Sonia Bellhouse- Author.

Bewildered describes most of us at this time of the year, as inspiration and energy are in short supply.

Men generally want to please the woman in their life and this makes them the perfect target for hard- selling salespeople. Those who happily assure them that’ She will love this,’ about everything imaginable, from a wok and up to a camper van and accessories.

Ladies, do the guys a favour and let them know what you do want.Leave out catalogues and magazines with the items that you would like circled in bold marker pen and tell them that you have done so.

With a bit of luck, you might get something that you want and can use. Then, your cries of pleasure will be genuinely meant, while the man in your life will have bought you something that you actually wanted.

Please don’t give the men in your life the usual socks and jocks which they have come to expect. Think more imaginatively. Of course, you should have been listening for clues all year, for those items they moan that they need and have not got. It’s not too late!

Think experience– a plane flight, a brewery tour, a home brewing class, a paintballing session. Think fun, whatever their kind of fun is-concert tickets, footy tickets, Harley rides, hot air ballooning. Even think practical if you must and buy the screwdriver set that they wanted or the more expensive version of the old faithful saw or drill. Mr Practical will be delighted.

Now for the Christmas feast, should you do the whole traditional bit or something a bit lighter with a more contemporary feel? To some extent it depends on your climate, what is appealing on freezing winter day does not hold the same appeal in an Antipodean summer.

My answer is to keep the bits of tradition that I like and discard the rest.So I set a colourful Christmas table and pick and choose what I serve. The turkey. or chicken may be served cold with salads or it may be served warm.The only Christmas pudding lover gets an individual pudding and it may come with ice cream!

After all, Christmas is supposed to be about celebrations and joy and not suffering, just because everyone expects it.So why should the cook slave away?Anyone who complains can be enlisted to help, which will allow them to appreciate the amount of work involved.

With confidence and some forward planning, the festive season can be fun for everybody and that includes the harassed woman who is usually at the centre of it.

Absorb your seasonal lessons, what went wrong this year and what went right. Plan to have an even better time next year. Oh, and quick reminder- never decorate your Christmas tree twice,

Last weekend I decorated the Christmas tree; this weekend I decorated it again. It was the Christmas lights which caused the problem. Light of my Life thought the set of fifty lights looked rather paltry and returned home with a set of one hundred,. Before you could say, Santa Claus, The tree had been stripped of all its lights and decorations and Light of my Life said calmly’”The rest is up to you”

One hundred lights should go twice as far as fifty, so I thought that it would be easy. But the one hundred lights did not even go as far as the fifty lights had.

After three disastrous attempts, the happy Christmas mood was decidedly fragile. I glared across the room at Light of my Life imagining with some satisfaction the Christmas lights wrapped tightly around his neck.

Luckily, his survival instinct kicked in He calmly unwound the lights from the tree and laid them on the floor. Then laid the despised set of fifty lights parallel with them. The cable lengths were identical. So to fit the one hundred lights on the same length of cable the gaps were much smaller.

The fifty lights were then replaced on the tree and the redecorating completed, without the joyous mood of the previous occasion. A hundred lights were then replaced in their box and returned. Seasonal lessons learned? Decorating the Christmas tree can only be enjoyed once in any Christmas season. The second or third time around, it’s just a hard slog. When buying Christmas lights look at the cable length and NOT the number of lights.

Other seasonal lessons that I have learnt the hard way include keeping some spare Christmas cards, as well as the appropriate Christmas postage stamps. Someone that you have forgotten inevitably sends you a card. You can mask your forgetfulness because you are using the Christmas card postage rate, rather than a standard stamp¬ a dead give-away that you forgot. After Christmas, any spare card can be stored for next year and any leftover stamps can have additional postage added and be used for your normal correspondence.

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Even worse than the unexpected card, is the unexpected visitor smilingly bearing gifts.Forward planning can have you cool and composed rather than fraught and frantic. Buy a couple of multi-purpose items that you could use later if they are not needed. A nice bottle or two of wine, whisky or sherry, maybe some imported beer. Or a biscuit selection, chocolates or even gift vouchers Have these items wrapped and tagged, ready to be written at a moment’s notice and no one will ever guess that they caught you out.

Next week The Gentle Art of Present Giving and Getting!

September has been an unusually busy month, as I completed a five-week writing course and  I also enjoyed attending the Rockingham Writers Convention. There I participated in various workshops and met admired authors, Tess Woods, Natasha Lester, and Annabel Smith. It also gave me a chance to catch with the dynamic team from Serenity Press, Karen McDermott and Monique Mulligan publishers of Writing the Dream and  I saw fellow contributors Sandi Parsons and Michelle Nugent.  I met another author ( more about her later) and caught up for the first time with a  couple of ‘Facebook friends.’  One (J) had come from Queensland to attend the convention and the other(D) has recently moved to Western Australia from Queensland. We’d never met before but we hit it off right away, finding much to talk about.

