THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS - AND FRIENDS

Excuse me while I digress from the business of writing and publishing. I want and need to thank some people who have recently been extraordinarily kind, when they didn't need to be, people who have gone the extra mile for me, even though some of them have never met me and others have only met me once.

First, though, let me take a moment to spit vitriol at the nasty little creep who has so little of value in his head that he had to waste the cells he has in hacking into my author website. Some of you know that on Monday and Tuesday this week I had no website. For a while it consisted of a violent red and black screen, a nasty face sneering at me, flashing red words and Chinese script. Then it was a white screen with an error message. For some time I feared that I'd never get it back, that my nicolamorgan.co.uk / com names would never be mine again, that I'd have to re-write everything from scratch, losing my email addresses for ever, and losing business while people couldn't contact me through the site. It was a little bit like being burgled. No, I know it wasn't really as bad as that, but I did feel invaded. It felt personal. And to say that I didn't have time to deal with the bastard and the results of his malicious "work" is an understatement.

Enter the kindness of strangers. People who I've never met stepped in with advice on Twitter and Facebook. Some of it was reassuring and technical, others just sympathetic. A Facebook writer friend - who I've also never met - Dan Blythe, posted a request to people to buy Wasted in solidarity with me. That was such a kind and unexpected reaction that I felt a bit emotional. There was I, in internet meltdown after invasion by a spiteful bastard, and someone I've never met was bothering to care enough to tell people to buy my books.

Then there were two Twitter friends - again, never met them, never spoken to them before - Marshall Buckley (@marshallbuckley) and Andrew Laws (@Andrew_Culture). Both are webby experts but are also working on novels. They gave me their phone numbers, asking me to call. I did. They reassured me and gave me lots of practical advice. They both spent time rootling around trying to find out what was going on. (Yes, I'd contacted the host company and no, they hadn't replied - turns out that this is because I reported it under the category "Abuse" instead of "Technical". Silly me. Well, it bloody felt like abuse.) Then, the host company half got its act together but I still needed Andrew to go and get the site back up and running. He did it and didn't even make me feel stupid. He was still doing it late on Tuesday evening.

So, my first two thanks to friends I've never met but am proud to call friends go to Marshall Buckley and Andrew Laws. Do follow them on Twitter and be nice to them. I wish them success in their writing.

On a completely different subject, I want to thank Mike Jarman. He's also a Twitter friend but I have met him once. He and his wife own Botham's of Whitby, fabulous bakers, and last year they came to the Gardening Scotland show with their products. I swept by for a few minutes in my pink wellies - now sadly departed to welly heaven - and ice-blue raincoat, and frightened away the other customers. Since then, I've enjoyed a number of delicious Botham's products. Mmmmm.

But, what am I thanking him for? Well, I asked if he'd like to put a little smidgen of something in the goody bags for my workshops. I was thinking along the lines of little samples, but the other day two large boxes arrived, containing a whole fabulous packet of Shah biscuits for every participant. Along with my favourite plum bread (for me) and some stem ginger brack (for someone as yet unspecified). So, a huge thanks for that generosity. Do follow Mike on Twitter - @mikejarman - his tweets are renowned for their entertainment value. Especially when his thumbs get confused. And his cakes are ace.

And then there was Joanne Harris - again, a Twitter friend who I've met once - who took the trouble to read Write to be Published and wrote a fabulous review, which must have taken ages. Incredible generosity.

I also discovered how good my friends - online and offline - are when, against all expectations, I won the Coventry "Read it or Else" award. And this is where I thank many of you for going to the trouble of voting. I felt very overwhelmed by that, very. I know I had a lot of support from some Coventry pupils - one of whom repeatedly put comments on the site telling people to vote, and since I've never been to Coventry or had any contact with the schools there, that was overwhelming, too. But I also know that my friends - and I count my blog readers among them - went out of their way to help.

So, thanks to them and to you for being lovely. The world is sometimes a pretty good place full of pretty good people and I needed to be reminded of that. All I can do for you in return is keep on blogging and wishing you all the success you deserve.