a widow.

It goes on and on listing the horrible night experienced by the ambulance teams and A&E workers as they battle against the effects of binge drinking.
There must be something wrong with me because I can't understand how anyone could go out in public amongst strangers and drink so much alcohol that they are vulnerable to anything anyone with any type of malevolent intention might feel like doing. Given how many drunk angry people there are out there, it is not a low likelihood that eventually a drunk incapable male or female will find themselves in a situation they can't safely walk away from.

That is if they escape being destroyed by their own body's response to being bombarded by the toxin that is being sloshed down their gullets to the point where the body is so desperately trying to regain equilibrium that it vomits, passes out and chokes.

I wish people would love themselves more. Find something wonderful to give themselves a buzz. Blimey can't they just find someone and have lots of sex?

At least if they use protection and take a bit of care who they do it with - the worst case scenario is much less dire - and it's good for the skin and counts as exercise if you do it right.

I know how I'd rather spend a Saturday night and it doesn't involve me with my head down a bog chucking up, and then passing out.

Good news - my proof copy was collected in Argostoli today and borne home in triumph

Bad news - it had printers errors in it

Only one major error though just repeatedly throughout.

But it enabled us to see how the colour was behaving on the cover - we will need to make it even yellowyer as it still was a bit mustardy.

I will be fine tweaking the layouts as well - now that I can see how it all looks on the page.

It is a lot different from seeing it on screen or on printouts.

I have a LOT of work to do.

But then it will be as near perfect as I can get it, so it is worth it.

The quality of the printing, paper, and the cover is superb

All I have to do is make sure the content is of equally high quality and then I will have made something to be very proud of.

We persuaded the printers to send the future proof copies via Royal Mail - even with the strikes, they are still more reliable and faster to deliver here than using UPS. Starting to feel like 'proper' publishers now, with the proof to work from. It takes much more work than I had originally thought, but it is just nit-picking to the nth degree and as long as we know what we are aiming for it is not insurmountable.

We've also ordered a seal embosser so we can do clever things with certificates to ensure that the very first 50 off the printing presses/machines or whatever they are called these days, can be authenticated. Just in case it ever matters - and it will be an extra little something to make the book feel like the special occasion it ought to be

I'll stick a photo up tomorrow of the proof copy.

Hope this isn't too boring for everyone.

Gone
Swimming.

Splosh!

What goes on inside my head?

Something happens or I read something that starts me fizzing

I don't write anything yet.

I wait for ages and ages and let the fizzing feeling build and build and build.

Sometimes rhymes start jumping in my head.

Sometimes a last line announces itself and starts niggling

I ignore it all and watch tv or listen to the radio or even go to sleep

Then when I have an itchy scritchy feeling in my chest like a laugh that hasn't happened ...

I sit at the keyboard, open TextEdit and let it RRRRRRRIPPPP!!!

Ah that's better. The poem is out at last.

Then I read it through and tidy it up and put it on my blog.

Then I read it again and decide it has glaring awkwardnesses and fix them.

Then I decide to include it in my book and then find I need to 'improve' it quite a bit more.

Wasn't that fascinating

No I didn't think so Sorry, maybe I'll come up with an interesting post next time.

http://bit.ly/4jjL1R

Here is the link on Scribd for the Lite e-book 'taster' of my full 82 page paperback - Alternative Poetry Books - Yellow edition. You can download and keep it to read over for free rather than just read it online like the BookBuzzR version.

It is on a website that Ian from the BoggartBlog pointed out to me. Thank you Ian - a very useful site.

The proof copy of the paperback has been having a weekend in Milan according to the UPS tracker system - so I hope it is having a good time.

I am about halfway through the Pink book.

Hope everyone is well and happy and had a good weekend.

Love from Me

I have been reliably informed that a GOOD THING TO DO is to have a Blog Tour to publicise my new poetry book.

This apparently consists of getting as many bloggers as possible to interview me - which gives me the chance to be witty, amusing and tart myself and my wares (oo er missus) to the very best of my abilities in order to get people to like me so much that they can't resist purchasing my book. Preferably in large numbers so I can then retire to a Greek island and spend my days swimming and not doing much except messing about on the internet... oh wait... oops

Oh well anyway it is, as already said A GOOD THING TO DO

I have done one interview already on The View from the Shoe section of the blog called The Man who painted Agnieszka's Shoes which was fun for me - and according to Dan resulted in the most hits ever for his blog - so I think that means it was worth while for him as well.

So if anyone would like to use me until I squeak for mercy - in a blog interview way of course - not anything untoward - please let me know.

