Patricia M Osborne

So yesterday I went off to uni wearing a summer jacket and sandals. I was comfortable as I made my way to the train station on a fine and pleasant morning.

Later, however, the weather had other ideas. It decided to rain and didn’t let up.

Coming home from uni, already tired after concentrating on a dissertation workshop, I ended up with soaking feet as I dodged huge puddles and passing car spray. I was cold, tired, wet and hungry.

I know, I should have worn boots and a coat but in my defence it was a nice day and the day before I somehow managed to run over my previously broken toes under the airing cupboard door. I mean how does a person manage that? Don’t ask me but my poor old toes always seem to end up under one door or another.  So to be honest, I didn’t think I could bear to trap them inside boots.

As for the coat, it gets hot when the sun shines and walking a long way with a big coat is tiring. I did however, have my loyal old brollie, which by the way, kept shouting at me all the way home to put it in for a part exchange.

So it seems there is some substance to the saying never cast a clout until May is out.

Well hurry up June because I’m tired of winter clothes and footwear. Let the sun shine.

 

I am vast approaching the finish of my final module for my MA in Creative Writing via Brighton University. The course has consisted of six modules in total and this latest one, Communities in Practice has been my favourite. A close second was Prose Fiction which I studied last year with Umi Sinha and Beth Miller as tutors.

I’m now in my third year of study and that may seem a slow pace to some but to me it’s been the right speed. Following each module I believe I’ve grown more as a writer so if I had completed this in one year I do not imagine I’d have grown as I have. This last year in particular has been a major change for me. I’ve had the confidence to publish House of Grace under my own label White Wings Books and the confidence to become a Poet in Residence at Worth Park. So I’ve really put myself out there in the public eye.

Just the dissertation to go and some of you may not be surprised to hear that I’m leaving that until next year. This gives me a total of four years to complete my MA. By coincidence, it’s actually the same amount of time that I spent on my BA through the Open University.

So once again the tortoise wins the race.

So I’d been waiting for an article about the launch of my debut novel to go into the local press. I’m a patient person so I waited.

The other night at reading group, one of the members mentioned she’d seen a lovely article on me and House of Grace in The Crawley Observer a few weeks ago. Another member agreed, she’d seen it too but thought I knew. Thankfully this second friend managed to acquire a photocopy of the article for me, although there’s nothing quite like the real thing.

I’d like to say a big thank you to Joe Stack @Crawley Observer for writing such a brilliant piece.

With a bank holiday coming up you might like to order a copy of House of Grace from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

It’s available on Kindle unlimited for £0.00/$0.00

Kindle – £1.99 / S2.56

Paperback – £7.99 / S11.99

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_rsis_1_14?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=house+of+grace+by+patricia+m+osborne&sprefix=House+of+Grace%2Caps%2C205

 

You will remember me mentioning the poetry workshops at Worth Park I was conducting as Poet in Residence. Well to conclude the course a Hoops and Haiku event was held – Poetry met Croquet.

The schedule of the day began with coffee and cake. This followed with the students from my poetry course performing their poetry creations. Members of the audience joined in by reading poems from famous poets.

We concluded the day’s event by strolling down to the croquet lawn where captains from the croquet society took time out to introduce the poetry class and the community audience to a game of croquet. A great time was had by all.

Hopefully this is the first of many poetry days at Worth Park.

 

My first royalty cheque has arrived. House of Grace is officially out there. People are buying my book and better still they’re enjoying it. Several readers have told me that they’ve read it more than once because they loved it so much.

Comments are popping up in my facebook inbox or on my facebook timeline and 5* reviews are growing steadily on Amazon. They all have a common theme.

‘It’s a real page turner.’ ‘I couldn’t put it down.’ ‘Hurry up with the next one.’

Read the reviews on Amazon.co.uk and see what you think.

As an author, it’s a wonderful feeling to know that readers love my book and want more. It also gives me that push to get on with the next one. I have an obligation to my readers. I intend to return to The Coal Miner’s Son, the next book in the series, (once my current and last MA module has finished) with an aim to finish by Christmas and release it by March 2018.

