A Prayer for Owen Money

High Lord Stanley, to whom I have already offered up an initial £17.98, instructest me thou that I should continue to sacrifice monetary offerings at the holy shrines of Do it All? I have today vowed allegiance to all things copper and steel by purchasing some screwdrivers, something zinc with hookey bits and a bradawl. Forgive me for the cheap plastic tool box, it's only a standby 'til I can pilfer the offering bag of loose change by the phone and invest in something more fitting to your cause. I will take the time to read thoroughly the most sacrasanct of treatise, the UpStanishads, in order to open my mind to all the wonders you have in the store for me. For now I drink deeply from the new red and white spotty tea cup of reverence and ponder the many tea breaks you will deign to afford me as I, in my own meagre way, try to afford you.
Amen.

Going Ape

Today I went here: http://www.goape.cc/Pages.asp?M=1&Page=27

It was a really good laugh. Took four kids for the birthday treat. The best bit was on a 'black' challenge - the hardest. Unlike the other very high and very long zip lines, this one began with a few seconds of freefall from a great height before you felt your safety harness doing what it was meant to. Exhilirating. Highly recommended but learn from me and take gloves!

"so unfair"

Today I became the mother of a teenager. The change is startling.

I have duly bought myself a twin set and pearls so that he has good reason to be thoroughly ashamed of me in public. I have invested in some sensible scholl shoes so that when his friends come round I can leave them in the hallway for him to trip over unceremoniously. I will of course be banning everything fun for the next 7 years. I will cease to make any effort to understand him. I will develop an intolerance to anything louder than the sound of the kettle boiling and try my utmost to ask him to speak properly even when he's making perfect sense. I have decided to set up a series of meetings under the guise of being reasonable but with a hidden agenda of me trying to make him squirm with guilt over things he hasn't done or over which he has no control. I will make a point of telling his friends how early he goes to bed and insist on a kiss goodbye whenever he's in public. I will deliberately choose tasks for him when his favourite programmes are on television. I'm working on a look of disdain that I can use whenever he buys clothes for himself. I have started hiding his favourite clothes so that he is obliged to wear awful clothes when he goes where there might be girls. I have put a one hour time limit on the bathroom so that he has no way of making himself presentable before going out. This is only the first day, think what miseries I can dream up in another 6 years and 364 days.

It's inexplicable. I woke up today and I was completely different. Trying times indeed.

Hedda Gabler

Last night I went to see a production of Hedda Gabler at the Almeida theatre in Islington.

http://www.almeida.co.uk/index.cfm?id=hedda

Richard Eyre directed and it was really very good. The set was great, some of the actors were particularly impressive and the text itself has some very insightful lines. Not at all the heavy, static type of performance you may associate with Ibsen. (I saw a ghastly 'Doll's House' and thought I'd never get on with him for a long time.) We had restricted viewing because the seats sold so quickly but it was still a very enjoyable evening. And who was sat a few rows in front of us but Alexei Sayle!

Later, over copious wine, we toasted Ibsen with the wish that Scandanavian drama may ever outstrip its furniture trade.

cat buckaroo

http://www.ashearer.f2s.com/blog/?p=2

This is not to be missed. Having a rather flighty cat I think I will have to start with small items. Crisps maybe.

achievement

today i ran.

due in no part to public transport, officers of the law or life-defending escapades involving the elderly on zebra crossings.

no, i just ran.

don't watch this space. i think the fascination with exercise will fizzle out when i clock the fact that i'm not losing several pounds simply by virtue of wearing trainers.

zoo

Took the lad to his favourite place on earth yesterday. Turning the car engine off is like firing a starting gun at the beginning of the race for him. The uber cool long haired drumming skate dude with an attitude to match anyone's, turns puppy at the sight of furry critters.
Ring-tailed lemurs, bears,birds, zebras, baby giraffes, lions and tigers and camels (brown ale and sandwiches too?)
But the piece de resistance was, of course, the penguin pool. We got there for feeding time and I had to take photo after photo for him to print off and stick on his wall when we get home.

