Still writing, still alive

Well, yet again I look at this and see how long it's been since I wrote a blog post, and feel embarrassed and dilatory and apologetic.  I've been putting it off, doing other things, or not infrequently procrastinating other things, and thinking I had nothing useful to say, nothing to review, what's the point, etc etc. 

Why apologetic, though?  Why should I feel I'm letting anyone down?  If I still have any readers, none of them have been contacting me to say "noticed you haven't blogged lately, how's tricks" or "R U OK?"  So I don't think it can be causing any disquiet anywhere.  The only person I'm letting down is myself; and that only in so far as that I was taught as a child that I must never, ever, ever, be less than the best, and so if I set myself to do something I must do it not just well, but to standards higher than anyone else's.

Not really a very helpful rule to inculcate in a young mind, now I think about it.  High standards are all very well, but this just leaves you knowing you're never going to be good enough.  No matter what.  Never.  And that is death to creativity.

So the hell with that. 

I'm okay, I'm keeping fairly busy and already getting enough modelling work to pay my rent, which means my savings will stretch out a lot longer, giving me more time to find more modelling and/or develop other income streams.  I'm writing.  Some of the writing is going okay, some of it less so, but I'm doing some, fairly steadily.  I've recently started once again on the process of submitting to agents.  My experiment with self-publishing has proved to me that it needs confident marketing skills and a self-promoting ability that I lack; and I have a reasonable amount of good material these days.  What the heck, I'll give it another whirl.

It's interesting to note, looking through the latest edition of the Writers and Artists' Yearbook, how many agents now accept online submissions.  Thank God!  It's five or six years since I was last trying to do this submissions lark, and in that time, it's moved from being a tiny minority to being almost all.  The minority now are those who'll only accept submissions on paper.  This is going to save so much hassle and expense. 

I'm also intrigued to notice that fewer agencies and publishers are stipulating "No SF or fantasy" in their conditions.  Presumably this means that SF and F are coming to be considered as a better commercial bet.  Perhaps also that there's a scrap less snobbery about the genres.  All to the good, anyway. 

I got over getting hurt in the summer (see previous post).  I'm still fencing.  I go to the cinema, and occasionally to the opera or ballet, but less frequently because money is a more pressing issue than it was a year ago.  One of my best friends has moved to the coast and the other has had a baby this year, so I see them when I can; and I'm seeing some of my other closest friends in just under a fortnight. 

So all in all, things aren't too bad.  There are moments of depression and struggle, and I have to resort to ignoring the national and international news, or end up crying and helpless with fear.  It seems as if the world is in such a mess at the moment.  I have to remind myself consciously that it was ever thus; it's just much easier to learn about it than in my parents' or grandparents' day. I do what I can - little things like recycling, not wasting water, always voting; I try to live by my values even when it looks ridiculous or sets me up to feel afraid.  Within my own small sphere, I try.  Il faut cultiver le jardin.

And then I try to let go and let be, and hold on to hope.  Because in times when everywhere one looks there seems to be the same message of "we're all going to the dogs, the world is going to burn, everything's sh*t", I think it's a kind of revolutionary act to refuse the agony and despair, keep taking care of the garden, and insist on hope.  Hope, even if one is wrong.

The delicate art of getting a grip

When you've had a lot going on, when you've been off-balance, struggling with depression or other emotional issues, when you've had your focus firmly on one goal or one area of life, it can be hard to keep up with commitments.  I've neglected this blog for months; I've been focussed elsewhere, and I've been dealing with what we know these days as Stuff.

It's all pretty complicated and I'm not sure I'm up to giving a detailed account.  I met someone, got on really well with them, and thought I'd found a new friend.  When they hesitantly and awkwardly almost-asked-me-out a couple of months ago I'm ashamed to say missed the hints, and then I realised, and did my own asking (like a grown-up!).  But they couldn't manage the date I suggested, and then things went off the boil slightly as I was about to go away for a fortnight's holiday.  Just after I got back from my trip, this person had some private issues from their past come boiling up into the present, and within a couple of weeks had stopped speaking to me completely, and unfriended me on facebook.  And I have very little idea of why.