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Find out what these park gates mean to Grace.

(Permission to use given by Bill Sheehy who owns copyright of the above photo)

Blurb on back of the book:

It’s 1950 and all sixteen-year-old Grace Granville has ever wanted is to become a successful dress designer. She dreams of owning her own fashion house and spends her spare time sketching outfits. Her father, Lord Granville, sees this frivolous activity as nonsense and wants to groom her into a good wife for someone of his choosing…

Grace is about to leave Greenemere, a boarding school in Brighton. She’s blissfully unaware of her father’s plans when she embarks on a new adventure. The quest includes a trip to Bolton’s Palais where she meets coal miner, Jack Gilmore. Grace’s life is never the same again.  

Travel with Grace through two decades as she struggles with family conflict, poverty and tragedy. Is Grace strong enough to defy Lord Granville’s wishes and find true love? Will she become a successful fashion designer? Where will she turn for help?

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Do you enjoy Family Sagas? Do you like to read fiction set in the 1950’s and 60’s? Are you interested in Fashion?

If you answer yes to these questions then it’s quite likely that you’re a strong candidate to read House of Grace.  

House of Grace is available for order on Amazon UK and Amazon.com in Kindle and paperback versions.

Kindle prices start at £0.00 /$).00 with Kindle unlimited or £1.99 / $2.56

Paperback only £7.99 / $11.99

Order your copy now and see if you agree with other readers.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Grace-Family-Patricia-Osborne/dp/0995710708/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494240017&sr=1-1&keywords=house+of+grace+by+patricia+m+osborne

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_14?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=house+of+grace+by+patricia+m+osborne&sprefix=House+of+Grace%2Caps%2C192&crid=1OFOQRTQS63HO

 

So yesterday I set off early in the morning to make my way to the train station for my journey to London Bridge. Here I joined my writer friend Suzi Bamblett and we headed towards the Holiday Inn in Bloomsbury, via the tube to Russell Square. My rucksack was loaded up with a laptop, charger, mouse, ipad, chargers and notebooks of course. A writer can’t go out without a notebook. The weight was enormous. I now understand how a packhorse must feel. Anyway enough about that, let’s get to the juicy bit.

We arrived at the hotel and found the training room. Here we met the lovely Anita Chapman from Neetsmarketing. I’d already had the privilege to meet her on facebook, she is just as lovely in person, great personality and easy to get along with.

The conference room was well laid out. A big room, comfortable chairs and desk space, notebooks and pens provided. Coffee, water, cookies and pastries were available on tap. A large projector screen hung on the wall, for slides, so no danger about me not being able to see.

After general introductions from all, Anita began the day with Twitter. I don’t mind telling you that my brain turned to mush. I imagine it must be similar to how eggs feel when scrambled. However, after a good night’s rest it seems I took in a lot more than I had realised.

Anita provided tips, throughout the day of how to raise our profile on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Learning about the technical sides of social media, for instance, tweet deck and how to schedule on twitter, where only part of what I enjoyed about the day. It was a delight to meet new writers and add them to my already growing writers’ network. We were able to get to know each other over a nice cooked lunch with plenty on offer for vegetarians, such as me. The hotel placed our table in a quiet setting so we could hear each other speak. I believe there’s nothing worse when you’re in a restaurant and you can’t have a conversation because it’s too loud.

One thing I have learned, not just from yesterday but including, and that is writers support each other. Writers help each other. Writers are thrilled when another has a success. That’s what I love about being a writer and living in my writer’s world.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Anita’s courses – check out her website details below.

http://neetsmarketing.com/courses/

 

Ingredients

A couple of Jaffa oranges

Sharp knife

Plastic container

Fridge

Are you like me and love oranges but can’t stand the mess they make when you eat them? If so read on. I’ve shared this tip with many friends and family and they all agree that it is a great tip. I thought it only fair to share it with my readers.