A pricey day out but it was the last day of Easter hols and I still maintain that a lemur would make a great pet!

mind twister

http://flash.qbol.net/pl;p/youxi/images/04042203.swf

See if you can do this and not tear your hair out. Apparantly there are 13 items and only a handful of very intelligent people can find them all.

Punctured but not deflated.

Had another piercing today. My first experience with a needle rather than a gun and I can't believe how little it hurt. I have a hoop and ball at the top of my right ear. And then there were six!

to bed, perchance to sleep

Last night I woke up at 3 and lay awake for two hours, woke at 6 lay awake for an hour. The night before I woke at 5 and didn't sleep properly again. This has been going on for a week or two now. You judge how pleasant it is to have my company at the moment.

Don't mention...

I struck up a deal with a colleague. I will bake her bread and she will fill in the gaps of my film knowledge by lending me videos and dvd's. I have a breadmaker, she has the movies. I got pretty hammered on Friday night after work and I have no idea where the bag with the films has gone.

Calvin woz ere?

http://groups.msn.com/clickclicktherapy/town.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=506

belle-textes

If you thought texting had killed off the art of letter writing read this one I picked up this morning;

"I see you're now a published literary critic! I, on the other hand, am a dilettante academic-cum-playwright manque. I must start writing DRAMA soon; the warm ink of my imagination is beginning to flow. Two unwritten essays are all that stand in my way. Oh! the frailty (and loneliness) of megalomania."

making a kil'n

What a fab night last night. Went to 'The Kiln' which is a very groovy place I shall be frequenting again. Told someone earlier in the day I was going out and they laughed at me when they realised it was about pottery and not a club. Ya boo. You choose from a stash of blank pottery pieces, they give you all the paints and brushes and sponges, you paint it, they glaze it, you collect it a week later. I chose a fairly simple plate over the triangular tea pots, noodle bowls and chickens (yeah, quite) 'cos it could get really pricey. It was such fun. So was getting drunk afterwards and collapsing at a friends house and sliding around her living room floor on my back.

livin' it up

Today's high point was a cheese scone from Mark's and Sparks. Whether you pronounce 'scone' correctly, like me, or incorrectly, an M&S cheese scone takes some beating. Although competition was conspicuously absent today. Take the St Michael's challenge soon. Satisfaction guaranteed!

annual review

It's always nice when you ask your boss what he thinks your weaknesses are and he furrows his brow, scans the ceiling and begins; 'Umm...'

link for A as promised

http://www.palimpsest.org.uk/

partay

Went to a splendid party this afternoon. Was sorry I couldn't stay longer but had some family stuff that needed doing. (yawn yawn)

Think I'll sit and watch a film this evening as I have no stomach for 'Crime and Punishment' right now.

lost count

had an inordinate amount of jd&coke tonight that i presume must have been watered down as i feel stone cold sober still. heard three live bands at esquires. got home at half one only to discover it's half two. happy easter and happy british summer time.

29. All Families are Psychotic.

I am blind to the faults of Dougie and frankly the man makes me feel great about my personal life. (see title) Yup, Coupland pulls it off again. A corker about a bunch of nuts that you end up feeling at one with in a quirky kind of way. Unusual ending, typical of his style that definitely calls for suspension of disbelief for the greater good of making a worthwhile point but without sounding preachy. Top notch.

a good friday

Had an hours recreational skiing at the snow dome, ate a mixed grill, watched a film then went and chilled out with friends who live on a boat. Pretty cool day.

My action-packed life.

Have had the dullest two days on record. Made numerous blu-tac snakes (one complete with forked elastic band tongue) so it hasn't been entirely unproductive.

28. Milk Treading.

Milk Treading by Nick Smith.

A rather unusual book to say the least! This is about class struggle, gang warfare, hack writers, journalists and lovers. Only, all the characters are cats or dogs. It works pretty well with a stack of witty kitty puns. My main concern was that the book was shot with typographical errors which was very offputting. A quick, easy, fun read but not something I'll be telling everyone to run out and buy.