I am confused, hurt and angry; and I'm also not a little worried for my sometime-friend, who is acting out of character.  But since they won't speak to me and have ignored my email, I don't know what else I can do.  As the cliché has it, some people come into your life for a reason, and some just for a season.  Maybe this was one of those relationships. 

I hate not understanding what went wrong, and I hate the feeling that my trust may have been ill-placed.  I don't trust people quickly these days, but this friendship had won my trust, and now I wonder if I was completely mistaken.

Heavens, I don't think "yes, I'd go out with you on a date, I really like you!" quickly these days, either.

I'll still be here if they do decide to talk to me at some point.  Although the private issues I mentioned were unpleasantly messy and reflected less-than-well on them, my instinct is that my friend is not a monster, just a normal fucked-up human being with a mess they need to deal with.  I know that feeling.  So yes, I'll still be here.  But I won't pursue.  They're an adult, if they want me they can come and find me; they know where I can be found.

The really interesting thing about this relationship (to be thoroughly cynical and self-absorbed) has been the amount I've got out of it, and in such a short time, too.  This person could be pretty bracing company; outspoken, determined, challenging, even aggressive at times, and absolutely committed to walking their talk.  I had to shake myself out of a lot of familiar patterns, in order just to keep up.  It was bracing, but by damn, it did me good.

I've been in quite a rut, the last few months, and battling with my old invidious enemy, depression.  There were weeks when my fencing class was the one bright spell; a couple of hours of focus and excitement and energy, in a life of day after day of grey fear, procrastination and numbed emotions.
This relationship shook me out of that, and whatever else, I am intensely grateful and glad of this.  Yes, I've been hurt, and baffled, and pissed-off, by this sudden inexplicable break.  But I have been blessed in the friendship nonetheless.

So now, in the aftermath of having someone I thought was walking with me turn round and walk away without a word of explanation, I'm looking again at my life and trying to get a grip on things.  I hope I can maintain the momentum of being braced and energised and shaken up.

There's been no luck on the conventional job front, so I've now definitely gone back to working as an artists' model for the time being.  I'm not sure if I'll manage to make ends meet, but if I don't try it, I won't ever know.  I'm registered as self-employed and got a DBS certificate (what used to be known as CRB >sigh< yet another silly name change), and I've begun picking up some bookings.

I'm also feeling a bit more creative flow, at long last.  I've had another little push at trying to get sales and reviews for "The Charcoal Knots"; and I've finished a sequel, which needs to come back from my beta readers and hopefully will then be published.  I'm working on the extended version of "Running away with Pausanias" and that's going well.  I'm working on some art again, and have finally got round to setting up a facebook page for my art work; you can find that here if you're interested.  I've brushed-up my proof-reading symbols and started learning how to do indexing, and will be looking for any small freelance jobs of that sort, too. 

So, this is me right now; disappointed in love and friendship, but getting a grip and hoping to make a living as a freelancer.  Hoping that creativity and art can gain from the boost in my energy and the jolt in my life.  Still writing, still drawing, and of course still fencing.

Wish me luck.

I resolve

...to be a good friend, to care for myself and for those I love

...to do something creative every day, whether it is writing or drawing or sewing or baking or making chutney, or whatever else comes along

...to be patient with myself and others

...to eat healthily and spend time outdoors regularly, and to have solitude and company, each in good measure, when I need them

...to keep moving along my own path

...to do what is necessary, and remember that pleasure is also a necessity

...to remember I am not responsible for everyone else's feelings

...and to follow my bliss.

It's amazing to realise, writing these things down, how quickly the self-censoring inner voice starts up, expressing shock and misgiving about such a self-indulgent, self-absorbed collection of new year's resolutions.  Why, almost all of them are about me! 

Begone, inner critic!  I am what I am, and I too have the right to be happy.

