January 2003
Dear Visitor
Late again. Excuse of the month – I was just about
recovering from food poisoning when I was hit with an extremely
heavy cold. Besides which, I knew things would get a little
bit erratic when I put my novelist’s hat on. Sorry,
but I’m doing my best!
I have a little stuffed lion on one of my computer speakers
(it lost its tail years ago, so I call it a Manx lion) and
as I wrote the above paragraph it just jumped up in the
air and threw itself down the back of my desk. What do you
think? A poltergeist? Subsidence? Another earth tremor?
A sign that I should be getting on with Lloyd and Hill #13
instead of sitting here chatting to you? Who knows? Anyway,
it’ll have to stay there. What with one thing and
another I am not up to diving down behind my desk to retrieve
it, not at the moment.
Two thousand and three has started quietly, if you don’t
count the coughing and sneezing, so long may it stay that
way. Of course, I wouldn’t object to winning the lottery
or having Steven Spielberg battering the door down in his
attempts to get the movie rights to all my books, but failing
that, I’ll settle for quiet.
I hope you like the new bits and pieces on the site –
the competition attracted (by my modest standards) a huge
entry, and I apologise to all those of you who entered and
didn’t win. The five winners have been notified. I’ll
let you into a secret – I’ve never had five
winners before! Anyway, if you didn’t win, have a
go this time. Even if you did win, have another go. And
if you didn’t enter, take a look – it’s
easy, it seems to be quite good fun, and you could win a
signed first edition of one of my books, which can sometimes
fetch (once again by my modest standards) reasonable prices
as collector’s books. More than their jacket price,
anyway!
Death in the Family (the US title of Births, Deaths and
Marriages) is due out in the States in February –
the first three entries received in this month’s competition
will get a signed copy of the American edition. Of course,
if you live in America, you probably won’t actually
receive it until long after it’s appeared in the book
stores, since I have to send them surface mail, but at least
it’ll be free!
 One
of the winners of last month’s competition, on being
asked if she wanted the Reg logo on the book, asked what
it was, so though those of you who have been with me since
I started the site might already know, I’ll explain
to anyone who missed his introduction. Reg is the little
black cat beside my name at the top of the page, who blinks
at you on the home page, and on my e-mails, if you have
HTML on your e-mail.
Before I began writing professionally, I used to write
comic verses, parodies of songs, that sort of thing, just
for fun. And I would sign them with Reg, whose full name
is Reg. Trademark. Of course, that was before registered
trademarks were marked with ™, so his name doesn’t
make sense now. And he isn’t registered, though I’m
thinking of doing it, if it doesn’t cost too much.
When I started the website, I thought it might be fun to
use him as my logo, and Pedalo, who designed this website,
made him blink, which was absolutely delightful.
So that’s Reg. And that’s that for another
month or so. When I’ve finished number thirteen, you’ll
be amazed at the efficiency with which the site is updated
every month.
Oh, no, we won’t!
Oh, yes, you will!
Oh, no, we won’t!
(It’s pantomime season here in Britain, and that
is a pantomime joke which will be lost on all of you on
the other side of the Atlantic, but it means that you shouldn’t
believe a word of it.)
Talk to you soonish. Promise.
Love,
Jill
Top
of Page
|
