Well, to be fair, top of the list is probably, anything. She's a private little soul and has spent the past few years in self-imposed exile writing and drawing pictures. Both of which have afforded her copious amounts of solitude; as a result she has lost the ability to converse with the rest of the population. Due to her social ineptitude she has asked me to step in as I'm quite verbose when I get the wind up my tail. Allow me to introduce her to you…
Melissa Hemmings
My name is Eliza Wakeley and I am the subject of Melissa's first two books, Observations from the Precipice and Meanderings of a Cuckoo. She decided my life was novel-worthy and who am I to comment? I am just a figment of her imagination.
Observations from the Precipice, follows my mental ramblings after my husband, Lewis, left me. I was in a right old pickle and took to chakra cleansing, writing a blog and poetry. Don't we all? He ran off with the antithesis of me which was quite unnecessary of him as is proved to highlight his apparent acknowledgement he needed the exact female opposite for his life to be fine and dandy.
I have a best friend Lydia; she's lovely, if a bit hectic on the boyfriend front. It was Lydia who introduced me to online dating. What a blummin' fiasco that turned out to be. Melissa wrote about my first dates in Observations from the Precipice. I signed up to multitudeofmen.com - it's a real website, you know. If you click on it you'll see some of the men I dated. Melissa in her wisdom has sketched the profile pictures to protect their identity. Probably wise, under the circumstances.
Book 2, Meanderings of a Cuckoo, continues my life. I'm not going to tell you about what goes on as Melissa would like you to read the books. All those words she thought up and hours sat at a keyboard would be fruitless, otherwise. At least you know I don't die; the main character being bumped off is always a bit of a downer. It would also prove quite unfortunate as there's book three to come.
So, Melissa… ten things… hmmm, ok. One: I like her, she makes me funnier than I really am. Two: She allows me to write poetry (always good for an emotional purge, that activity). Three: She gave me Tom, my beautiful little boy. Four: She understands about life, relationships and peoples' frailties. Five: She let Cupid twang his bow in my direction. Six: She understands decanting own label products into posh pots is normal behaviour. Seven: She remains the eternal optimist. Eight: She's an animal lover; rumour has it she owns fifteen cats. Nine: She also talks to pigeons. Ten: Her staple diet is tea and cake, just like me.
Between you and me; if she hadn't rendered herself verbally useless I'd like to hear some her real life stories… Judging by some of the things she makes me think; I bet there'd be more than ten things to put on that list!