I am a single woman with no children and no dependents.  I'm an introvert, yes, but I don't live in a vacuum, nor do I want to.  I have a lot of love to give, and I can choose to whom to give it; and I do choose, and I do give.  But the best way I can give that love actively and usefully, the best way I can be a good friend to others, is if I am in good shape myself, mentally, emotionally and physically.  So this list, designed to help me remember to do what hakes me happiest, is not self-absorption but self-acceptance. 

I hope these resolutions will be moderately keep-able. 

Slightly overwhelmed

Do you ever have that feeling that everything is just too much?  That you are being slowly overwhelmed and pushed down – not waving but drowning?

I have that feeling at the moment. 

Today is the ninth anniversary of the last time I saw my father lucid and able to talk rationally.  After that, I saw him twice more when he was stoned out of his mind on morphine, and increasingly confused and frustrated by his confusion; and then he was in a coma; and then, of course, a few days after that it was all over. 

The memory of this does not help matters, when I am feeling under pressure in every direction as it is.

I miss my father so much sometimes.  I miss his conversation, I miss his quick mind and his acuteness, and his fascination with any and all new knowledge.  I miss just being able to sit and talk to him.  I miss his whiskey collection and our silly “blind tastings” when he’d bought himself a new malt.  I miss having access to his knowledge of computers and his willingness to share it.  I miss his voice, and I miss his sense of humour - weird musical jokes, dreadful puns and all.

Just now I also miss his support, which was steady and unquestioning and unconditional, and came with no suggestion of expecting or needing anything in return.  He was that kind of chap, old-fashioned in the good way, and utterly sound.  In two weeks it will be the anniversary of his death.  I miss you, Dad.

I could have done with that kind of support at the moment.  I still don’t know if I will have anywhere to live come July, and I still don’t know if I’ll have a job come August - and I do know that the man I fell for a while back isn’t interested in me.  Then there’s the fact that because all this is chaotic and pressured and exhaustingly steessful, at the end of the day I haven’t got the time or the energy at the moment to do the things I really want to do (write, draw, go out, see my friends, and of course my Big Plan for this year, sort out how to publish something online and have a go at it, just to see what happens).  

So I am now just working in order to keep on working; I’m no longer working in order to do the things I love.  This is a state of affairs I dread, and have long fought to avoid.

I have to go on at work, performing properly and demonstrating my ability to deliver under pressure, while not knowing whether my role will even exist in a few weeks time.  I have to pack up my belongings at home and prepare for a move, when I don’t actually know where I’ll be moving to.  I have to smile and be at ease with my crush and accept it will never even register with him how much I would have liked to get to know him better.

I have to keep smiling and saying I’m okay, to all the people who, if I admit to them that I am close to screaming with despair inside, will then get upset and worry about me, and need me to be caring and good, and manage their distress.  I haven’t the energy or the patience to do that at present, so the only practical option is to conceal the situation from them.

It's tiring.

I have to suppress the gnawing doubt, which maybe is not a doubt at all but an unadmitted certainty, that I have wasted my life and am a creature without purpose or use to anyone.  Because if I admit this doubt – this doubt that may in fact be a certainty – then I have to face the question – if there’s no point in me, why am I alive?  Am I alive primarily because it will upset some people if I’m not here anymore? 

And that way madness lies, madness and Ed’s sorry end. 

I don’t want to die; I’m not suicidal, at least not in any sense that I ever have been before.  I think I would recognise the state of mind, as it is hellish in the extreme. 

But I am beginning to wonder if my existence is pointless, and even without any wish to end one’s life that is still a salutary and a depressing thought.

I know my existence wasn’t meant to be pointless (excuse the rather “fate and destiny” tone here!). 

I was born into this life to create.  Of that I am certain.  I’ve known this since I was a very small child. 

I want to tell stories and make images and write songs and plays, I want make beautiful things and share beautiful tales and adventures.  I want to give joy, to cheer hearts and make people smile, to remind those who are feeling alone that they are not alone, that no-one is alone. 

But I’m not doing any of this.  I’m battling-on with a fraught job and fraughter home life, and seeing love go by me like a bright boat on the river.  And my own right work, creating and making new stuff that will give pleasure and joy to those in need of them, is a thing I drag myself to with tired mind and body at the end of the day.  When it ought to be the centre of my existence.

