Saturday, February 02, 2008

When the Muse Strikes...

Having raved about space pens, and their usefulness for writing on the back of one's hand in the middle of the night, I must now post a cautionary tale.

After thinking up a whole new shorty, whilst drifting off to sleep last night, I had to sit up and write myself a note. There being no Moleskine nearby (or paper of any sort), I had to resort to simply writing the title on my hand. Falling For Him it was called. I was somewhat surprised to see these very words splurged across my cheek when I looked in the mirror this morning. I guess I must have stuffed my hand under my face as I snuggled back down, and before the ink had dried...

Being a space pen, of course, it is capable of being used underwater and, thus, has waterproof ink:
IT DOESN'T COME OFF. No doubt the liberal application of turps would shift it, but I don't fancy rubbing that into my face. Oh well, it's all in the name of art, I suppose. I just hope it's gone by Monday!

The story, incidentally, would not suffer being relegated to the back of my hand, and proceeded to spill itself into my brain. In the end, I had to get up and write the bloody thing down. One thousand words poured out in under an hour. I read it through this morning, changed the odd word, and showed it to Jane, who pronounced it to be perfect. This afternoon, it has gone off to Woman's Weekly. Concept to post box, in under twenty-four hours. I'll rival Della Galton yet!

6 comments:

FPDuck said...

It could be worse... During my A-levels I learnt very quickly that tissue stains will stain still-intact skin just as well as a sample of plant matter. These stains can come in a variety of bright colours (DNSA and Picric acid have permanent stains on my lab coat, bright orange and fluorescent yellow respectively).

If you have little flashes of inspiration like that, have you considered installing a tiny little dry-wipe board in your room? Just attach it to the inside of a wardrobe door or something...

Cheers,
Mike

HelenMWalters said...

Blimey girl, that's a quick turnaround! It must have been a genius idea!

Jill Steeples said...

That's amazing, Leigh, well done! Fingers crossed for the story.

Leigh Forbes said...

fpduck - A dry wipe board is a good idea, but I am very lazy, and it would need to be attached to the bed. I think there might be a (valid) complaint (but I'll keep it in mind!)

Helen - It was a totally different idea. They'll either love it or hate it. We'll see!

Thanks, Maddie. Fingers and toes and everything I think. Although, if WW don't want it, it'll be good for comps too.

Lane Mathias said...

Cripes, great stuff. You need to write on your hand more often. Inky faces could be all the rage soon anyway:-)

Good luck with the sub!

Moondreamer said...

Great post Leigh! I often have my best ideas just as I'm falling asleep. I've recently realised I could use the sound recorder on my phone ... but haven't had any ideas during the night since!

Good luck with the submission!

Off topic, you're tagged! With a meme I found yesterday, rather than one I was tagged with. Hope that's ok? No pressure, anyway!

:o)