Becoming Someone is coming to an armchair near you!

I’ve been so busy with preparations, I’d forgotten how it feels when that first box of books arrives. So I was especially touched when the delivery man remembered bringing my debut more than three years ago. If a man who doesn’t even know me could connect with that excitement, surely I could too. If that weren’t enough to celebrate, this is my 700th post!

Now, I know my regular readers will have been breathless with anticipation as November 19th approached. What fresh insights would I bring you for World Toilet Day? Sorry to disappoint, but you’ll have to reread last year’s post to commemorate fictional pee and poo. Or go across to the official website to learn about this year’s theme of toilets and nature. I promise that normal service will resume next year.

But, hey, I haven’t totally neglected lavatories! A short story set in a public toilet got an honourable mention in my post yesterday on the IQ blog. For the second official stop on Becoming Someone blog tour, I’ve been looking at perspectives on identity in five of my favourite short stories. Paula Rawsthorne, author of “In Attendance”, whom I met for the first time quite recently, although I’d been captivated by her story several years ago, will be reading from her longer fiction at an event I’m organising in Nottingham next month which will also serve as my real-world book launch. Did I mention publication preparations were keeping me busy?

My book’s tour of the blogosphere began on Saturday with a Q&A with Fiona McVie, who has a fine collection of interviews with authors on her blog. But I’d already visited Gill James, an author and publisher who has included my short stories (although not those in my anthology) in multi-author collections, a few days before: Author Anne Goodwin has a new book out.

When Fiona asked me whom I’d like to meet, living or dead, I opted to take Charlotte Brontë on my regular walk through Jane Eyre territory. But I should have chosen to discuss the process of becoming with a certain former First Lady. If Michelle Obama can fulfil the role of helpmeet with intelligence, humour and dignity, it’s an honour to share (half) a book title, even if hers is a memoir.

Today I’m beside the sea in a virtual Scarborough telling Kate Evans about my experience of assembling a collection of short stories for publication, including the challenge of avoiding repetition and ensuring that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I’m also discussing how fear of feeling of fraud or of others’ negativity can hold us back from embracing our rightful identity as writers in Sherri Matthews’ summerhouse.

When I wrote that post, I didn’t realise I’d be facing an extra layer of writerly identity crisis when it came out. You probably know that, while I happily rub shoulders with Sherri and other memoirists, I’m averse to memoir itself as a reader or writer. But, while accepting that life’s rife with contradiction and tolerating ambivalence is a sign of a healthy mind, my self-concept isn’t sufficiently flexible to incorporate the notion of being a writer of readable memoir, even if at only 99 words. Nevertheless, I was pleased with my winning story and delighted that Irene and her fellow judges honoured it with a prize.

I also struck lucky with another Rodeo contest: third prize for Dialogue. And I got an unexpected prize. But another memoir: is someone trying to tell me something? Actually, I know I will enjoy Apprenticed to My Mother because I’ve loved Geoff’s posts about his relationship with this indomitable character on his blog.

The latest flash fiction challenge is to write a 99-word story about scraps. While I’m rather proud of my ability to concoct edible meals from leftovers – generally more successfully than when I try to follow a recipe – the meals took me in a different direction, involving my characters from last week’s mashed potato and superpower flash. Of course it’s about a threat to identity, but I hope it’s not foreshadowing a memoir of my life to come:

Too glossy to be him

“We’ll make a memory book. A scrapbook of his life.”

I imagined rough grey pages, flour-and-water paste. But the occupational therapist grew up in the digital age.

She pointed out his name on the cover. He turned away. She turned to me: “Let’s discuss care homes.”

Not yet, surely? I wiped dribble from his chin. Of course he didn’t recognise the fellow in the photographs. He never thought he’d find himself in a glossy hardback book.

Old newspapers, a tattered notepad, a stick of glue.

Like the gentleman I married, he took my hand. Raised it to his lips.

I’ll be back before publication day with links to some other stops on the blog tour; if you can’t wait, I’m sure you can find them yourselves! I’ll also be able to tell you more about my Facebook book launch where, besides nudging me to donate to a worthy charity, you have the chance to win some fabulous e-books courtesy of my publishers, Inspired Quill. But most of all, I’m hoping the technology won’t defeat me and we’ll have tremendous fun.