Booking The Trend

Books (Photo credit: henry…)

I have neglected you all this week.  I’m sorry.  I never call; I never write comments…it’s as if I’ve been busy with something other than blogging.

Ridiculous, I know.  But true.

I have been working on…I blush to admit it…I don’t know quite how to say it – if I say it, it has to be true and I have to do something with it other than work on it and talk about working on it and not read other blogs or answer comments because I’m working on it…

I have written a book.

There!  I said it!  Now I have to do something with it.

I am doing something with it.  This week, I have been working on my first re-draft.  I’m a thirteenth or fourteenth re-draft before I’m satisfied kinda girl, so it may take a while.  Each morning, when I should be visiting you and replying to you, I have been editing me.

I sort of wrote it two years ago, on my short-lived blog about living in South Africa during and after Apartheid; some of it was written before that, over many years.  It is in part a collection of poems (stop yawning at the back), but also a memoir (wake up, the rest of you).  I lived during an exciting period of history and it left me well-balanced and not a stress head and if you believe that, you haven’t been reading this blog for long.  The book is a catharsis.  Should be fun!

I intend to go down the e-publishing route because, if I’m honest, I can’t imagine a publisher wanting to buy it; why would they?  Apartheid is long dead and there’s no money in poetry.

However, I have this story in me that wants to be told.

I know many of you don’t read poetry, but I will share one you might enjoy; it may or may not make it into the final draft, but it will give you a flavour of the book’s tone.  Background: in 1994, just before the first free and fair South African election, a new flag was unveiled:

The Old Flag

Flag of South Africa, used between 1928 and 1994 known as the Oranje-Blanje-Blou. From the xrmap flag collection 2.9, with modifications by Denelson83. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The New Flag

Flag of South Africa (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Let’s Hear It For The Bunting

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Orange and

green must

no more

be seen.

What a

drag.

Raise your

cup as

they run

up our

new

Y-fronts

flag.

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For the boxer generation – these are y-fronts:

Y fronts (Photo credit: stringberd)