If You Were Murdered In Your Home

Sleep isn't coming easily to me still, so my posts are appearing few and far between. I'm sorry for not keeping up with people very well lately. I know I have to try and get my head into gear as the A to Z April challenge is less than a week away and I'm signed up for doing it.

Anyway, to todays post. I was watching a crime drama on the television a few days ago and it brought a question to my mind. The scene involved the murder of a young woman in her home and officers in attendance were going through her life to get a feel for who she was. Conjecture and assumptions were made as well as facts from evidence found.

If you were found murdered in the place you live, your home, people you didn't know would be entering your private space. Those people would be police and crime scene investigators. And while they're in your personal living space, as the victim, they want to know an awful lot about you and your life.

What you have on your shelves, food in the refrigerator, hidden items long forgotten shoved in drawers. What secrets are you hiding? Why did someone enter to kill?

From my home, they would see I like books, writing - piles of printed out manuscripts I used for editing, and I'm not the healthiest of eaters.

What conclusions would a police investigator make of your home if they had the unfortunate chance to do this.

What do you think the people investigating and going through your things, would think of you?

Home Made Cheesecake.

Firstly I must apologise for my lack of posts. I've been exhausted. I think my Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome is playing up and I have barely been sleeping. And when I say not sleeping, I mean two hours sleep a night, then wide awake and alert. After a day at work this tends to make me lethargic and doesn't leave me a lot of energy for blogging, so I apologise. I'm hoping to be getting on top of it shortly. Fingers crossed.

Anyway. On to something more interesting. I'm not the most domesticated person I know, in fact I'd probably go as far as to say I'm the least domesticated person I know. And yet, today, I found myself making Malteser cheesecake from scratch. Not a packet mix in sight. It even tasted devine. I think I'm in danger of becoming a domestic goddess. Though that could be going a bit far in all my excitement.

Have you tried to do something recently that you haven't tried before? How did it go?

I leave you with aforementioned cheesecake to drool over. :)






EDIT: To say, you can find the recipe Here. Just scroll through the page of different cheescakes until you find this one.

Tagged

I was recently Tagged by Gwen at Fulfilling Dreams. I have to answer 11 questions she has personally set, so get you get to learn a little bit more about the person behind the blog. (Feel free to run and hide if that fills you with dread.) After I have answered Gwens questions I have to Tag some other bloggers and ask a new set of questions. So here goes. 

1) Star Trek or Star Wars, and why?
Though I loved both, I will probably have to go with Star Wars. I'm a sucker for Han Solo

2) What book are you most excited about being released soon?
A friend of mine, Mari Hannah is releasing her first crime novel in April called The Murder Wall. I can't wait to read it!

3) What childhood franchise do you wish would be rebooted?
My wishes would probably all be food related, specifically sweets and there does seem to have been a reboot of the old type of sweets recently. Things such as Kop Kops and Kola cubes.

4) How long have you been blogging?
Ooh, good question, let me check....
19 months!

5) What was the first story you ever wrote?
I know I did write when I was younger, but I can't actually remember the first one I wrote or what happened to any of them. Sad I know.

6) Describe in 3 words a character you're currently working with.
Determined, Guilty, Conflicted

7) Favorite Disney movie?
The Lion King. I wept buckets.

8) Favorite family recipe?
Chilli. You can't beat a great, hot Chilli.

9) Favorite TV crime drama?
Now this is a difficult one. I do tend to watch a few of them. I would say that American crime drama's are my favourite most of the time but I did love Life on Mars. Watching how it used to be done and the old attitudes in policing. Great!

10) What's your favorite thing to wear when writing?
Something loose as I need to be relaxed. Jersey trousers usually.

11) What do you give up in order to have time to write?
Having a life! Seriously, working full time, two kids and the necessity to sleep are fairly important, so everything else goes out the window. I by no means lock myself away though. If we have something on socially, I do involve myself in it. It's about shuffling the little time there is and writing when I can. I don't tend to have a hectic social life though. 

