'You've got your hands full'

Time to change: Helping people with mental distress tell their story

DID you see the Time to Change TV ad?

I'm working with Lyn Jenkins, a co-ordinator for Mind in the Midlands to help people share their story of how they've been affected by mental illness to reduce the stigma.

One in four people in the UK are said to have suffered from a mental illness, with depression being up there as the most common.

I wrote about my experience of depression here.

It's a privilege to be involved in such a campaign and I look forward to helping make a difference, however small.

Memes are made of this: We sang Shang-A-Lang and we ran with the gang...

CAN you imagine Howard Orange or Keith Duffy grappling with your stopcock?

Me neither. So when I read that Alan Longmuir, one-time Bay City Roller 'got used to the life of a plumber' a long time ago, it's pretty baffling. 

When I was six, I dreamed of the day I'be 16. I imagined I would be living in a flat by then, with a boyfriend called Dave or Steve and he would be a builder.

Media request: Have you been wearing the same dress for years?

From Karen Pasquali Jones: 

Do you have a favourite outfit that you've worn for years? Have you recycled the same dress/suit when it's gone out of fashion so it's up to date? The Royals do but I'm looking for women who are proud to wear the same clothes over and over - it's for a national newspaper piece so please get in touch. It'll be a quick telephone interview and a gorgeous photo shoot - pictures for you to keep. Please get in touch with me at pasqualijones[at]btinternet.com Thanks so much. 

Media request: Did you become ill while pregnant?

I'VE been passed this query by a fellow freelance - who thought I may be able to help another. I have no connection with the piece so please direct any queries about it to the writer.

It's for a parenting magazine and the deadline for getting in touch is as soon as possible from today:

If you got ill with food poisoning or a nasty infection, like chicken pox, while you were pregnant - and have now had a healthy baby despite this scare- I would really love to hear from you for an article I am writing. It would involve a brief telephone chat about your experience, your symptoms, whether they were worse because you were pregnant, your treatment and also the emotional worry of being ill while pregnant etc. Many thanks. Email: Emma[at]shrimsley.com

It's not goodbye...Why I opted out of the Tots 100 parenting blogs index

A FEW people have been in touch since I commented on the latest league table of blogs published by Sally at Who's the Mummy?

This monthly index is a great resource for anyone wanting to find UK parenting blogs, and it's interesting to follow, especially to discover new sites already engaging with their readers.

But ranking my blog on how many comments it gets, the amount of people tweeting or featuring a link, or posting information to a social book-marking site such as Digg or Delicious, isn't for me any more.

I just want people to read and enjoy it.

How does being a writer affect how you read?

PERHAPS this is a ridiculous question. And of course, it's not one of earth shattering importance.

I've been a member of an online community for writers called My Writers Circle, started by author Nick Daws, for a couple of years. Members post their work for review and often the feedback will turn to letting people know the importance of 'showing' rather than 'telling.' Kind people there have helped me with constructive criticism on various pieces of writing, one of which I'm delighted to say has since been published and another sparked excellent feedback from an agent so I'm now supposed to be working on a novel. (When I get my act together!)

Now I'm also a member of Judith's Room, a community for women's writers set up by Josie from Sleep is for the Weak where members swap stories of inspiration for their writing, blog posts, poems and more. This is a hugely welcoming environment where again, wise members advise of the importance of showing 'rather' than 'telling'.

I've got the decorators in

NO, this isn't too much information.

Just a quick note to say I hope you like the new look of this site.

There are various things (well niggles) I still need to address and posts to include under various headings on the new navigation bar. But I thought it was high time I got more organised.

I hope you like the new look!

Cheers. 

* I've just added the Feedburner widget, it says there are 668 readers through that feed. Thanks a million. Please do click on the little red bit in the top right hand corner if you want to join them. 

Media request - women remembering miscarriages from years ago

HERE'S a message from Karen Pasquali Jones:

I'm looking for women in their sixties and seventies who are still grieving for the baby they miscarried years ago. It's for an indepth article I'm writing for a national newspaper on the intense love a mother has for her baby - even when miscarried - years later. I had a miscarriage 10 years ago and still grieve for that lost baby now so I know how devastating it can be. The women need to be named and photographed but I will treat their story with sensitivity and show it to them before publication for approval. If you can help please contact me on pasqualijones[at]btinternet.com  Thanks very much.

Sights and sounds that make me smile, tagged by Rosie Scribble

TWO soups? I love this sketch. I've chosen it as an image that makes me smile after being tagged by Rosie Scribble. She also wants to know a song that makes me feel happy too - that'll be Wake me up before you go go, by Wham. (But not Everything she wants even if I was in the crowd at the NEC when the video was filmed, don't you know.)

I'm tagging the following bloggers: Laura, Erica, Trisha, Alice, Insomniac Mum

Good Day to you.

Press release: 100 stories needed to help Haiti

Fund-raisers are calling for urgent short story submissions to help raise money for disaster-stricken Haiti.

Out of the submissions, one hundred pieces of fiction will be chosen to appear in an e-book, proceeds of which will go to the Red Cross.

The Red Cross is just one of a number of charities and humanitarian organisations mobilising a vast aid effort to reach the thousands of injured, hungry and thirsty survivors of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake to hit Haiti on 12 January.

100 Stories for Haiti is the brainchild of author Greg McQueen. On the morning of January 19, Greg posted a video on his blog saying: "Dear Twitterverse, I can't keep watching this on the news or trending on Twitter without doing something. I woke up this morning with the idea that together we could make an e-book and donate all the profits to the Red Cross."

Within hours news had spread throughout microblogging website Twitter and story submissions began arriving. Nick Harkaway, author of The Gone Away World, will be writing a new story for the book as well as the introduction. Lorraine Mace from short story website ABC Tales, and award-winning environmental journalist Sarah Lewis-Hammond are volunteering their time to help with the editorial process.

100 Stories for Haiti needs short story submissions, editors, sub-editors and volunteers.

If you want to send a short story, please follow these guidelines:
No more than 1,000 words
No stories containing graphic violence, death or destruction
Send all stories in the body text of an email to 100storiesforhaiti@gmail.com. Stories sent as attachments will not be opened.
Stories must be received by Monday 25 January 2010