The usual way of doing these things is as far as I can determine - to set up a series of interviews with multivarious blogs - then agree dates with them all when the interviews will go up and then post the tour dates and links on each blog and also on Twitter and other places I frequent so that people know where to find my next exciting exploit.

I am happy to appear on any kind of blog as long as it is a 'nice' one - the sort of blog one can take home and introduce to an open-minded but kind hearted mother - I am not restricting this to literary blogs. I write poetry on many many subjects and it is the subject rather than the poetry that interests me.

In fact I will set myself a challenge to write a serious or funny poem (depending on the requirement of the blogger in question) for each interview to suit the individual blog's subject of interest - which will premier on the blogger's website before my own and which will be permanently linked to from my poetry4fun blog once it then goes up there subsequently.

So hopefully plenty of good reasons to host me on your blog.

I'm just having to set the price for the book:

It looks like

£4.99
$7.99
E5.60

Does that seem reasonable to you?

Trying to get a reasonable price where we won't lose on each copy - have we hit it right would you say?

Please let me know - I need feedback pronto!

Tidying out a drawer today and found a fragment of paper. Very thin almost toilet papery and with the old familiar clonky blue typewriting I used to produce on my very first mustard yellow petite typewriter. Turns out it is an example of what has to be my very first poem.

It goes as follows:

TWERE night where winter dwelttt,
TWAS day when summer was felt ,
YOU n ever new when it would stop ,
twirling , hurling , winter leaves whirling towards
you . Never, never whould they stop .
Till baby birds fall plop from their nests .
falling , falling from their nests . .

THE END
-------------------------------------

I think I was between 7 and 9 when I wrote this 'masterpiece' of literature :))

My typing was no great shakes either ;)

On reading this my teenage son said today "You were one seriously disturbed little doodie" :))

Oh the Twere and Twas ! At that age I must have thought you had to bung them in to make it into poetry LOL

It was going to take a lot more than that.

I'm hoping the variable spelling was because I was typing on a real typewriter and they were typos and I don't think Tippex had been invented then.

Yey!

Just finalising the front cover.

Twiddling about with the internals to make sure it is all matching up as it should be.

Then - off to the printers for my proof copy!!!

What a good day to get the ISBN number! A super nine day

The ISBN number is:

ISBN 978-1-907375-00-2

Isn't it lovely?

I am now on page 11 of the Pink edition of the alternative poetry books series

The way it's going I might be able to release two at once.

I'm not sure how that will work because I am planning on entering a competition for first poetry collections.
What happens if I release two first poetry collections simultaneously?

I expect they go with the one I used to register the ISBN series with?

Oh well, not an important question really.

Off to do two days washing up

I have been a bit distracted and the housewifely tasks have suffered. I am ashamed of myself.

I am simultaneously massively enjoying having an interview on Dan's blog Agnieszka's Shoes and the twitter experience whilst also fighting extremely hard against a strong urge to switch the computer off and go and hide under the bedclothes

Thing is, ever since I can remember my mother has imprinted into my bones a horror of becoming or appearing big headed.

I have no idea why this possibility loomed so large in her maternal psyche but it underlined her entire relationship with me through my developmental process.

I was it has to be admitted a precocious, pompous, bossy child or as they would say these days I was gifted, verbally mature, and self assertive in social situations

But in those days there were no such attempts to gild the lily and I was left in no confusion as to the undesirability of my real personality. I don't recall having much of a sense of humour in those early days - most of the photos of me show me in various degrees of sulky glowering. Can't think why that might have been LOL

It took me a LOOOOOOOOOONG time to get to the point where I could admit to myself that maybe just maybe I'm not a complete and utter blot on the planet. So no possibility of developing the head expansion deformity which so plagued my mother with anxiety.

On the internet and with my writing I can allow myself to run riot and enjoy a freedom I have yet to properly allow myself in 'real' life. I still have that niggly feeling that although I come across very interesting and fun on here - if anyone met me in real life they would be aghast at how mind numbingly boring and dull I am in person.

I could manage social life in college, in fact people thought I was the life and soul, but it took a lot of screwing up my courage before getting out there and boogying like it was 1985 Mind you given the fashions in those days maybe staying in might have been better But I loved to disco and funnily once the music got going I forgot there was anyone else in the building which was a help.

I am a natural performer and my first instinct is to want to entertain, but my conditioning is all about not drawing attention to myself and behaving like a lady and being 'the sensible one'.