Ok, my turn. I now Tag Sarah at Empty White Pages, Patricia Lynne at Through The Pages and Rosalind at Writing In The Rain. 

My Eleven questions are these;

1) If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would you choose?

2) What is your favourite day of the week and why?

3) What would you find difficult to give up?

4) If you could visit any place in the world where would it be?

5) If you could speak with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

6) Ereader or physical book?

7) Why do you blog?

8) Where do you write?

9) If you could recommend one blog to follow, what would it be? 

10) Savoury or sweet?

11) What is your most treasured possession

An interesting way to learn more about our fellow bloggers. Pass it on and see what we can find out! 

Insecure writers Group

For the last few months I've read several blogs that have been a part of the Insecure Writers Group which was set up by Alex Cavanaugh. This group is a great idea. Once a month writers blog and share how things are with them, what is troubling them and anything else that falls within the category of insecurity and believe me, there is a lot of insecurity as a writer. It is such a generally lonely endeavour and this group goes some way to combat that, as does blogging and using other social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook. So, with it being such a great idea, I thought I'd sign up and join in the once monthly blog hop where we share the difficulties.

I signed up a few weeks ago and my blog is now on the extensive list of participants. The problem I faced when I came to write this post is that I became all insecure about sharing my insecurities. You see, my manuscript is still in submission stage and I'm chasing my dream of being traditionally published. Why should this matter when I'm posting about insecurities? Because nowadays agents and publishers are checking prospective authors social networking sites. It's no bad thing to show your human side, but, I am concerned that if I share too much about any insecurities and on a regular basis, it has the potential of being seen and interpreted in a way I wouldn't necessarily want it to be. So on that point, I think I have to bow out of the monthly blog hop, gracefully and say that my main insecurity right now is making sure my public profile is open, honest, but not too negative. A lot of writers won't agree with this, but unfortunately, it is my insecurity right now, so I hope this post can be taken as it was meant. An honest insecurity on wanting to join the published authors world. Alex if you read this, thank you for the opportunity and if it's not too much trouble, can you remove me from the list as it's obviously directing people to a blog that isn't participating.

To all insecure writers, keep writing, because if we keep putting bums on seats and not giving up, we can achieve our dreams.

Two Weeks!

I can't believe how quickly two weeks can pass. It certainly doesn't feel like it's been two weeks since I went on that beautiful walk with my family, or two weeks that I last looked at my blog. Where does time go?

I'm sorry to say that I didn't go on the walk last Sunday as I suggested I would. We had a better offer - Lunch at mum's. Who can turn down mum's home cooked Sunday lunch? Todays excuse is a little weaker. It's absolutely raining buckets here. This does not make for an enjoyable walking experience.

I've had a crazy couple of weeks at work which have left me too tired to spend any time here. So busy that until today I didn't realise it had been two weeks.

So other than working, I had a great day yesterday taking the teenager prom dress shopping. Prom is a fairly new phenomena in the UK but the bridal shops have huge ranges of dresses and a great system of making sure girls don't turn up at their prom in the same dress as someone else. If a dress is bought they list the school and the dress code and don't let anyone else from the same school buy the same dress. What a great idea.

I thought it was going to be difficult finding a prom dress and our day was going to be spent trailing from one bridal shop to another as teenager hated puffs, flowers, frills and bright colours - everything a prom dress is. Luckily the second shop we went in, and only the third dress she had tried on that day, was her perfect dress. Her eyes lit up and she just glowed when she put it on. I felt my throat constrict as I fought not to cry, after all she isn't getting married, but she looked like a princess, my little girl growing up. The dress is simple, straight and very classic. I'm so impressed with her taste and style. I don't want to show you the dress just yet, but I will leave you with an image, the total opposite of her style. Very big and showy.

So what have I missed in the last two weeks?