Oh Dear...

You Should Be a Film Writer You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind. You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life. Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling. And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen! What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Of course, when they turn my novel into a film...

My Career as a Rock Star - Part Two

Further to my new-found ambition to be a rock star (see 4th March), I find
that I am not the only one. Shame. I thought I'd found a niche.

Life on Mars - a Holiday

I was in need of a real break - one that didn't involve broken legs, heart attacks, or vomit. To that end, I have spent the last week on Mars, with DCI Gene Hunt, and very nice it has been too. Jane leant me both series on DVD, making for a smorgasbord of ogling viewing. All sixteen hours! I didn't know I had that much free time...

I have now returned to planet Real World to find a veritable Olympus Mons of washing, and some fine spring-growth in the fridge. I'm also rather hungry, not having eaten since Monday last. Just give me a couple of days to scale the 90,000' monolith in my utility room, and I'll be back to play catch-up in Blogland.

My Career as a Rock Star Starts Here

This is a great procrastination meme that I nicked from found on Karen's blog. All you have to do is:

1. Click on Wikipedia's Random Article page
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. Click on this Random Quote page
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. Click on Flickr's Last Seven Days page
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Here's mine:


I like this so much that I now plan to give up all forms of drudgery, and become a rock star.

No Title

Ruth is thirty two years old and
doesn't know if she wants to be thirty three. She gives herself three months
to decide, and that is where her journey into the unknown begins...

Ruth's diary
is the new novel by Fiona Robyn, Thaw. She has decided to blog the novel in
its entirety over the next few months, so you can read it for free.

Read the first entry below, and continue reading
tomorrow at
http://read-thaw.blogspot.com. 

*

These hands are
ninety-three years old. They belong to Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller.
She was so frail that her grand-daughter had to carry her onto the set
to take this photo. It’s a close-up. Her emaciated arms emerge from the
top corners of the photo and the background is black, maybe velvet, as
if we’re being protected from seeing the strings. One wrist rests on the
other, and her fingers hang loose, close together, a pair of folded
wings. And you can see her insides.



The bones of her knuckles bulge out of the skin, which sags like plastic
that has melted in the sun and is dripping off her, wrinkling and
folding. Her veins look as though they’re stuck to the outside of her
hands. They’re a colour that’s difficult to describe: blue, but also
silver, green; her blood runs through them, close to the surface. The
book says she died shortly after they took this picture. Did she even
get to see it? Maybe it was the last beautiful thing she left in the
world.



I’m trying to decide whether or not I want to carry on living. I’m
giving myself three months of this journal to decide. You might think
that sounds melodramatic, but I don’t think I’m alone in wondering
whether it’s all worth it. I’ve seen the look in people’s eyes. Stiff
suits travelling to work, morning after morning, on the cramped and
humid tube. Tarted-up girls and gangs of boys reeking of aftershave,
reeling on the pavements on a Friday night, trying to mop up the
dreariness of their week with one desperate, fake-happy night. I’ve
heard the weary grief in my dad’s voice.



So where do I start with all this? What do you want to know about me?
I’m Ruth White, thirty-two years old, going on a hundred. I live alone
with no boyfriend and no cat in a tiny flat in central London. In fact,
I had a non-relationship with a man at work, Dan, for seven years. I’m
sitting in my bedroom-cum-living room right now, looking up every
so often at the thin rain slanting across a flat grey sky. I work in a
city hospital lab as a microbiologist. My dad is an accountant and lives
with his sensible second wife Julie, in a sensible second home. Mother
finished dying when I was fourteen, three years after her first
diagnosis. What else? What else is there?



Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. I looked at her hands for twelve
minutes. It was odd describing what I was seeing in words. Usually the
picture just sits inside my head and I swish it around like tasting
wine. I have huge books all over my flat; books you have to take in
both hands to lift. I’ve had the photo habit for years. Mother bought me
my first book, black and white landscapes by Ansel Adams. When she got
really ill, I used to take it to bed with me and look at it for hours,
concentrating on the huge trees, the still water, the never-ending
skies. I suppose it helped me think about something other than what was
happening. I learned to focus on one photo at a time rather than
flicking from scene to scene in search of something to hold me. If I
concentrate, then everything stands still. Although I use them to escape
the world, I also think they bring me closer to it. I’ve still got that
book. When I take it out, I handle the pages as though they might flake
into dust.



Mother used to write a journal. When I was small, I sat by her bed in
the early mornings on a hard chair and looked at her face as her pen
spat out sentences in short bursts. I imagined what she might have been
writing about; princesses dressed in star-patterned silk, talking
horses, adventures with pirates. More likely she was writing about what
she was going to cook for dinner and how irritating Dad’s snoring was.