Reading list.

Here are the books I have read so far in 2005. I included audio for the hell of it. Thought I might as well share it here and will try and keep something posted on books I read from now on.

28: Milk Treading. Nick Smith.
27: Tobias and the Angel. James Bridie.
26: Love on the Dole (dramatic adaptation) Ronald Gow & Walter Greenwood.
25: The Orange Girl. Jostein Gaarder.
24: Down Under. (audio) Bill Bryson.
23: Maus. Art Spiegelman
22: Crime and Punishment. Dost. (current)
21: Dream Play. August Strindberg.
20: Notes from a Small Island (audio) Bill Bryson.
19: Portugese Irregular Verbs (audio) Alexander McCall Smith (see review)
18: Saturday Ian McEwan
17: A Short History of Nearly Everything.(audio) Bill Bryson.
16: A Tale of Two Cities. audio. Charles Dickens.
15: Not the End of the World. Geraldine McCaughrean
14: Master and Commander (audio) Patrick O'Brian
13: Persuasion (audio) Jane Austen.
12: Boy Soldier (proof) Andy McNab & Robert Rigby
11: Bras & Broomsticks. (proof) Sarah Mlynowski
10: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Part II(audio). Bert Coules
9: Lord Loss (proof) Darren Shan.
8: David Copperfield.(audio) Charles Dickens.
7: The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (audio) Alexander McCall Smith
6: Miss Julia. August Strindberg
5: The Philosopher's Pupil. Iris Murdoch
4: Hawksmoor. Peter Ackroyd (abandoned)
3: The Road to Damascus.Part I August Strindberg
2: The Timewaster Letters. Robin Cooper.
1: Shadow of the Wind. Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

london town

Saw Ruby Wax in The Witches this afternoon. Very west end, very panto. Pretty good fun nonetheless. Ben & Jerry's ice cream and a wander round Covent Garden afterwards. Not a bad Sunday afternoon out with the lad.

mostly...

...mid-grey

the palimp.

Lotus, is it just me or is Palimpsest knackered? Have been trying to get onto it today and yesterday and am getting nowhere.

blah

Over-rated poet of the day: Walt Whitman.

ebaying at the moon

I win a bid on ebay. It says:

Seller's payment instructions
Klik op de link in de omschrijving.

chomp

half my head just caved in.

or at least, i have lost a big chunk of tooth this evening. what was i doing to merit this misfortune i hear you ask. i was brushing my teeth. so much for the dental hygiene theory, eh?

Maus

I finished a great book this evening. I thought it was good enough to share. Sorry to those of you for whom this is duplicate reading.

This evening I finished Maus. It only took me a couple of evenings after I settled down to give it some real time. As you may have seen on the Palimplists, I have given it a five star rating. So first off, thanks Bak for recommending. I never would have picked it up otherwise and I'm so glad i did.

For those of you who don't know what it's about let me briefly explain. Maus is a graphic novel. The author/ illustrator is recording his father's memories from his time before WWII, through his experiences as a Jew in concentration camps and into his days after the war as a holocaust survivor. The Jews are represented as mice, the Germans as cats, the Poles as pigs and the Americans as Dogs. These creaturely faces sometimes become masks when a Jew pretends to be a Pole to avoid detection and also, rather poignantly, when the illustrator depicts himself with a mouse mask over his own face as he tries to record his father's experiences as a 'second generation Jew.' The book is rich with imagery.

I think the book works so well because it is not simply a chronicle of the war. Spiegelman looks at the effects of the holocaust on his father after the end of the war - the difficulty he has in adjusting to normal life, the problems in his second marriage, the expectations he has of his son.

He doesn't shy away from depicting what was obviously a tense relationship with his father whilst still sensitively portraying the pain of an Aushwitz survivor. There is a mix of responsibility to the truth of his father's pain and experiences coupled with the reality of a relationship fraught with disagreements and ill-founded expectations.

