PS re WRITERS' RIGHTS

As you may have guessed, I do not need any encouragement to speak about writers' rights. Hold me back, some might say, and often have. If you can bear to listen to me on my soap-box again, please see my long comment beneath the post on Fighting for Writers' Rights.

And thank you to those of you who joined my Facebook group, Fair Reading, after reading that post. I will be finishing my term as Chair of the Soc of Authors in Scotland in August, but I plan to continue riding my hobby horse all over the place long after that.

Those who are (as yet) unpublished may find the idea of writers' rights somewhat hollow or academic - trust me: you need to care, because one day you are going to be published. And if you didn't believe that, you wouldn't be here. So, you need to think about where you stand on your rights, and which ones you are happy to give away.

Funny, when I was at university and had just come up somewhat painfully against my college principal for organising some kind of protest (I can't even remember what it was about now - probably the offness of the milk at breakfast, which was doubtless the most serious issue I could think of), she said, "You know, Nicola, I can just see you becoming one of those angry trade union leaders." I suppose what she meant was she knew I was going to turn into a crabbit old bat. But I am a well-meaning crabbit old bat.

I'll return to advice on writing better and getting published soon, but meanwhile I'm off to train for all the chocolate I am going to be forced to eat on Sunday. Someone's got to do it.