Coolest. Thing. Ever.

I had been nipping in to Easons, the bookshop I’d lurked around on my book day… oh, you know… just about every day. It’s my northside bookshop, they get a lot of my business, they stock stationery and art supplies and Yankee Candles and horse stickers — one stop shopping, as you can see — and I really wanted to see the book there. It’s ‘my’ bookshop, I’d queued at midnight for two Harry Potters, there, and it was as important to me to see it there as it was to find it first in Hodges & Figgis [my southside bookshop.]

I’d go in and head for Cs, and I was never there. Until last Saturday.

There! And a whole pile of Drama Queens on a table, which I shifted into better position. [I returned two days later, and they had been shifted back. Oops.]

I really wanted to see a stranger pick up the book, read the back, buy it. I was going to miss my bus if I didn’t get a move on. When one of the desk employees came round for the third time to fluff up a shelf, I realised that they probably thought I was going to steal.

I left, legged it for the bus for the yard, and left my book to its destiny.

Pants on Fire: Part II

When I sit on the bus or the tram [not often in the taxis; Dublin taximen are notoriously chatty], I am often writing posts, in my head, telling myself the story of the thing I’m going to write.

Right now? Not so much. I’m writing an awful lot, work wise, which is great, but it’s the sort of writing that’s the problem: theatre reviews, which require the part where I’m actually in the theatre, which is mostly at night, after I’ve put in a day’s work, or a day’s revision.

Hellloooooooooo!

I’m back. I am surprised at how much head space my book party took up, which probably seems ridiculous, but there you go. I suppose I was downplaying to myself, or whatever, so I wouldn’t get to mental, but it didn’t help.

I was nervous as a bag o’ cats.

Anyway, back to the blog, and whilst there is a theatre festival to attend almost every night for the next two weeks, an exam to cram for, and another novel to revise, I’ll be glad to be back to my equine scribbles. [Or the virtual equivalent.]

Stories to come:
— Since I still don’t have my author website organised, a few words about the last few literary days.
— How I rode Rinaldo! Properly! Will accept praise in advance!
— How there’s a horse for loan up at the yard and I am totally chickening out.
— And a two year progress report.

See you back here soon!

Return of Mojo

I think I may have my seat back over the fences, as far as Rebel is concerned.

We took some low ones on Saturday: the first was so low that he just stepped over it. The others that followed were a little higher, but the exercise we were doing required that we take the fence, then get a line in to trot or canter over a pole on the ground, parallel to the fence.

So, we had to look ahead, and think.

Pants. On. Fire.

Okay, I’ll watch the programme after my book launch, which, even though it’s all sorted and there’s nothing to do but show up, is taking up a lot of my time. In an exciting way!

I am also finally getting my authorial website set up, although I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to keep that going, along with everything else…

Going in There

So I’ve got the DVD of the TV show.

I’m going to watch it, honestly.

On Sunday. And I’ll ‘liveblog’ it, although that’s a bastardisation of the term.

God only knows what kind of hits I’m going to get off of that.

Happy Anniversary to Me!

IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF, AGAIN It hit me as I was picking out Rebel’s feet: it was exactly two years to the day that I first started down this horse riding road.

And look at me! I thought.

An Existential Query

I wonder, will Amazon recommend me to myself?

Will that be akin to meeting my doppelganger, or something?

Or if I then fall down in the coast road, will anybody hear it?

Happy Book Day To Me!

IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF I was on my way to my usual Thursday private lesson. It was early, I was up way early, I was more than ready to greet this day. My first novel, after all the mentioning and public relating, was finally going to be out there, in the world. I was awake, and I was in town well ahead of bus number two.

As I bounded off the bus, it occurred to me that Eason’s, in O’Connell Street, opened up early in the morning.

Walk On By

AS IN: THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR In an effort to begin to take better care of the boots I do have, rather than daydreaming about new ones, or worse, actively spending the money on yet another pair of boots, I decided to drop them in to the cobblers to get them spruced up and mended.