Should I ask for voluntary redundancy here, leave London, bugger off somewhere else entirely and make a completely new start?  It’s almost starting to look tempting.  I have nothing, really, to tie me to London, except liking my life here; or at least, liking the way things have been – until work became insecure and I got asked to move, and all the rest of that, and the bright boat sailed by me yet again... 

...and it's hot...

London is baking under a brilliant blue sky; summer arrived a couple of days ago, knocking most normal humans flat.  indoors, the temperature is 29 degrees - that's just below 80 F, for those of you on old money - and compared to out in the sun, indoors feels cool.

Luckily I knew it was coming.  What a great institution the Met Office is; accurate weather forecasts have not always been with us, after all.  Gods bless them and their weather satellites!  I was able to get to bed reasonably early last night and get up fairly early this morning.  It's now ten to two, or thereabouts, and I have washed a load of clothes and hung them to dry, and been into Brentford to go to the supermarket and the street market (for the excellent fruit and veg, if you're curious, as well as a chance to practice self-denial over a lot of temptations for foodies like an olive specialist and a stall from the Old Maids of Honour tea-rooms).  I've lugged back my week's groceries and veggies and brought my washing in again; it had dried in not much more than an hour.  I've baked four spinach and feta pies and braised some baby carrots and broad beans in lemon butter sauce, and cooked a big bag of fresh gooseberries.  I've had some lunch; and now I'm free to have a quiet afternoon.

Yesterday too I stayed in and took things quietly.  I finished reading "Wolf Hall" (superb) but then I got so hot and dopey I ended up having a siesta, and I may do the same this afternoon too.  But I'd like to get some writing done.  With the help of a lot of cold drinks.

I also want to paint my toenails; since I have no intention of wearing anything but sandals on my feet in this weather I may as well have coloured toes.  No-one's looking at my feet, I know, unless perhaps it's to wonder if they are the smelly ones; but it pleases me to have nail varnish on, anyway.

I finished the writing up of "Gold Hawk"; did I say that already?  I managed it, with a final push, by the story's first birthday, middle of last month.  It does still need some further revision; my dear beta-reader the DipGeek has given me some very useful feedback, and the last chapter needs to be tweaked a bit more.  But I'm not too disappointed in it.  It was never meant to be a work of any literary merit, but an adventure story and a piece of fun.  So if anyone reading it enjoys the story and roots for the characters, my work is done.

Now I'm neck deep in several short things all chugging along at their own pace, hoping to get one or two of them finished and make a return to one of the longer stories that have been in abeyance for a while (yes, there are several of them, too).  I'm no nearer finding an agent, no nearer being published anywhere except online, but I'm writing fairly steadily and I'm happy with that.  The Muse in her capricious way has given me a lot of stories to juggle at once, and I'm not a natural juggler, but I'm doing my best.  Creativity comes and goes, and I have always found that the best thing, if you possibly can, is to run with it...

Nutcracker, Firebird, Hobbit, laptop...

Here's something really cool to start with

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20918398

Excellent idea.  Now all I need is for someone to do the same thing for SF writers!!

Work is getting busier, which is no bad thing.  On the good side, Great-British-winter-wise, once or twice lately we have had some watery wintry sunshine.  On the bad side, we’ve also had snow – and not nice crisp snow that settles and makes kids happy, but the sloppy wet kind that doesn’t settle but gets everywhere, and still makes going out miserable.  

 January is probably my least-favourite month – there simply isn’t enough daylight.  At least here, with all of Kew Gardens to mooch in during my lunch break, I can smell the sweet scents of winter-flowering plants, and watch for snowdrops and the rose-pink buds of limes and maples, to remind me of spring.

What have I been up to?  Writing, quelle blague; what a surprise.  I’m relieving the work of typing up and revising “Gold Hawk” by also indulging myself with a little fanfiction on the side.  It does feel a bit like having something on the side, too; a really sinful indulgence, like a box of good posh chocs (think Booja Booja quality) or a bottle of 20-year-old Laphroaig.  Or a fling, obviously (only I get all screwed up over those, whereas with chocolate or liquor, or fanfic, I can relax and enjoy myself).  Not sure what I’ll do with it, beyond using it for relaxation purposes (ooh, now that does sound dirty!), but it’s giving me some much-needed light relief in this dark month.   

