Hello WestWords! – R.A. Spratt

Hello, I’m R.A. Spratt and I’m the guest blogger for August.

For those of you who aren’t sure who I am – I’m the author who wrote all the ‘Friday Barnes’, ‘Nanny Piggins’ and ‘Peski Kids’ Books. My most recent book is ‘Shockingly Good Stories’.

To stalk me, I mean… research my background. You can check out my website here… raspratt.com or listen to my podcast here… ‘Bedtime Stories with R.A. Spratt’

I also wrote for a whole bunch of television shows. If you want to see exactly which ones, you can check me out on the internet movie database here… R.A. Spratt TV credits You’ll learn the first secret about me – my real name! Because in the world of TV I go by Rachel Spratt.

I’m looking forward to doing this blog for WestWords. I haven’t done any blogging for a very long time. The last time was for my publisher Penguin Random House and I got in a lot of trouble when Nanny Piggins used the blog to accuse the publicity department of being boring stick-in-the-muds who enjoyed torturing authors. I was trying to be funny. But that is the first lesson I can teach you – it is very hard to be funny. And no matter how funny you are – there is always some boring stick-in-the-mud who doesn’t see it that way. It wasn’t even me who said it, it was Nanny Piggins, so I don’t know why I got in trouble. But long story short… it has taken ten years for someone else to be brave enough to ask me to write a blog. So thank you WestWords for offering me this chance at redemption. I hope I don’t let you down. I’m sure you’re not boring stick-in-the-muds (now that I’ve used the expression ‘stick-in-the-mud’ three times I really should look it up to make sure it means what I think it does). Okay, so that’s the second lesson I’m going to teach you – always research your insults so you are sure you are using them accurately. I’ll google it now. Here we go…

Perfect! It means exactly what I thought it did! That’s made me really happy. I shall now try to use it in conversation today. Most likely I’ll get a chance with my eldest daughter. She finds me deeply embarrassing. Next time she begs me to stop singing opera in the back field I shall accuse her of being a stick-in-the-mud, which will be appropriate because we have a lot of mud in the back field, that I can actually push her in to emphasize my point.

Okay, I’d better go now because it is Sunday and I should do some parenting today. Also, I do really need to write Friday Barnes 10. I’m pretty sure it was due last week. So I think my publisher would like to have it by the end of August. (Which is the third lesson I shall teach you today. Never know your due date. Ignorance gives you plausible deniability. You can google that one yourselves.)

So if you don’t want me to ramble on about whatever is passing through my head (something I am always happy to do) please ask me any question you like. It can even be about writing. I think that would make the WestWords people happy. I’m guessing from the name of their organisation that they like words and they are in some way related to the Wicked Witch of the West. (I actually doubt that is true, but I like the idea so please don’t correct me).

Goodbye for now. Don’t forget to ask questions. There will be a comment section below this post where you can do that. I may even let Nanny Piggins answer if she promises to be polite.

Best wishes,

R.A. (secretly known by some as Rachel)