I love oranges and they are good for you in so many ways. I eat a minimum of one per day if not a lot more. However, I didn’t always do that because I hated the stinging the acid caused on my lips and hands. Then one day by accident, I came across a great tip for curing this problem.

Using a sharp knife, slice the orange up.

Put into a sealed plastic container and pop in the fridge.

Take out a few hours later and you have an orange that moves away from the skin with ease. No mess, no stinging – just yummy orange.

As I mentioned earlier, I eat oranges all the time, breakfast, lunch and dinner and sometimes just as a snack. While family and friends over the last few months have been hit with viruses I have been fine. It could be a coincidence or it could be because the oranges have built up my immune system.

Check out this blog by Diana Herrington on Care2 where she lists 13 health benefits on eating an orange. Get started now.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/13-health-benefits-of-oranges.html

Now if you’re a new writer, prose or poetry, you could continue this exercise by honing in on your senses. I did such an exercise with my adult beginner poetry students at a recent workshop.

What does the orange taste like? Does it have a smell? Does it look like anything else? Perhaps a wagon wheel? Play around with your imagination and without realising it you will come up with all sorts of similes and metaphors to use in your writing.

I hope to be back shortly with more frequent blogs but in the meantime it is back to a creative writing essay for me as part of my MA – the deadline is next week.

Enjoy your oranges…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a quest for inspiration I took myself out into the sunshine to wander around the lake at Worth Park where I am presently Poet in Residence.

My journey was fruitful, I was lucky enough to spy Egyptian geese parents protecting their eleven baby goslings. Gorgeous fluffy things.

On my journey I also witnessed a moorhen lunge into shrubbery after catching herself a juicy worm for dinner, a Canadian goose dive from the air into the lake to water ski and a skein of Canadian geese perform a sky show before flitting down onto the rippled sun-kissed water.

It wasn’t a wasted journey.

Have you managed to spot any water babies yet, where you live?

 

I promised to let you know about the poetry workshops I am conducting at Worth Park as part of my residency. Sorry I’m a bit behind but things have been rather manic of late. The theme of these workshops is to hone in on senses to create imagery in poetry.

Week one brought a small group of adult students. This began with a trip outside into the park grounds, finding our own personal space to capture sounds and visions around us, focusing on all senses including smell, touch, taste, sight and hearing. I struggled with how my students would create taste so provided a choice of sweets to suck while on their creative journey.

Back inside the writing room a freewrite for ten to fifteen minutes was completed. ‘Free writing will often take you into your deepest ideas, feelings and memories.’ (Linda Anderson, 2006).  I explained to just write, don’t edit and if they got stuck what to write then jot anything down, such as, ‘I don’t know what to write’ until something else popped into their heads. One student found this tip particularly helpful.

Following the freewrite we discussed poetry, rhyme and non-rhyme. A couple of the members from the group read out aloud, William Blake’s, My little Rose Tree and Sea Rose by H D Imagist and then everyone discussed their differences. We looked at how free verse can be a poem using internal rhyme, alliteration, assonance, metaphor and simile.

The class broke for coffee and biscuits and chatted about the first half of the session. Afterwards as a group we brainstormed what we’d picked up in our few minutes private space. Everyone noted the sky appeared dull, flat and no one managed to single out a smell, despite being among trees and plants. One student (Vanessa Cumper) described the air as ‘air pausing,’ a wonderful description. Magpies dancing and pigeons plodding were on everyone’s list. One particular line that jumped in my head was ‘sirens of gulls.’

After our brain storm the participants began tackling their first poem making use of non rhyming couplets and using a different sense in each stanza. I was impressed with the quality and imagery used by these beginner poets.

Why not have a go yourself? Next time you’re outside, stop, listen, watch, feel, touch etc. Then have a go at a poem using non rhyming couplets. I’d love to hear how you get on.

Watch out for Week Two’s session over the next day or so…

 

 

 

 

Ahead of schedule, House of Grace has arrived. You can now purchase it on paperback or kindle from Amazon. And it doesn’t matter where you live because it is available at

Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss…

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss…