Do You Need A Literary Agent?

How about you? Do you need a literary agent? Years ago I was convinced I needed an agent for my writing projects, but I’m not so sure now. Why? Well, two reasons: the more of their blogs and websites I’ve read, the more they've convinced me they loathe writers – especially those of the unpublished kind. It's clear from what most of them say - with their own horses’ mouths - that their own importance, (sprouting mainly from the title of their job) is of utmost importance to them. Secondly, without a literary agent I managed to find a great publisher for my first book (it took me years - mind); and I've just signed another contract to publish a second book of a different genre. 

Now, not all literary agents fall into this category. There are some brilliant, loyal, hard-working ones out there. I've just been unlucky with literary agents, that's all.
If I could sum up in two sentences, the essence of their (agents I've been unlucky to come across) between-the-lines message to new writers, it would be this: 

Our hands are too holy to touch you, our ears – to distant to hear.

Let someone else saddle your struggles, my own worth to me is too dear.

The agents’ blogs I’ve read speak to me from a detached distance, far above my measly-writer-head. If you don’t get that feeling, please let me know. I’ve read the blog of only one agent, who doesn’t feel that the title of his job has magically required him to sit at the zenith of my lowly existence.

I have agents for my TV and modelling work. They seek me out. They’re the ones who pick up the phone, pay for the call, and offer me projects. For them, I’m a valued part of their business, an living asset whose work makes them fifteen to twenty percent profit each time I get paid.
They don't start from the premise that I have no talent. After all, at the point of joining their agency, they had to take a chance on me.

(If you change your mind, I’m the first in line. Baby I’m still free, take a chance on me. If you need me let me know . . . Sorry, I couldn’t resist injecting a little Abba there.)

Why then, do literary agents operate from this distance? Why is the writer guilty of non-talent before he/she is given a platform on which to prove this supposition right? Why do literary agents in general, act as though the new writer is the enemy – the blight to avoid at all cost? This puzzles me. And as yet, I cannot answer any these questions.

(Gonna be around. Got no place to go . . .)

Have you got a literary agent who doesn't sound remotely like the ones I've just described? Please let me know in the comment section.

What You Should Know About The Fruit You Eat

We all know that it’s important to eat fruit. We pride ourselves in having a healthy lifestyle if we eat at least one piece of this food group every day. Apparently, researchers (and I don’t always believe their views) have determined that there are right and wrong ways of eating fruit. I’ve also included a list of some of the popular ones and a brief description of a few nutrients and minerals we get from them.

Fruit is to be eaten on an empty stomach
The reason some people have heart burns and upset stomach after eating fruit is because the acids and juices, when mixed with other foods like bread, ferment and produce gas.

Never cook fruit
Fruit vitamins cannot withstand high temperatures. Nutrients evaporate when fruit is cooked, leaving most of the taste but none of the substance.

Fruit better than fruit juice
In order for your body to absorb the vitamins and minerals fruit offer, they need to be mixed with your saliva. This is why gulping down fruit juice is a waste of time. Drink slowly when drinking fruit juices to allow them to stay in your mouth for longer.

Fruit gives you:

WATERMELONS
Lycopene: cancer fighting oxidant.
Glutathione: immune-system booster.
It’s 92% water so is the best thirst quencher you can find.

STRAWBERRIES
Antioxidants: protect the body from free radicals that cause cancer and clog blood vessels.

KIWI FRUIT
Potassium: important for cell, tissue and organ function. It’s also vital for skeletal and smooth muscle contraction. Potassium also plays an important role in the digestive process.
Magnesuim: vital in the production of protein in the body.
Vitamin E: essential in keeping the cells in your body healthy. Vitamin E is very active in the prevention of diseases and ill health. Unfortunately, it’s destroyed by heat.
Fibre: keeps the digestive system healthy. It helps us to process the food we eat and absorb nutrients. It also lowers blood cholesterol and controls your blood sugar levels (which controls appetite).
Vitamin C: one kiwi fruit contains twice the vitamin C of an orange. Vitamin C is an all rounder, enhancing good health and possessing anti-inflammatory properties.

APPLES
Antioxidants: this is very important in keeping cancer forming cells away. It also helps in blood flow, which maintains good health throughout the body.
Flavonoids: have anti-allergic, anti-cancer, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral properties. They actively enhance the Vitamin C present in the other fruit we eat, keeping the heart healthy.

ORANGES
Vitamin C: helps to keep the colds away, lower cholesterol, prevent kidney stones and reduce the risk of colon cancer.