He also conveys some sense of the awkwardness of trying to find the truth about something at once very immediate and entirely removed from ones own experience. Within the text he wonders if his father feels guilty about surviving and he questions his own feelings of not being good enough for his father. He depicts his own struggle to find out about what is essentially a personal history that he hasn't experienced for himself.

There is so much I could say about this book. It is a book with convincing psychological depth.It's not an easy read nor is it relentlessly harsh. The narrative dips between the war and later life so that the storyline is about Art recording what happened to his father rather than as a documentary of suffering. I would strongly recommend it for anyone to read.

Resistance is useless.

Well 'useless' might be a bit harsh. I went to see a production at our local theatre tonight based on a true story of the blind and visually impaired working for the French Resistance during WWII.

Resistance was performed by an all blind/vis. imp. cast. It was an interesting evening. If I were to be picky to the point of pedantry, and let's face it, I am, I'd say the text was a little bit too dense. It was played with passion but I thought sometimes relied a little too heavily on exaggerated gestures and tones of voice. The choreography however was impressive. There was a lot of climbing around on frames and short bursts of dance that worked well for the most part but occassionally didn't hold together.

It was a good evening. Not your typical mother's day present but I think it went down well with the M.I.L.

all quat on the western front

not much happened today.

not quat what we expected

Tonight I attended a lecture on Van Gogh. It was really well done. Masses of pictures and photos of the landscapes he painted. A very vibrant (Slade School trained) guy enthusing about his hero. He even reenacted a moment from Van Gogh's life by letting off a gunshot and falling to the floor in the darkness of a slide show. Unexpected!

diddly sQUAT

Today I bought 5 books for 3 quid. Then I left them at work so I can't pore over them this evening and introduce them to their nice, new, alphabetic homes.

From memory:

* Three plays by Strindberg. An nice old 1950's copy.
* Plays of the 1930's. Bought because there it has an adaptation of 'Love on the Dole'.
* Moll Flanders. Should have read this a long time ago.
* Something Russian I'd never heard of before but couldn't be left at 50p.
* Shirley by Charlotte Bronte. You can keep Austen and all her clubs for my money.

Best-smellers all of them. Magic.

quatastrophe

Cooked a fantastic pork roast tonight. Scranchied up the rind and had a host of little side dishes to go with it. Cheesy leek, thyme butter roasted red onions, roast parsnips etc. Rich gravy. It was magnificent.

Half way through the dinner I remembered something. My guest is a vegetarian.

Stolen idea

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

---------------------------------

I'm not sure about point 5 but it's still an interesting diversion. Here's what I came up with: "If all physical systems are computers, and if computers can perfectly mimic all physical systems, the what distinguishes the real world from a simulation?"

020305 black ramps

Please have a look at my friends band site. They have 4 songs up there you can listen to.

280205 damning with faint praise

Tonight I drove over to Milton Keynes and saw 'Rebecca' starring Nigel Havers.

I enjoy the whole theatre experience so it wasn't a wasted evening.

270205

Last night I went to see 'A Dream Play' by Strindberg at the National. It was really very good. I say Strindberg, it was actually an adaptation by Caryl Churchill. Afterwards I met up with my brilliant Strindberg expert friend who spouted forth righteous indignation at her shoddy treatment of his hero. I felt like I ought to be taking notes. We somehow managed to drown our sorrows later at The Ivy and then on through a stroll/stagger round Soho. Finally collapsed home in bed at 3.

Cybarites are us.

240205

Strindberg wrote more than 70 plays as well as novels, short-stories and studies of Swedish history.


how lazy am i?

230205

i'm going to write a book. it's going to be called "25 in a 40". it's going to be all about the mindset of the people who think that 40 mph means 40 mph is punishable by death and therefore stick at a safe 25. it will have one character. i will punish them. they will crash and burn over and over again until they are a charred little matchstick person in a car resembling a crushed milk bottle top.

yup. i'm onto a winner.