I’ve always wanted to write my own journal, and this is my chance. Maybe
my last chance. The idea is that every night for three months, I’ll take
one of these heavy sheets of pure white paper, rough under my
fingertips, and fill it up on both sides. If my suicide note is nearly a
hundred pages long, then no-one can accuse me of not thinking it
through. No-one can say; ‘It makes no sense; she was a polite, cheerful
girl, had everything to live for’, before adding that I did keep myself
to myself. It’ll all be here. I’m using a silver fountain pen with
purple ink. A bit flamboyant for me, I know. I need these idiosyncratic
rituals; they hold things in place. Like the way I make tea, squeezing
the tea-bag three times, the exact amount of milk, seven stirs. My
writing is small and neat; I’m striping the paper. I’m near the bottom
of the page now. Only ninety-one more days to go before I’m allowed to
make my decision. That’s it for today. It’s begun.

Continue
reading...

I'm a Busy Bee!

Bees are a bit of a theme in our house, so I am a particularly delighted recipient of the Busy Bee Award, which Sally has given me in recognition of my trying to write whilst looking after small children (although, I don't actually attempt these things at the same time).

I would like to bestow the honour on my fellow scramblers-up-the-laundry-mountain: Karen (yes, I know you've had it), Jen, and Lane.

Drudgery

I've had a really bad week. This is partly due to still being behind with kids/house/jobs since before we went to Shropshire (we're talking the best part of three-weeks' washing here), and partly because life after a Della Galton course is a real anticlimax!

I came home from Bournemouth really keen to get back to shorties. I have four stories needing nothing more than envelopes, and thirty more in various stages of composition! It is just a matter of finding the time. Oh, the time! The shorties beckon. The novel beckons. The washing beckons...

Clean underwear? Try the basket on the landing. No? Try the one in the utility room? No? Erm, try the tumble dryer. No? Well, how long have you been wearing the ones you've got on?
Oh.
I needed to do some washing.

I spent yesterday, up to my arms in soap suds, wash board and starch, in a modern sort of way you understand. Ten loads, I did, TEN LOADS. Washed. Dried. Folded. Now all I have to do is put it away...

And that's just the washing. You should see my desk, the sitting-room floor, the kitchen...

To Infinity and Beyond

Himself and the small boy (aged four-and-a-bit) were having a conversation in the car this afternoon. The small boy was writing numbers on one of those magnetic drawing-boards.
SB: Look at my number eight, Dad. Isn't it good?
H: Yes very good.
SB: Eights are easy. You just start with an S, and carry on going.
H: Yes, that's right.
SB: And look. I can write infinity. It's just an eight on its side.
H (astonished): How on earth did you know that?
SB (adopting the air of a university professor): Infinity is bigger than the biggest number there is. I bet you didn't know that!
H: So, can you count to infinity?
SB: No! Don't be a silly head. It would take me the rest of my life to count to infinity.

They don't half put you in your place sometimes!

---

I have been awarded the Mwah by Helen. She has no idea how much this perked me up at the time (I've had a really shitty few days). So thank you, Helen! I hope it has the same effect on Sarah G and Honeysuckle, both of whom have made me think a bit just recently. Thank you, girls.

A Submission!

I have finally got my act together and sent an adaptation of this post off to Bloggers for Charity. If you have somehow managed to miss every instance of this logo, and/or would like to know more, click on it for more information.
War Child is a UK based charity helping children all over the world.

Funny how, even though subbing to a nice friendly bunch of bloggers, my heart still raced when I pressed the 'send' button. Oh, the excitement of it all.

Della Galton's Course I

It was when I reached the motorway, switched on the cruise control and turned the stereo up so loudly that I practically had Jimi Hendrix in the car with me (Voodoo Chile makes such a great change from Wheels on the Bloody Bus), that I realised I was actually doing my own thing.

The next fun part was finding Helen. She was in the queue for the coffee machine when I spotted her. She glanced at me a couple of times, no doubt wondering why I was grinning at her! Once introduced, we sat together, and giggled a lot. We all giggled, and laughed. It was a great day.

There were six in the class, and Della (who is as genuine a person as I could wish to meet) allocated half an hour for each of us, and we were all encouraged to comment and advise on each other's stories, which was a constructive and encouraging exercise. Everyone had good ideas! Certainly my story, when it is subbed, will need to be credited to Me, Della, Helen, and a nice lady called Christine.

Helen's going to write a proper course review on Monday. This is good, because my brain is a shambles, and I can't think of anything else to write except that it was a great day. But, I think I said that already.

It was a great day (sorry). I learned a lot. I'm very glad I went. It was all thanks to Della, for being so clever; Helen, for being so adorable; Jane, for Bullying me into it; Julia, for looking after the small boy; Liz, for looking after the small girl; my lovely step-daughter (and her mum), for looking after the baby; and himself, for picking up the pieces.

See the Della Galton website for details of more courses. I can't recommend her teaching highly enough.