The writing cafe

This will be brief as we’re off to Plymouth where I am going to the ballet with my mum, and Himself and Moll will tour the music shops searching for the Ideal Mouthpiece for his cornet. We’re then spending the night with my mum in Devon and coming back via Fowey so we’re having a weekend away.

But first of all – about the writing café.

We went, RT and I, after our meeting, and found a small café with the door open (it wasn’t overly warm outside) and a long bench type table in the window covered in newspapers and books. At the far end was someone carefully placing what looked like black plasticine cats on luridly coloured cakes – for Halloween, I presumed.

She greeted us and continued attending to the cakes while we looked around. A blackboard advertising the cakes of the day (numerous) and an Italian coffee machine, about six tables and chairs and a slow cooker bubbling away in the background. Books and papers scattered over various table tops. Comfortable, tables and chairs clean. (Though I did see a nasty damp patch coming in through her ceiling which she should have looked at. I thought of volunteering Himself’s services but didn’t think it quite the time.)

The cakes were piled on top of a worktop and just about all were chocolate, and those that weren’t were covered in thick layers of icing. A red light danger zone for someone with my metabolism.

RT ordered tea and a piece of chocolate truffle or something cake.
‘What kind of tea?’ said Patricia, and rattled off about 280 different choices.
‘Er – ordinary please,’ said RT.

We sat down and she presented us with copies of her children’s books and I said I’d ordered one from the library.

‘If you knew how I dread those words,’ she cried. ‘You do realise that if you get books from the library, I don’t get a penny? It’s only about six pounds on Amazon.’

‘Yes, but six pounds is quite a lot of money,’ I said, thinking what about PLR?

That went down like a lead balloon and RT and I exchanged glances. It was one of those times when you’re very glad to have a friend with you.

However, my coffee was fine even if RT’s cake wasn’t. Every time we talked about something, our host either joined in the conversation, or said something like, ‘what sort or organs do you think I should put on my cake? Something with blood dripping out of them?’

We weren’t sure whether she was addressing this comment to us, to the passers by or her son who appeared and drifted off, like a lost soul.

We ended up having a very useful talk about writing, though, and she did volunteer her services if we wanted to drop in one Saturday. She said she’s happy to look through first few chapters and synopsis of a novel so that could be very handy. She also gave RT some good advice about Not Giving Up the first draft.

So all in all, it was an interesting experience. She might well end up in a novel one day.

Cancer and Books

This was to be about books, but Himself has just had his PSA test results back and his level has gone down from 20+ to 5.6 in six weeks which is brilliant news. (Down is good, means the cancer has shrunk.) So we shall celebrate tonight!

And now on to what I was going to blog about - books that I like – and don’t.

I don’t tend to buy books, I tend to order them from the library, but I notice the title (which I promptly forget) and then look at the blurb on the back, then the first page. I also look at the typeface because I can’t stand a small typeface – not good for the eyes at my age.

I read depending on my mood, also. I started reading Lionel Shriver’s We must talk about Kevin (or whatever it was called) but it was when Himself had just been diagnosed with cancer and I couldn’t handle anything heavy then.

I don’t like thrillers because I get too nervous and can’t sleep afterwards, but having said that I plucked from the library shelves yesterday Meeting Point by Roisin McAuley which is a really good, fast paced murder mystery which I’m really enjoying.

I prefer not to read hardbacks, because they’re difficult to read in bed which is where I do most of my reading.

I tend to read mostly women and a lot of American and Canadian writers. Irish, too. (What does that say about me?!)

Being about to hit 50 (next year), books about 30 somethings trying to find Mr Right have rather lost their appeal. I loved Bridget Jones but I tend to avoid books with bright pink covers and young things that like shopping. (I’m allergic to shopping so that doesn’t have any appeal either.)

Humour is very difficult, I find, but I loved Jenny Cruisie’s books or the ones that I’ve read so far. Of course she’s another dog lover which I have to say goes a long way in my book (sorry).

So come on, what do you like?

(By the way, RT and I are hoping to have part of our writing meeting this morning in the writing cafe in Penryn if Himself gets back with the car. Will report back if we do.)

Writing cafe in Cornwall

Good news for writers in Cornwall, particularly in the Falmouth area. The well known writer, Patricia Finney, has set up a café in Penryn called Words.

Patricia is well known for her historical crime novels set mainly in the Elizabethan era and her children’s books about a very stupid Labrador called Jack and his adventures in the human world.

On Saturdays Patricia is to hold creative writing clinics between 11-3 every Saturday, where writers can turn up, pay £5 and receive a consultation with a writer who’s been a published novelist for 30 years and worked as a freelance journalist and sub-editor.

“I’ve always loved hanging around in coffee shops, drinking good coffee and eating cakes,” Patricia said, “and have written several of my books in them. So I decided to become a coffee shop entrepreneur myself and open the kind of place where I would like to sit and write.”

In fact, she’s offering a unique service. “Bring me your problems and I bet I can solve them.”

Sounds too good to be true.

You know we always take our elderly friend James out for coffee on Saturdays? I know exactly where we’ll go this time.