230205

i stay up til half past midnight doing brain quizzes and personality tests and are you male or female tests on the bbc science web page and what do i learn?

well firstly that i'm a lot like who i thought i was (newsflash) and seconly that i am incredibly cold yet have an indefatigable interest in wasting my time.

210205

Why buy diet books when you could better spend the money on cake?

>>sigh<<

the diet started today. i did brilliantly. muesli for breakfast. a tin of very skinny soup, fun-free crisps and a similarly cheerless mousse for lunch. then i got home and was close to shaking with hunger. mmm, three big slabs of cheese on homemade bread and a packet of crisps.

200205

nice blog. nog.

190205

Right at the bottom of my blog I have put in a chat room. As far as I can tell you just click on it, make up a name and start talking. Who knows, it might even work.

160205

hurrah for competitions, especially the ones i win and get immodest
amounts of book vouchers. mmm.

2 x jamie oliver
2 x douglas coupland
1 x strindberg
1 x levy
1 x dickens

so far.

150205

unbelieveably true:

yesterday a girl came in and bought a valentine's card. the design
on the front was a lipstick kiss. she grinned all the way through
the transaction and i thought she was hitting on my colleague...
until she said; 'it's for next door's parrot.' i thought i was going to
wet myself. she added; 'i'm going to cross out the lips and draw
a beak.'

not a word of a lie. fact stranger than fiction etc etc

100205

8 books in 2 weeks? why did i agree? why did i say, and mind you give me the teenage novels and not those piddly little kiddy ones that i could devour in an afternoon?

because i am a fool.

i am a fool.
i am a fool.

060205

what a time in history to have a welsh colleague.

010205

i give you all fair warning. it's my birthday next monday. should
you wish to shower me with gifts, i'm giving you fair warning so you can
start making your purchases.

diamonds are always a good fall back.

310105

Boots meal deal? Brilliant!

290105

Recommendations required:


Am currently doing about 2 hours driving a day for the next 5-6 weeks. So far I've listenened to 'David Copperfield' and 'Pete & Dud' on audio cassette. Here's my dilemma. If there's a book I really want to listen to, I don't want to hear an abridgement, ie Dickens. If there's something I don't mind hearing an abridgement of, then generally I don't want to bother listening to it at all. I have plenty of music but being a book fiend I am irked by the fact that I'm sitting down for two hours and not picking up a book. I have once had a book on the passenger seat that I grabbed up at welcome red lights but I suspect this may be a little obsessive.

So, dear readers...I ask merely the impossible of you. Give me something that's available on cassette for my car that is sufficiently high brow enough for a shocking snob like myself to want to listen to but not essential enough for me to fret about only hearing the abridged version. I wait with bated breath, much like the proverbial cheese eating cat.

240105

Today I bought myself an entirely low-tech gift because I asked for it for Christmas and didn't get it.

A recorder. Five quid. Early Learning Centre. Bargain. It even comes with a little jute bag with drawstrings so I can carry it to school..?

230105

Back from skiing the French Alps!!

Only six stitches and even then they were in someone else.

wagamama 

110105

wagamama then tate modern with my neice today.

100105

discovered today that a certain company, totally unrelated to me in every possible sense, has been sacking members of staff after seeing them post derogatory comments about said company in their blogs.

nothing to do with me. at all. never heard of them.

but my job is happy, fulfilling and really as close to paradise on earth as anywhere. the customers are smashing and i want to take all my colleagues home at the weekends.

080105

due to a sudden influx of interest in my blog (one person) i am back to tell you of all the excitement that makes up my glamorous life.

am getting drunk with a friend and picking random european cities we could conquer next.

291204

having a house guest for a few days so will be cutting myself off from my daemon that is the room housing all my books and computer, in the name of friendship.


light a candle and pray for nerves of steel for me.

281204

for half price sale, read license to treat books like empties down at the bottle bank.

pun not intended.

241204

ho ho ho

211204

I had a customer today who, in order to better help me recognise the book after which she was enquiring, said; 'It's got a binding down the side.'