I gather that some people consider writing fanfic to be a dreadful and unforgiveable sin.  Obviously I’d be a stinking hypocrite if I pretended to agree with them!  I guess in their book I’m hell-bound and that’s all there is to it. 

From what I’ve read (not very much, I should add) some of it is drivel and some of it is porn, or at least porny.  But plenty of mainstream legitimate fiction is drivel and/or porny.  Surely anything that gets us consumers to wake up and doing something creative, instead of just sitting on our backsides all day consuming, can’t be all bad?  Whether it’s taking a camera out to photograph the texture of leaves, or taking a sketchbook when you go on holiday, or keeping a journal, or singing in a choir, or going outdoors to reconnect with nature and discover some natural history, or writing a short story about your favourite fictional characters, just for fun; it’s creative, it’s self-expression, and it’s engaging with the world and responding to it instead of simply being spoon-fed the mental equivalent of junk food.  It’s co-creating, in a small way; and that, if you’ll forgive my going all religious on you for a sec, is blessed; it’s lending a hand in the Goddess’ work.

However, to come back from these heights to my present reality; the big problem at the moment with my writing, of all kinds (serious, frivolous and even perhaps drivel) is that my laptop is sick, and getting steadily sicker.  It now gets conniptions every time I try to save what I’m writing onto disk.  Since it’s far too old for me to be able to save onto a USB stick (they may not even have existed when it was manufactured – at any rate it lacks the necessary scart/port/whatever), floppies are my only option if I want something saved in a portable format.  And I can only get my work onto ICW, or into a friend’s mailbox, if I can get it off the machine in the first place.  Lately, I can have been peacefully typing all evening, and then the laptop will suddenly turn up its toes and refuse to do anything more.  Instead, I get a frozen screen, and it refuses to switch off, either, and sits buzzing for hours until it runs its battery right down.  By this point it has generally kept me awake for several hours, which is not good.  I feel about ninety this morning, after having this happen again last night.

Around the edges of a lot of typing, I’m having a busy old time of it culturally-speaking; a good dose of high culture, and a healthy fillip of somewhat-lower-culture.   A Nutcracker, a triple bill and a Hobbit, to be precise.

I love the Royal ballet’s “Nutcracker”; it is very, very traditional, with snowflakes and glittery costumes and wicked mice and a gorgeous transformation scene.  I’ve seen it about six times, so this trip was a complete indulgence.  Mainly I went to see Akane Takada in action as the Sugar Plum Fairy.  She’s one of their up-and-comings, just starting to get some bigger roles.  It’s one of the joys of going to see a particular ballet company regularly; getting to spot young talent and see them progress rapidly (or, frustratingly, not so rapidly) up the ranks and into the larger parts.   She wasn’t a flawless Sugar Plum, but rather a lovely one nonetheless; she doesn’t over-extend, which loks right to me in this kind of pure classical stuff; she has a delicious finish, right down to her fingertips, and that trick of coming down off pointe very smoothly (which probably has a technical name) so that every balance seems to flow into the next move without the tiniest transition.  She also looks like a Japanese Googie Withers, which can’t hurt. 

The triple bill was “The Firebird”, “In the Night”, and “Raymonda Act 3”.  Two utter marvels, and a dollop of glittery idiocy and Mittel-european flouncing in character shoes.   

Mara Galeazzi’s Firebird was extraordinary.  She is a dancer who is immensely good at conveying powerful human emotions, but here she genuinely seemed to be touching the non-human – instinctive, reactive, self-preserving, utterly wild – so that the creature’s reappearance to honour her pledge with Ivan Tsarevich became not just the working-out of the plot, but a moment of real awe and power.  This is what fairy tales do, when you’re a child and the stories are new; hit you in the eyes with their archetypal potency.  It’s good to see it can still happen, and raise the hairs on the back of my neck.  It’s also a joy to see Ms Galeazzi back in action again, let alone in such blazing (almost literally!) good form.  

