Penny Legg and Express FM's Rob Richardson

I received an email this morning from Rob Richardson, who runs the WriteInvite site and who has interviewed several writers on his currently off air, but hopefully soon back on air again, radio show, WriteOn, on Express FM. Rob and I have been in email contact for some time and I have been to Rosie's Wine Bar in Southsea for one of his evenings for writers, where work is read to the audience, whose members then vote for their favourite writer. The winner gets a cash prize. Rob was also recently a guest at my group for writers, Writing Buddies, at Borders bookshop in Southampton.

Anyway, Rob emailed me to tell me that the radio show, which he has invited me to be a guest on, has been taken off air for a month by the radio station. This is a real shame. Over time Rob has interviewed many writers, from locals to household names, and listeners have gained an insight into what makes a writer tick. I hope that this is only a temporary situation and that the show will come back again, soon. If anyone at Express FM reads this blog, please consider bringing Rob and his writers back. There are few such programmes, where individual wordsmiths can talk about their life and work.

Rob is hopeful and wants me to come and be interviewed. 'I instinctively know you will be a wonderful guest with all your experience in so many areas that are writing related,' he says. Now that is nice of him. He goes on to say, 'You've got a great motor on you,' and hastens to explain before I take offence to this. 'This is a compliment, I promise. You know what it means in terms of get-up-and-go, but might be more suitably applied to a premiership footballer!' Now I have never heard the expression, but I quite like the analogy!

Only time will tell whether WriteOn will be brought back to radio. If Express FM do not want the show, perhaps another radio station will? This is pure speculation on my part and not something that I have discussed with Rob. I do think though, that writers and radio is a natural association and one that is both useful and interesting, both for the writer concerned and the listener.

Penny Legg's Writing Buddies

At the last Writing Buddies meeting in Borders in Southampton, I was surprised to hear that the coffee and chat sessions have become a motivating force for the production of words. Writers are now being motivated to write because they know that a Writing Buddies meeting is coming up and they want to be able to tell the rest of the group about the writing they are currently working on. Writing Buddies are also getting fresh ideas from each other. I had not foreseen this when I started the group.

Readers of this blog will know that I set up the group in response to a need I had perceived for writers to get together and talk about what matters to them in the world of writing. It gave them a forum for discussing problems with plotting, characterisation and such like, to talk about markets and book selling, trends, successes, even the demise of the semi-colon! Anything in fact that affected them as writers. Over time we have tried to advise one writer on the problems he has had with time lines in his novel and commiserated with him when he recently announced that, after 120,000 words, he had abandoned the project. We have talked about writing courses and pooled knowledge of the good and the bad. We have always talked about the ongoing projects that we are working on. As we have a goodly sprinkle of novelists, poets, non-fiction writers, short story writers, diarists and children's writers it is good to hear of the multitude of work that we undertake. That we are now sparking ideas and motivating each other to produce work, is great to hear.

The next meeting of Writing Buddies is on Friday 28th August at 2pm. If you fancy dropping in for a cuppa and a chat, you will be very welcome.

Penny Legg - a busy life!

Crumbs, it has been some time since I last blogged. Shows I have been busy.

I heard recently that I had been successful in my proposal to write a fourth book. Southampton Past and Present will be published at the end of 2010 by The History Press. This will be an interesting project as it will involve taking archive photographs and recreating them in colour in a modern day Southampton. The contrasts will be interesting, I think.

I have been asked if I would like to tutor non-fiction writing for the Writers Bureau. As readers of this blog and my website will know, I launched a writing consultancy some weeks ago. Tutoring for a major distance learning college will be an interesting challenge, which I am looking forward to taking on.

I will be off to Cornwall soon to follow up stories in that part of the world. I grew up visiting the West Country and love it. Recently I have not been in a position to go there as often as I would have liked as I was abroad, and so to be working there for a short while will be a pleasure. I hope that Martin's dairy is still in Looe. They have, in my humble opinion, the best Cornish ice cream in the world and their clotted cream, well...... You know where I will be heading for part of the time I am in the county.

I also learnt that I had passed my latest Open University course. The Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing consists of two courses, both undergraduate level and very interesting. I took the first course in the current academic year and heard on Friday that I had a good pass, so I am pleased.

In the meantime, Writing Buddies is coming on leaps and bounds. We had a dozen writers last Friday and several new faces, which was great.

