The doctor has prescribed me another week off work and some antibiotics. The new symptoms may or may not be a secondary infection so I’m taking medication three times a day just in case. The last thing I want is a repeat of the chest infection I had back in March. I need lots of rest, but I also need to not lie down 24 hours a day so I’m trying to punctuate my resting with short bursts of activity, which just serve to remind me how tired my body is. I’m not a big fan of laundry I must admit, but it is rare that I’m so overcome I need to sit down and rest after hanging it out. At least the sun is now shining and I may even bundle myself up later and attempt a walk around the block.

My sister has been a god send. She’s ferried me to and from the doctors and turned up with bits of shopping as and when I need them. But I desperately want a Christmas Tree to decorate and bring some festive cheer to my flat. I think after all Lizzie has done for me, sending her on errands to pick me up frivolous things is taking it a bit too far. Luckily my brain decided to engage again I had a lightbulb moment. These days you can tell people you want things via the internet and they bring them right to your front door. No need to leave your house. The internet is a saviour for ill people with no energy to shop.

So after I had ordered the Christmas tree from Argos I got on with the present shopping at Amazon, eBay, Oxfam Unwrapped, Photobox and Vistaprint (is it just me or is it no longer acceptable to celebrate Christmas without giving at least one customised photo item?)

They say lightening doesn’t strike twice, but lo and behold I had a second bright internet-based idea (two in one day, surely a sign I’m on the mend.) I didn’t need to send my sister to the shops anymore, I could get Tesco to come to me. Something I had completely forgotten they do. I’m still amazed that for a delivery charge of only £3.50 someone else will battle the supermarket crowds for me and bring the shopping to my door within a two hour time slot I specify.

After quite an accomplished 24 hours I’ve realised there is a flaw in my plan. I have just ordered lots of food and I don’t have much of an appetite. I’m hoping that the excitement of fresh fruit and veg will set my hunger off again.

Something clicked on Sunday night which made me understand why I’m so adverse to joining a writing group, or share my work with other writers in general. I can’t put it down to anything Nick or David said, but just more my own opinions on their books and where they come from.

One Day I enjoyed immensely. It is the first book to make me cry in a while. I haven’t read anything by David Nicholls before, but following this will be buying and reading Starter for Ten very soon. The book follows two characters Emma and Dexter over twenty years, on one particular day each year. Both characters are flawed, at times frustrating and annoying, but I always wanted things to work out for them. I liked them and I like the story. I was gripped and it was one of those books that when I realised I was coming to the end, wanted to know what happened just as much as I didn’t want it to end.

By contrast Nick Hornby is an author I have read before. High Fidelityis my favourite of his novels. Juliet, Naked had three main characters and again they were flawed, frustrating and annoying. Unfortunately I didn’t care less what happened to them. The story was compelling and I wanted to see what happened in the end, it kept me entertained. But I really didn’t care about the characters. I wanted to, but I found myself apathetic towards their fate. The reason I want to pick up another Hornby book as soon as possible is to reduce the disappointment I felt with this book.

But both books I read, enjoy and critique as a reader. Not as a writer. Writing doesn’t stop my enjoyment of books. Sometimes after reading a particular chapter or finishing a book I really enjoyed it will inspire some ideas of my own. However if I don’t enjoy it I’ve never been tempted to think about how I would have written it. As I read I get lost in the story, and if it’s good I’m too absorbed to critique it at all.

I think this is my problem with writing groups. I don’t care what other writers think about my work. I am writing for myself, and for readers who might enjoy the story. Firstly I am writing for me, because lets face it if I don’t get published I don’t want it to feel like a waste. Secondly for my readers, even if that only ever ends up being friends and family, I don’t want to waste their time. Eventually I hope I’ll be caring about what agents and publishers think. But I don’t care if another writer would have written this in that way. Or another writer thinks that this should or shouldn’t have happened. I write because I love reading and I love writing. Not because I want to impress anyone.

If I get the opinion of a few avid readers that’s far more valuable. People who genuinely love books and love stories. When people are reading as readers they want the story to be understandable and to flow. I want them to be absorbed into the reality I have created and care about the characters and what happens to them.

Wherever criticism comes from I think I have good enough judge of my own work to know when to take it on as it will improve my work as a whole, or when it just comes because someone doesn’t enjoy the genre, or the way I have written. I’m sure there are people out there who will hate One Day and will love Juliet, Naked. Their opinion is no more or less valid that mine. As I hope I develop a knack of writing fiction, I’ll also discover who’s honest opinion I can trust to help me develop my work to be the best it can be. As a writer there will always be people who dislike what I write. I’m hoping there will also be people who love what I write, and someone out there to publish it.

p.s. After Sunday night I’m a little bit in love with David Nicholls… he is gorgeous, geeky, funny and an author! I think he might be my first proper author crush!!!

These days I work in an academic library. Not where I’d ever though I’d end up, but a fitting place for someone whose world revolves around reading and writing.

This week whilst catching up on the wonderful and funny blog Awful Library Books, I was distressed to hear that Philadelphia’s Free State Libraries will be closing on the 2nd October 2009. That is all the public libraries in the entire city. It’s approximately the equivalent of the population of Birmingham AND Manchester not having access to public library services.