It's not complicated but it is very difficult to go against conditioning, but the only way my poetry has a chance of being heard is if I can overcome the conditioning and be a bit 'pushy'. But as soon as I start enjoying it the brakes slam on.

Maybe that will work OK in the end. I'm looking at all this as a mixture of an adventure and an experiment and hoping I will make more friends than I annoy people. If that happens I will be happy enough.

Sorry for the introspective burbling. But I haven't had a true waffle for a while

Many thanks to everyone who has read and commented on either the interview or the book or any of my poems and stuff - you are extremely important in helping me be brave enough to do what I do. I won't say you are my crutch because it sounds rude But you know what I mean (((hugs))) to all.

Just in case you didn't read the headline -

IT'S UP! IT'S UP NOW!!!

http://agnieszkasshoes.blogspot.com/

At some point today my very first interview will be going online on a proper literary person's website

I started off trying to be sensible in answering the questions - but that just wouldn't work for me so I gave up and answered them the way it felt 'right' for me.
I'm hoping I won't come across as if I am a dotty old bird who ought to keep her drivellings to herself

I've not done this before (you will know this from the first sentence of this blog post so why I am bothering to say it again I don't know - you are all capable of working out basic info from sentences and in fact are extremely intelligent sorts with wonderful taste and discernment or you wouldn't be reading my blog - no riff raff here as Basil Fawlty so sensibly put it) so I am a tad nervous about it.

Although of course I enjoy going on at length about myself and my interests and anything about me due to me being a fascinating subject to me I realise that I am not likely to enthral other people to same degree. It might be nice if I did but probably it wouldn't. It would probably be more like having a stalker and that would be horrible and creepy. Much better to be ones own stalker. Easier too, because there is no research or travelling involved, you are right on the spot all the time so extremely handy and efficient and not creepy at all - except in a bwahahahahah loony tunes kind of way.

I will of course be checking on the blog in question to see if my interview is up yet - hundreds of times during the day and as soon as it emerges I will let you all know the link.

Try not to get too excited about it. It isn't worth staying home from work for or languishing at home afraid to pop out to buy milk and margarine in case you miss the historic moment. But I would be grateful if you would pop along there to cast an eye over it at some point and either comment there or here about it. There seems most polite as Dan (the blog owner) has been kind enough to let me run amok over there answering questions with little or no regard for decorum and even less restraint. I wrote a funny poem for it as well

Oh please read it. What if no-one does? I'm not brave like my son - I'm hopeless coping with rejection

It isn't up yet but when it is it will be here http://agnieszkasshoes.blogspot.com/ which is Dan Holloway's blog

http://poems-2-share.blog.co.uk/2009/06/29/mad-dogs-and-englishmen-6418446/

Sadly feeling like this again

Oh dear.

I hate it when I have a recurring awake nightmare and even more when it I already have a poem for it - not sure if I can 'write it out' again whether I can find new words to exorcise old demons.

Such a shame as yesterday was a brilliant day and now this morning has wiped out the happy feeling and left me right back where I started.

OK...

an hour later and I managed to squeeze a poem out.

It's on my http://poems-2-share.blog.co.uk blog.

Now I feel like an emotional vulture. But it does feel better to externalise it. I just wish I didn't have 'it' as a feeling in the first place.

According to some gender personality quiz thingies I did - I did two of them
I should be working as a lumberjack somewhere with other hairy blokes, swigging beer and not talking about the eternal verities and slapping each other on the back instead of being emotional and stuff.

Apparantly I am 80% male and 20% female !!

That explains the facial hair problem I suppose

Is it really true that women love shopping and men don't?

I don't think so. I hate shopping and fashion and would rather be a fighter pilot than a fashion designer - but that's not gender that's just common sense surely?

Shopping is a tiring pointless exercise that leaves you knackered with less money than you started out and with a pile of hideous rubbish you only bought to get the damn torture over with.

NOBODY could possibly rather muck about with colouring pencils drawing frocks more than getting in the cockpit of a fighter plane and zooming off and maybe getting to shoot guns and making things explode - could they? (Disclaimer: the author is not suggesting harming anyone or anything just making lots of noise and going very fast and making things go BANG!!!)

Oh dear

But I know I'm a real woman because I love to play mind games with my men folk and twist them into confused knots while they try and do the right thing when I have already decided THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE RIGHT THING

As long as they feel guilt then I know I am feminine - I hope I'm not revealing any long hidden secrets of what being truly female is about

I say PAH! to the personality tests. I'm a girl and if anyone says otherwise I'll punch their lights out