Under Her Spell by Monique Mulligan

Writer Oliver Pendall is on location for the filming of his book Multiples.
He meets Kaylie by chance. She both teases and fascinates him but he’s not looking for a relationship.Despite this, Kaylie captures his imagination with her passion for using unusual words. Oliver’s writer’s interest is piqued by her lively mind and he’s also captivated by her cute persona too.Sadly, Kaylie appears to be disinterested in him, except when paradoxically, she isn’t.It’s a rare book that has a reader turning to Google to search out the meanings of words, but this one did. A sparkling romance.

Black Cats and Butlers A Rose Ravensthorpe Mystery by Janine Beacham

I happened on Black Cats And Butlers by chance, as it was shelved with adult fiction. in the library. It’s actually a middle-grade fiction – so I’m not the intended readership. Despite that, I really enjoyed it. The story was fast-paced and exciting. It appealed to me for both the humour and the crime content. Imagine, butlers those bastions of respectability are being murdered. Additionally, I was fascinated to learn about the cat statues in York England being stolen. Note there really are statues of cats on buildings in York and more are being put up. Tourists can take a tour of the statue locations.
Rose Ravensthorpe is a feisty and determined character and I can certainly see the potential for many further adventures. A lot of fun!

Love Under Fire by Carolyn Wren

A fast-paced action /romance

I was pleased to meet delightful author Carolyn Wren at The Rockingham Writers convention, we were seated at the same table and talked. She is a contributor to A Bouquet of Love and I was able to tell her how much I had enjoyed her hilarious story Angel in the Baking.  She is also the author of eleven books.Later, I bought a copy Love Under Fire which she kindly signed for me.

Love Under Fire lives up to its promise. Astrid James, aid worker and daughter of a prominent politician is caught up in a coup in small jungle nation. Black ops agent Remy Cross has been sent to rescue her and has three days to do so.Despite the increasing danger Astrid refuses to leave unless the two orphans that she is protecting can be rescued too. It’s an unwelcome complication that Remy hasn’t planned for. The repartee and action continue from this well-matched duo. I was swept along with the plot twist and turns. A fun read.

Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues by Trisha Ashley

Tansy Poole’s relationship with her fiancée Justin is at a stalemate. So she returns to the Lancashire village of Sticklepond. There, Tansy is needed to help her much loved Aunt Nell with her shop Bright’s Shoes. Her aunt’s age and failing health mean that both she and the shop are in desperate need of more care.

Tansy is torn between a boyfriend who spends more time with his mother than with her and who is increasingly critical of everything about her and her aunt who brought her up and who needs her. Guilt and baking are her constant companions as she tries to keep everyone happy.

It’s a relief for her to return to Sticklepond.Tansy’s biological clock is ticking and her hopes for a home of her own and children seem further away than ever. At least in Sticklepond she’s wanted and avoiding her fiancés increasingly pointed criticisms, of her dress sense, her behaviour and her weight.

Staying with her aunt enables her to avoid her two malicious stepsisters and a potential mother in law from hell.Tansy wants to be with her aunt, who she cares for. When her aunt dies Tansy decides to stay and reopen the shop, to sell beautiful wedding shoes, vintage shoes, and even the chocolate shoes of the title

Her next door neighbour is presumed to be an ancient Shakespearian actor who has come to live in the village for peace and quiet. Instead, he is irascible, but a devastatingly handsome man, who dumped Tansy years ago. He doesn’t appear to recognise her or appreciate her dog, the noise of the workmen or the shop bell.

I really enjoyed this lively story, my appreciation sharpened by the fact that I knew so many of the locations, such as my old hometown of Southport, and neighbouring places such as Ormskirk, Rufford Old Hall, though not, of course, the fictional village of Stickelpond

Source: July’s Reading list

There is just one thing to ask when we identify as writers- when will we feel comfortable doing so? How many books or articles do we need to have published before we can say confidently ‘I am a writer’?  I have heard published authors confessing that they still didn’t feel like writers.

Liz Byrski for example had published several non- fiction books and was a successful journalist, as well as being an ABC radio co host. It was a comment from her then husband that spurred her into writing fiction. When she said she had published books, his reply was allegedly ‘yes, but they’re not the right books.’

As far as I know he wasn’t a writer, but he certainly was a critic. She needn’t have listened, she could have said ‘I ‘m fine, I’m happy with what I do, Its paying the bills,’ but when your nearest and dearest speak, you tend to listen.

We writers are sensitive souls, we struggle with fear to put words onto the page.  The fear of being exposed as stupid, not clever enough, odd, strange and all those other critical things we say to ourselves and are afraid that others will say to us too.

Is this why we want to have written, but procrastinate about writing? If there is nothing on the page then there is nothing to criticise, but equally there is nothing to praise, nothing to improve, nothing to challenge us to do more and to do it better.

Are we waiting for a sign from the universe?

Folks this is it – here is your sign-

Write with pen and paper, write on your I-pad, write in a notebook, jot notes and observations while you are out or sit at home with your laptop or desktop computer and simply write without restraint, without fear of criticism. Let the words flow and deal with the overflow, later.