The Jerome Robbins was utterly wonderful, too.   Why don’t they do a Robbins triple bill?  “In the Night”, “Afternoon of a Faun” and “Dances at a Gathering” are all in the RB rep now; and wouldn’t that be a simply dreamy evening?  I suppose they fear that it wouldn’t put bums on seats.  It would get my bum there; but that’s only one bum on one seat (or technically two if I went twice, which is always a temptation with mixed bills as there’s usually more than one cast).   “In the Night”, anyway, has grace and charm and delicacy and romance and humour, and an indefinable overarching quality of mystery; it is far more than the sum of its parts, as all the best short works are.  I saw Emma Maguire and Alexander Campbell as Couple One, luxurious Zenaida Yanowsky and big Mr Kish as Couple Two, and Roberta Marquez and the great Carlos Acosta as Couple Three.   Gorgeous casting in a gorgeous, haunting ballet.

“Raymonda” does nothing profound for me, but it was great fun, and looked gorgeous, and everyone was dancing their socks off.  ‘Nuff said.

“The Hobbit; An Unexpected Journey” is a muddle.  I wish it weren’t.  I loved Peter Jackson’s three “Lord of the Rings” movies, although they aren’t perfect (the bits that grate with me, the unnecessary tweaking of the plot in particular, grate more each time I see them).  This looks just as good and for a change some of the tweaks actually work better.  If one is going to present the story of “The Hobbit” as part of the same canon, and not as a lighter, more child-orientated work (which the book certainly is), then one has got to stress the seriousness of what is going on, and set it firmly in the same continuum.  I can accept that; much of it has been lifted and shoe-horned in from the appendices of the “Lord of the Rings”, and I think from the “Silmarillion” too; and I think in the main it’s fairly well done.

 But there are also some completely extraneous additions; notably a prolonged battle in the Orc halls that looks as if it was lifted wholesale from a computer game.  And all the way through, one is aware that here, things could be taken with leisure, spreading the story over three films when it fills one pretty short book.  Compared to the taut, compact story-telling in the three LOTR films, this looks relaxed to a startling degree.  The dwarves get to do both their musical numbers, for goodness’ sakes.  I didn’t really need either.

But what works, really works.  The “Riddles in the Dark” section is like something from a different movie altogether, tight and powerful and genuinely scary.  The designs are glorious (though I’ve always felt the Peter Jackson Shire looked too untamed – it has the appearance of a landscape that was first settled and farmed perhaps two or three generations ago at most, not countless centuries.  It should look like rural Kent or Devon).   Little things like the moon-runes and the sword Sting glowing are spot-on.  Above all, the cast is excellent, and I honestly don’t think that if they had instigated a world-wide hunt for Bilbo Baggins, à la “the search for Scarlett O’Hara”, they could have found a more perfect lead than Martin Freeman.  He is simply wonderful.

Well, anyway; I’ve been writing this in my lunch breaks since the end of last week, so now I am finally going to post it, and then try to keep a bit more up-to-date.  But here’s to more cultural fun, both high and low, for the rest of this year.  And here’s to the blinking laptop behaving itself tonight.  Please?

A bit of thanksgiving of my own...

I know I’m a day late, but I've been wondering if our Friends Across The Pond have an idea in this Thanksgiving malarkey... 

I’m having rather a trying day (plugging through a monotonous but useful task [every office job has them!] while trying not to disturb the person at the next desk who is getting a tad tense wrestling with a lot of figures) and I find I keep thinking “Roll on five o’clock!”.  But it occurs to me that this is wishing the next three hours of my life away, which I don’t like doing.  So for now, while I munch my apple and finish my cup of green tea, I’m going to practice gratitude.

Thank you, you gods and little fishes, for this very good apple.  Thank you for apples, generally.  And bananas.  And pineapples.  And the mad way pineapples grow...

Thank you for the frail wintry sunshine washing over Kew Green, and for the beautiful wispy mares-tails of cloud in the sky.