On the home front, have you ever played on a Nintendo Wii? I hadn't until yesterday when my husband and I were staying the weekend with my brother, who has just bought one. He has the Wii Fit too, which I have to say is brilliant! It told me, after I had fed in all the preliminary information, done some exercises and been scanned by the machine, that my body is that of a woman 13 years younger than my actual age! How great is that? Women everywhere, you must buy one of these machines. They are the best ego boost you will ever have!

Ok all for now. I am off to write some more folklore...

Vigilant Divers

I am pleased to be able to announce that my friend, PADI Master Scuba Diver Instructor, Rob Willsher and his wife, Julie, have opened Vigilant Divers, their new dive business, in Anguilla, British West Indies.

Operating from beautiful Road Bay, they have a thirty feet long Boston Whaler, 'Vigilant,' which can cater for up to four divers.

Rob, formerly with Dougy Carty at Special D Divers, is offering a range of PADI Certification and Speciality Courses, as well as guided diving in some of the most beautiful dive sites in the Caribbean. Anguilla is known as the 'Wreck Diving Capital of the Caribbean' as it has an abundance of wrecks sunk to become dive sites. They offer the diver a multitude of diving experiences, from the very easy sixty feet dive to the 'Cathley H' to the more challenging, deeper wrecks, 'MV Commerce' and the 'Sarah' at eighty feet.

Rob has been mentioned several times on this blog as he was my diving instructor. He took me from a raw, and very frightened, new diver, through my PADI Open Water, Advanced Open Water, Rescue Diver and Master Scuba Diver Certifications. He is professional, assured, experienced and unflappable. With Julie as Boat Captain, any diver will be in good hands as she has years of experience of working on and around boats.

I wish Vigilant Divers every success and will blog more on this venture in the future.

Penny Legg - Biker Babe

Yes, this is the moment you have all been waiting for... well, some of you have anyway. The photograph of Penny Legg, Biker Babe, is here for all the world to see. (I am too old to be a Biker Chic and, although I toyed with the idea of being a Biker Moll, Rob Innis' name for me, when I checked the dictionary definition of a 'Moll,' I was not so sure that I wanted to be known as one...!)

As you can see, I like pink. I am, after all, a girl.

I braved the roads of the Isle of Wight on the back of my husband's Suzuki SV650 and, after I had got used to gear changes and not careering forward to bang crash helmets with him, quite enjoyed myself. I even got to grips with the cissy bar, which I am told, is perfectly permissible as I am a girl and it is for 'girls and cissies' to hold on to.

More on this new found pastime in later blogs.

Lit Up!

The Lit Up! literary event, to promote all aspects of writing in the Bournemouth and Poole areas was a complete success, despite Mother Nature's best efforts to rain it off.

Members of both the Society of Woman Writers and Journalists (SWWJ) and Writing Buddies were there to support the event, which featured a seminar and talks by writer, Lucy Clarke, agent, Carol Blake, and Dagger Award winning novelist, Peter Lovesey (pictured). A panel of local experts gave valuable manuscript criticism and advice.

The event took place in the pretty walled garden at Uplands Country Park and offered a platform for debate and networking, which is much needed in the area.

Simon Whaley at Writing Buddies

Simon Whaley interrupted his family holiday in the New Forest to come along to Writing Buddies, in the Borders bookshop in Southampton, on Friday.

It was great to see him. Personally, I was really excited to meet him as he and I have been corresponding by email for several years, but had never met. It was good to finally talk face to face with the person who has helped to keep my spirits up when necessary and who has suffered through my writers block, lack of inspiration, imagination failure and a million and one other trials and tribulations that are a part of life for writers. Mind you, he has also shared the highs. He was as thrilled for me as I was for myself when I got my first book contract and when ideas I have discussed with him come to fruition, he is as pleased as punch. When his recent Bluffer's Guide came out, I could not be more pleased for him and I do remember teasing him about how clean and tidy his desk was in the photograph of him in his office, in a recent writing magazine.

He came and charmed the group of Writing Buddies, aspiring and professional writers of all genres, who meet for a cuppa and a chat once a fortnight in Borders. We talked about starting out in short story writing, offered advice to one of our number who needed some help with the credibility of a stereotyped character and marvelled that the piece I had written for Writers' News about Writing Buddies had been published. It was a meeting full of fun and laughter and we left feeling that all was good with the world.

Simon, thank you for coming and we look forward to your next visit, which we hope will not be long!

In the meantime, I have been left with lots of food for thought, as Simon gave me some very sage advice. More on this in due course...