It’s not just the physical buildings and all the books that will be unavailable, but the community services too. The schemes for children, teens, adults, job seekers and pensioners will all be discontinued. From what I can gather it’s due to a lack of state legislature passing the funding required to run facilities and pay staff. I just can’t imagine, even with the current state of the world economy, that a US state can let this happen. All the resources will go to waste at a time when people need access to them more than ever.

When I heard about it I was shocked. I could never imagine that happening in the UK. If tomorrow it was announced all public libraries in County Durham were to shut there would be outrage. In fact despite the state of the economy our government is continuing to put money into efforts to improve literacy such as Reading for Life.

I really hope they find a solution to the problem in Philadelphia. There are already too many countries in this world with communities who don’t have access to the resources and services even the simplest library can provide. There are charities trying to help improve access to books (e.g. The Book Bus). Surely the United States can’t allow a community of millions to lose access to such a precious resource, and one that we shouldn’t take for granted.

Thanks to The Nation for the image from Durham Library, Philadelphia

Update 18/09/09: The state budget has been passed and the libraries will not close. That’s great, but why did it ever get to the stage where closure was a real threat?  Whether it was for PR or just bad politics it should have never happened. And if the politicians were ‘crying wolf’ I think they need to tread very carefully with whatever moves they make next.

I started reading it on Monday. It was my second reading of it. My first was after buying it because I saw it in a bookshop and remembered how much I had loved the show (the mpdg – that’s ‘miles per dave gorman’ had appealed the mathematical side of me,or perhaps it had just been the general randomness). Anyway I had picked it out on Monday because I needed something to take my mind of something else I was waiting to be resolved. Unfortunately ‘Are you Dave Gorman?’ made me think more about the unresolved thing and so I stopped reading it until later that evening when the thing got resolved (I know it sounds all very mysterious… it’s not really, it’s just a whole other story that is probably not appropriate to be shared in a blog right now.)

Anyway once the thing was all resolved I started reading it again, and have now, within 48 hours finished it (and found time to also do the pub quiz and go to work… sleeping time has been slightly down). I do worry about this. I have read a new Harry Potter book in a similar length of time… but that is ok (well for some people it still isn’t, however there are a few thousand people that will agree that reading the new Harry Potter book within 48 hours of release is the actions of an almost sane and normal person). However I have read ‘Are you Dave Gorman?’ before – I know how it starts, I know how it goes along and I also know how it finishes… In fact reading the book again I always knew what was coming next. But the strange thing is that I read it in a manner I would read a very exciting NEW book where I didn’t know what was coming next. My only conclusion is that I can identify with Dave, I may not be male, or called Dave Gorman, or have ever gone on a quest for Dave Gormans, or indeed any of my own namesakes (I believe there are a few in this country, but I’m not about to go looking for them) – but I have been in the position of doing something that is seemingly silly and pointless, but that is very fundamentally important for an unknown reason. In fact I realise that being of my family name is a special thing (we’re a ’special’ and individual bunch), we all seem to have this ability to become obsessed about things that really don’t seem to merit obsession.

I do also identify with Danny as I have also been the one being dragged along not quite sure how I got involved in something, or indeed finding myself encouraging odd behaviour I am not quite sure I approve of. But that’s why I love my best mate to bits… as described above sometimes I’m a Dave Gorman, but over the years (we’ve known each other since we were 11) her actions have allowed the Danny Wallace side of me to surface. I like variety.

Anyway it is now 4pm and I have just spent far too much time reading a book that I intended to put down about two and a half hours ago whilst having a quick break from work. I intended to spend lots of my afternoon doing work, which means now the rest of my afternoon and evening will be spent doing work, but at least I can’t get distracted by the book anymore. I think about an hour ago I decided to just finish the book so it would no longer be a distraction.

Can you see a flaw in my plan yet? This book has not stopped being a distraction. I have now managed to write over 600 words about this book instead of doing work. And between finishing the book and writing this I went onto the archive of Neighbours episodes I had bookmarked a while ago (I knew it would come in useful at some point) to find the episode on the 27th November 2001 with Dave Gorman in it (not THE Dave Gorman, just a character in that one episode they named after Dave Gorman). Obsessed with random stuff I shouldn’t be obsessed with? Moi?!

Ok that’s enough of me writing about Dave Gorman… just before I go – thought I should let you know we came 4th in the Pub Quiz (2nd week running we haven’t been in the Top 3, it’s a disgrace… at least I wasn’t there last week). I didn’t feel too responsible. I had made some definite contributions – ‘8 B’s in a B?’ 8 Bits in a Byte of course! They call themselves animators (or technical directors or whatever) on a daily basis, and me having not been a proper computer geek on a daily basis for three years I was frankly disappointed in them that I was the only one to get that one (I also got ‘3 W in M?’ – I’ll leave you to ponder the answer). I was disappointed in myself for not joining in a conversation I should have joined in during the questions being asked stage… It wasn’t until the answers stage I realised that my knowledge of the Mr Men could have bagged us an extra point and put us joint 3rd , so I suppose I am somewhat responsible after all.

I also realised that on not quite three pints I get a tad tipsy. Walking down my road I looked ahead and thought ‘well at least the idiot parked behind me made an even worse job of parallel parking than I did today’. I then realised that the badly parked car was actually mine, and then realised that as there was no longer anyone parked behind me I could perhaps go in, get my car keys and manoeuvre the car into a better position. I then in my head rewound to the point where I had started thinking about my car, and how drunk the conversation with myself in my head sounded, and realised that I had perhaps leave the car badly parked as it was.