Nicola Vincent-Abnett

Nicola Vincent-Abnett
"Savant" for Solaris, Wild's End, Further Associates of Sherlock Holms, more Wild's End

Tuesday 7 February 2012

Happy Coincidences


Do you ever get that feeling that all the most important wheels are spinning in your direction? 
I do.
I do love a coincidence, so imagine my joy, today. It is T-minus-8 days and counting until Mslexia announces the winner of its novel prize. I am one of the dozen shortlisted women writers, and mighty proud I am too.
Now for the coincidence bit: Today is Charles Dickens’s birthday, or it would be if he were still alive. He was born 200 years ago in 1812. He lived, at least part of the time, in Rochester, and he wrote books.
According to David Hepworth (whatsheonaboutnow.blogspot) He also wrote this about being published:



"...my first copy of the Magazine in which my first effusion - dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter-box, in a dark office, up a dark court in Fleet Street - appeared in all the glory of print; on which memorable occasion - how well I recollect it! - I walked down to Westminster Hall, and turned into it for half-an-hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride, that they could not bear the street, and were not fit to been seen there."

It just so happens that my house, where I do virtually all of my writing, was built in 1812, the same year that Dickens was born. I wrote my dissertation on Dickens’s late novels, and I live only a few miles from Rochester and the Dickens Museum. I have written a book, and I hope, one day, to see it in print.
I feel like the fates are on my side today.

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