GUAVA AND PAPAYA
Vitamin C: These contain extremely high Vitamin C content. Guava is rich in fibre and Papaya contains a large amount of carotene.

What are your favourites out of this list? Do you have a super fruit you like eating every day?

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Ginger: Why You Will Never Again Leave Your Home Without It!

Ginger is one of the most potent spices on earth. It's also one of the few edible roots with multiple uses we can all easily access. It was first farmed in Asia but quickly spread to parts of Africa and the Caribbean.  The following points will convince you that you should  always have a piece of fresh ginger (or frozen) at hand. These were all recorded after studies and researches made by respected scientists and scholars.

• Treat an itchy throat and niggling cough with a drink of ginger or a small piece of fresh ginger. (Put a few thin slices in hot water).
• Use as soon as you feel a cold coming on. It's better than vitamin C (it contains Vitamin C) because if its strong anti-viral properties.
• It slows cancerous cells. Make sure you use ginger in your cooking regularly.
• Treat nausea, sea sickness and travel sickness.
• Use ginger regularly if you have problems with constipation.
• It aids in the absorption of protein, so is great for digestion.

Don't forget you can make yourself some ginger ale at home

• Ginger has antihistamine qualities so is helpful in the treatment of allergies.
• It's great for anti-inflammatory illnesses, so use regularly for pains due to arthritic and other muscular conditions. 
• Ginger prevents blood clots from forming.
• It's been used for thousands of years in Asian countries to preserve a youthful body and appearance.
• Ginger prevents cramps due to IBS.
• If you've eaten too much, eat a small piece of ginger to aid the digestion process and to prevent heart burns later on.

Ginger makes delicious cakes and breads too.

• It lowers cholesterol.
• If you're a smoker, chewing a small slice of ginger will clear your breath better than chewing gum.
• Ginger has antibacterial and anti-fungal properties, so is good for preventing gum disease and tooth decay.
• It's a natural source of Vitamin C, zinc and magnesium, and is 100% better than taking vitamin pills to top up on these minerals. 
• Ginger maintains blood flow to all parts of the body including the sexual organs. 
• Of course, use ginger in your cooking to spice up your food. I use it in my curries every Friday on curry day and it's brilliant!

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Sunday's Child Excerpt

I haven't put up an excerpt from 'Sunday's Child' in a very long time. This blog, after all, is about that book so I figured it was definitely time to do so. Here's an excerpt I posted years ago on this very blog. It's content is exactly the same, but it's been edited to change a lot of the dialect it originally had. 


Loud, crashing, splintering sound, then broken glass on my face!
Oh Gawd! What’s happening to us?
Franc was crying. Mammy was screaming, “Get up! Get up!”
I was still half asleep. Theresa was shaking my kite-like, little frame. “Ann! Ann! They breakin’ in! Run!”
Franc started to scream. She was in spasms. I knew her mouth was open, but I couldn’t hear anything but a hissing “whoop.” I waited for the next burst of scream. It came, and with it I was lifted out of my bed and rushed out of the room. The last thing I saw in the shadow of the street lamp as I was dragged from the bedroom was a dark boot stepping through the now-broken window pane, into the bedroom, and onto the bed. The owner of the boot was holding a cutlass in his hand. Mammy won’t like that. No shoes allowed in the house!
* * *

“Ah think he went back out,” Theresa whispered, grasping the baby as we all stood trembling together in the safety of living room. “He only want to scare us” she said, pulling the bedroom door shut.
“It’s the two of them,” Mammy shouted-whispered. “Derek wid him!”
I knew who Derek was straight off. He was our landlady’s crazy-hair son who’d run away from the prison. I supposed that the other one was his sister’s mad, criminal husband. Mammy always said, “Them’s dangerous people to get mixed-up with.”
One time Theresa had asked her, “Why you say that?”
Mammy had a very long answer to that. I can’t remember all that she said, but one thing that stood out in my mind was when she explained that the landlady was a dark spirits’ worker, and that people went to her when they wanted to put bad, Obeah spells on someone.
“Ann, you go out the back door and call fuh help,” Mammy instructed me, jerking me back into the terror before us.
“No, doan send her out,” Theresa pleaded. “They still in front there shouting. One of them can easily run under the house and find her on the back steps.”
“No,” Mammy said. “They won’t hurt a child. Go, shout for help. Mr. Barry will come.”
“But yuh said that Derek is a murderer. She can’t…I’ll…I’ll go,” Theresa told her.
“You make the baby keep quiet,” Mammy shouted, and this was no whisper-shout either. “Go,” she said, and she and I crept through the dark kitchen to the back door.
She shoved me out.
Then I heard the bolt click.
* * *