Thank you for the fact I’m going on holiday in just over a week!

Thank you for the fact that all my orchids are re-blooming.

Thank you for all the actors, dancers, singers and musicians whose great performances give me so much pleasure and awe.  Thank you in particular for all those who are not just gifted but hot hot hot and gorgeous as well...

Thank you for the wonderful autumn colours all around me at Kew, now entering the final phase before winter; and for the winter colours (textured bark, scarlet twigs and stems of dogwoods, rose-pink linden buds, nerines in bloom) just arriving, and the sharp, musky, bittersweet and incense-y perfumes of the season.

Thank you for it being Friday evening, the evening I treat myself to a really easy supper, and desert, and a beer. And a dose of silly TV - Friday night means "The Mentalist" and "Castle"; yay, shiny...

Thank you for my health.  Thank you for my family and friends.  Thank you that I have a job, an adequate income, a roof over my head, sane flatmates, and the use of a kitchen where all the appliances work.

Thank you for my writing.  Even if it never means a thing to anyone else at all, it means the world to me to have a creative outlet.  Thank you for my maddening, mercurial Muse, and Blessed Be She Who Comes With Stories! Thank you for that mysterious inner spring that wells forth with situations and scenes, characters and ideas.  Thank you for the guidance that nudges me towards knowing that this story will work better if it’s told in the first person, and this story doesn’t yet work because although the initial premise is good there’s a socking great hole in the plot, and this story is the one I simply have to tell right now...  Thank you for giving me Gabriel Yeats and Simon Cenarth and Anne Hope, thank you for giving me Thorn and Anna, thank you for the Ramundi clan and dumb, long-suffering Massimo; thank you for Iain Siward and Aiean Aietes, for the Hobards brothers and Maramne Myers, for Mel and Dottie and David and Yaz, for the Hughuddles, and for all the other imaginary people who have made and are still making my life a happier place.

First frost, more writing, & a diet idea

Yes, you did read that right.  A diet idea.  Stop press: Fat girl has diet idea. Well f*ck me for a blue strawberry.

I read recently that people who have a seriously restricted calorie intake for two days in each week tend to lose a respectable amount of weight and decrease their chances of developing type 2 diabetes by around a third.  The rest of the time, they can eat and drink as normal, and that is why this strikes me as the perfect diet for me to try.  I eat fairly healthily, apart from my sweet tooth and penchant for alcohol (oh, and I do like my cheese).  I just eat too much (& have said penchants). 

So I am giving this plan a try.  Announcing it like this is intended to make it stick - now my sense of public shame will fuel the desire to eat bugger-all but salad two days a week.  Watch this space.  See if I last a month...

Meanwhile; I had a good weekend at my mum's - shopping, lunching out and gardening.  I'm now behind on my cleaning, clothes-washing and grocery-shopping, and it took me until this morning to get the dirt out from under my fingernails (good garden dirt, this is!), but I can handle that. 

I've now blown up another bit of the Droit Institute and injured one of the Evil Bad Guy's cohorts.  My heroine is reeling about in shock and the hero is still busy digging himself and his companion out of the rubble.  The dénouement has been slow coming, but it is coming, and I'm beginning to get excited about revisions.  This is an odd state of affairs, I have to say.  Normally I hate revision with a passion.  But this has come out like turning on a tap, and as it has flowed I've found it developed and changed shape, and I've seen things more clearly; so that now, approaching the end, I've got a list of points I need to wiggle in earlier.  Have a scene where x happens; have a scene where A discusses B with C so that we know more about C; make sure D mentions y and z in his talk to the students...   But I won't let myself write any of this until I've finished the main narrative.  It just doesn't feel right; also I don't want to stymie the flow when I don't yet have a completed story.

