Look no further than your own family....

When I was about eight years old, I won a competition with the Puffin Club in which we had to send in a story in which we wrote about an unusual or wacky family. My tale was a thinly veiled account of my own clan - pretty easy for me to write in many ways. Which leads me to this......

This is Matala, a pretty little fishing village in Crete. Photo taken circa 1967. Now, pan the lens round to the other side of the bay...

If you look carefully you can see some caves in the rock face. The caves date back to the neolithic era and were used, apparently, by the ancient Greeks to bury their dead. Let's zoom in a little...

In this photo, you can just see a couple of people sitting in front of a cave with a towel hanging up behind them. And if we zoom in even further...

...here we see a group of young people who inhabited these caves from 1967 for a couple of years. Some came for a few nights, others stayed months, charmed by the crystal waters and simple way of living. The girl standing at the top is my mother, and right below her, with the short hair is my aunt. 

Now all this is amusing, but what makes it a far, far better story is that last weekend, almost 42 years after these young people stayed in the caves, they had a reunion back in Matala! Yep, my mother too. The Greek tourist board have gone to town promoting the reunion, calling it the 'hippie festival' and it was a long weekend of revelling, music and memories for 40 of the 'ex-hippies'. Click here to see some of the promotion for the festival.

Priceless. I can't wait to hear some of my mother's stories when she gets back. Now if this isn't novel material, then what is?

Some positivity in the doom and gloom writing market

Yesterday evening, my husband and I did a rapid swap over of the children at Waterloo Station as he was going to take them home again whilst I had a rare evening out. I'd decided to wear a dress in celebration of the fact I had some time to myself, and it wasn't until half an hour or so later that I realised that one side of my dress was splattered in dried food (from where I'd whizzed up some food for my baby before leaving) and the other side was stained with coffee (sleep deprivation has turned me into a serious coffee addict) - ah well, it's a mama's prerogative to be forever on the grubby side.

Anyway, my evening out was at the Orange and Grazia Writer's Evening at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank. It was chaired by the novelist Kate Mosse and included two published novelists, both in relatively early stages of their writing careers, one of the top publishers from Penguin and a well-respected literary agent. The discussion involved advice on getting published, writing tips and general information on the current market. I'd thought before going that I may come out of the hall feeling a little gloomy, because I constantly read about the dire climate and stagnant market for aspiring writers. However, I am very pleased to say that I came away from the evening feeling encouraged, inspired and positive. Yes, of course it's hard to get published and of course you need a whole lot more than luck to get noticed, you need some serious talent, but nobody ever said that anything that's worthwhile is easy. But the message I got was that both agents and publishers are looking for new talent and stuff does get picked up off the slush pile - if it's good enough. And that's the big IF, but I for one am raring to go.