I realised this morning that I am fact, a starving artist.

Ive been living on potatoes and coca cola since the fifteenth. I’m not quite sure at which point I reached the poverty line but my house mate and I had a good laugh about it this morning, after she admitted that she has been secretly stealing my sugar for weeks and we realised that we don’t have enough money between us to buy dish washing liquid or in fact, toilet rolls.

We do however, have an abundance of potatoes. These we have roasted, boiled, fried, mashed and even named. Yes, one lucky fellow survived our fervent mastications by successfully sprouting leaves and making itself far too interesting to be eaten. We put him on a shelf and named him Ned instead.

You can do your bit to help the starving artists of the world and their thieving house mates by purchasing their literary contributions as Christmas gifts for your friends or family or even yourself.

One of the more fun things you can do at work is to Google yourself. I did this and lo and behold, was I surprised at what I found.

I’m speaking with Derick at the Suidoosterfees next year.

A sixty minute panel discussion on our first novels. It’s great marketing opportunity for the books, and my first major public speaking event.

I’ll be the first to admit that my Afrikaans is a little on the rusty side. So as excited as I am for this event I am also feeling just a the tiniest twinge of trepidation. I’ve already confessed in an earlier blog to not being the greatest public speaker so this is a big one for me. I can just imagine myself freezing on stage in front of the media.

Can anyone say eeek?

As always, I’ll keep you posted.