I've been lucky with this one.  It had an odd genesis.  I'd had a vague idea in my mind for ages, but with no plot to speak of.  I'd had two names - Anna Maple, Thorn Reynolds - and no idea who they were or what they would do, except that they would feature in this vague-idea-no-plot story.  The I went to the cinema, and came out with them sitting in my mind saying "Hey, here we are, this is what happens to us! Write it now, please!" and I sat on the bus scribbling on a bit of scrap paper and grinning like an idiot.  All jokes about lust and chestnut purée aside, I actually owe Jeremy Renner a debt, since it was seeing "The Avengers", and specifically discovering him, that set me off.  Thorn acquired a face.  Bizarrely, Anna immediately acquired a face too (& her face was a completely new one to me, which is odd).  And there they were; not two names, but two people.

The moment I can really see a character they start to come real; once they get a face I'm able to get going.  It's as if I get them inside me (ahem) - I can feel their muscles imprinted on mine, if you know what I mean.  That does sound kinky; sorry.  But that's how it is, that's how my creativity works for me.  I know where they grew up, what they eat, what their handwriting is like...  As soon as he had a face I knew Thorn was allergic to chocolate, that he was a good swimmer, that he was left-handed...  I knew how Anna would hide her amulet, and where she worked and lived, and what had happened to her brother...

It was the first frost last night, too.  Walking into work my feet were crunching on crisp white-edged leaves.  The sky was a clear, hard blue like an enamel glaze; all the autumn trees glowed golden and red around the Green.  It was beautiful - and decidedly cold.  But now it has clouded over and outside the window it just looks grey and muted, and dismally about-to-rain-ish.  Oh well, we can't have it all.  I've just been reminded by a friend who lives in southern California that she never gets any Fall to speak of at all, and that is a sad thought.  No scarlet autumn leaves to kick through, no bright frost, no cold blue skies; no sudden gales, no soft silent November rains...  So I will remind myself again to cherish what I have and appreciate all its beauties, even the muted grey ones.

The wrong man is on my roof

Well, there’s a man on the roof of my office, and a mosquito inside it.  Why can’t it be the other way around?  Not that I necessarily want this particular man in my office, but any human would be preferable to a ruddy mozzie – which I have so far singularly failed to squish.  Grr. 

I know I am turning into a dirty old woman now I’ve seen the wrong side of forty, but honestly – why do maintenance men always look like one of the thuggy guys from “Eastenders”?  They never look like Will Houston, or Gary Avis, or Roderick Williams, or Jeremy Renner...    Or even like Mr Marinated Artichokes, or the Lovely Wes.   I’ve got a great view of this chap’s legs, but I have seen much better legs in my time.

I should explain that I’m suffering my usual atypical response to medication.  Most women lose their sex drive when they get a mirena coil, but mine trebled – it feels like I’m channeling Samantha Jones the entire time.  I’m sitting here eating black olive paste on home-baked mixed seed bread and thinking about what I could do with the black olive paste if I had the attractive man of my dreams (as opposed to the unattractive man of the roof) in here with me; it’s so weird.  I have never been a Samantha Jones-type girl.  Never.  I’ve been a good, quiet, modest lass (as is befitting in one so stout and plain).  But now – well, I have never stared at so many men’s bums in the street as the last few months.  It’s just really, really weird.

I haven’t started acting like Samantha Jones, I should add; just thinking like her.  I actually haven’t got a clue how to become a voracious man-eater.  Indeed, the idea is rather comical.  Whereas becoming a sneaky old letch seems to come naturally.  Oh well.  Thank goodness for the beautiful bodies and faces of actors and dancers and so on, then.  At least I have something to leer at.

Mind you, it’s also since the mirena settled down that I got this wild drive of creative juice and started writing again.  So maybe being juicy in one sense goes with being juicy in the other.  If so, I cannot complain, for anything that keeps my creativity up is welcome and blessed - even if it is also inconvenient and baffling!  But I can and do complain that the man on the roof isn’t a hunk.  Drat it, if I’ve got to be disturbed by all this crashing around overhead, I demand eye candy in compensation!    

One visual pleasure is presenting itself to me; not a man, but a tree.  There’s a big maple across the Green with leaves that are slowly turning the most glorious flaming orange-red, from the top down, as the autumn nights grow cooler.  The colour is practically incandescent in the sunlight.  It’s simply stunning.