I was screaming before I could hear my own voice. I was wailing and crying, spewing like a volcano – a lava of tears running down my face.
“Help! Help! Somebody please help us!” The louder I screamed the harder I wept. My body wanted to do this so much. My voice was breaking, but it was not because of the shouting. I was crying so hard I could barely say ‘Elp.’ I was exposed and only had moments before the two men walked under the house and came to deal with me.
I almost imagined footsteps getting nearer and nearer, closing in on me. I thought of all the things they could do to me, and I saw my half-grown body chopped up into tiny pieces with the cutlass the person who stepped into the bedroom was holding. A bizarre voice in my head shouted louder than I ever could, ‘But would that be so bad?’
I was shivering in the hot night air, feeling the not so foreign hand of fear take hold of my heart and squeeze and squeeze. I knew my heart was going to spurge its contents all over the hand in seconds. That’ll teach it.
I looked for the men through my tears, while I reasoned with that voice, ‘But see, I am only little.’
‘Is that why I catch yuh thinking of dying?’
‘I don’t want to die, please, I don’t want to die. I’m really only little.’
Heavy tears were streaming down my face when I heard him. He was blowing his whistle through the curtain of the night. It had to be Mr. Barry! By the time he reached our house still dressed in his pyjamas, he had most of the street behind him.
* * *

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Blessings, Not Riches, Oh, Lord

We ask God to give us more. We need a bigger house for our family. We need more money to send our kids to good schools. We ask for more so that we could help our family members and friends in need. We want better health so we could work hard and save up for a better pension.
I too, find myself asking for more. Lately I've been wondering if this is the right approach to prayer. Of course, it's not wrong to make requests to God in our prayers. He's invited us to do so. But have we considered He's already given us the things we keep asking for? That His answer to our prayers has long since been a resounding, 'Yes'.

I've known the story of Jesus feeding the multitude with two fishes and five loaves of bread for a long time. I've accepted this as a miracle even though the maths don't compute, but have never associated it with my own life. Jesus fed thousands using the two fishes he already had, after blessing them. He did not ask for more food. He used the food he had, blessed it and shared it out. It was enough. In fact, at the end of the meal his disciples picked up baskets of leftovers. This is the nature of a blessing - whatever you have, no matter how little, goes a long way. It's enough for you.

I think I should change my prayers in relation to making requests. Of course, I pray for others and thank the Lord for the things I have. However, when it comes to making requests maybe I should ask for blessings on the things I already have rather than asking for more.

God doesn't need to give us more in order to build a comfortable home for our family. His blessings will stretch whatever we have already. I don't have to understand how, but He can! I should have faith that He's already given us enough and that by asking for a blessing instead of more, He can make our little treasures multiply into thousands simply by saying the word.

How do you stay focused on counting your blessings?

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The Labour Of Love

Yesterday I was talking to a lady on a film set. When I told her that it was my son's eleventh birthday, she said, 'Happy Birthing Day' to me. I didn't quite understand what she meant at first, but then I thought about it and realised that even though her greeting sounded strange, it actually made lots of sense.

We give our children presents on their birthdays and make a fuss of them because it was the day they were born. This is a passive element of birth. After all, the only thing they did was emerge from the womb and kicked up a fuss. Years after that, all they did was demand food, take up all our attention and cost us money. But we love them endlessly and without reserve.

On the other hand, the 'birthday' of a child requires much more from a mother. She labours in agony as her body twists and writhes in pain. She pushes what feels like her guts out for hours on end to bring forth her baby into the world. For her troubles, her body changes for the worse from that day forward and deteriorates progressively with every successive baby. Yet, every year on this anniversary, she gets none of the credit. Maybe we should rethink this whole birthday thing. Maybe it's us mums who should be told, 'Happy Birthing day' and have a cake baked for us.

Yesterday, eleven years ago, my body went through trauma giving birth to a beautiful baby boy. The birth was so painful, I vowed never to have another child. Ever! This baby boy is now a massive eleven year old, 5' 3" tall, with the brain of an eight year old. We love him to bits. He was thrilled to have presents and attention on his birthday. He didn't get a Kelley Blue Book. He's too young for this, after all (Perhaps in about 8 years). And his mum, the one who got saddled with all this labour of love, stood on the sidelines ignored, cheering him on.

And, in case you're wondering. We did have another child after him. :-)