201204

it's incredible how the minutiae of life can take on epic proportions by missing an hours sleep.

how difficult is it to just say goodmorning back to me when i say goodmorning to you. leave the comments about your runny nose til later. OBviously i'm gripped by your rhinitis but just say goodmorning. it's a vital part of the fabric of society.

191204

Having been requested to show body parts on my blog, I went googling for suitably ludicrous tattoo images i could comically pretend to be me.

all i'm saying is google 'tattoo monkey' and the the 4th one in. not me, not anyone i know, not anyone i hope to meet. ye gods!!!! a novel use for a belly button.

personal tattoo revelation will have to wait for now.....hee hee hee.

171204

today my t-shirt said 'trigger happy' just so no-one could say they weren't warned.

tomorrow will be the busiest day of the year. someone has already handed in their notice and refuses to work out their week.

if only i had a t-shirt that said 'it's the season of good will so mess with me at your fkn peril'

the day after yesterday

what a splednid eenign quaffing chapmpagne. yess.

131204

Is there any greater happiness than recovering your lost purse with all the christmas money in it?

(ahem, down the hall in a bag i'd forgotten i was using)

121204

today i got my christmas present early! have spent the afternoon adjusting the screws for a better stance and admiring the steel edges.

111204

is it normal to be off sick and then to coincidentally have prospective employers ring you up out of the blue offering you work?

just a question.

101204

there's something about buying clothes that brings on the existential angst in me.
how many hours did it take to earn the new top from oasis? was it worth it? does it matter if it's worth it? is anything worth anything? what is enjoyment after all? it's only "fun". who needs fun. we're all going to DIE anyway. new top or no new top.
>>sigh<<
it matches the new eyeshadow though so all is not lost.

091204

back by popular apathy!!


today i did not kill anyone. i only laughed in the face of one customer (they asked for the Eenead by Omer). I only had to leave my section once due to the overpowering stench of a recently filled nappy. I didn't slam books down saying 'why the fk can't you put the book back where you found it' in front of minors.

Now here's the irony. Who would have imagined having an argument about religion with someone called Kristian? (sorry pal, you're wrong, deal with it)

You're glad you called by my blog again now aren't ya? :)

031204

my life is one long stream of unabated glamour.

today i put books on shelves in my kids section. i put stickers on promotional books. i feigned interest in dozens of customers. i made the significant decision to make my top zigzag shelf of audio a multi-author space. i'm sorry if that intimidates you! maybe you should just try and keep up with me. i work hard, i play hard. i get the results i want. don't be jealous that i've made it to these heights. the position of responsibility i hold isn't something to be taken up lightly, on a whim as it were. oh no. so go BACK to your job, ASSESS where you're going wrong, DO some HARD thinking, make some INTELLIGENT choices and THEN, only THEN you may come here, to my blog, raise a finger of criticism at the WAY I STACK MY SHELVES. DO YOU HEAR??

paula  

paula radcliffe 

kumquat's blog

i finished.

i'm still alive.

261104

Tonight I went researching working class pleasures.

...and the haaaaaaaaaare is running...........

did i make anything? not a penny.

251104

Less than 7K to go.

Won't life be dull when I'm back to eight hours sleep a night?

231104

There's no easy way of breaking the news. Today I had my most embarassing moment, ever. Ever.

Picture the scene - me on the shopfloor with a large pile of books.

I take up my best manual handling stance for putting books onto a low table when I am bothered by a disconcerting noise and a disconcerting sensation.

The noise: the seat of my pants ripping wide open.
The sensation: a cooling breeze around the nethers.

I am one classy chick and no mistake.

211104

the thrill of being covered in fibreglass is wearing thin.

201104

i'm having somebody else's identity crisis.

181104

abandoned nano for a drive in some sudden snow. twas remarkably pleasant.

171104(b)

just started browsing palimpsest.

look danon, if you ever come across j.s for heaven's sake muscle him to the ground and hold him there til i arrive.

171104

unmask the identity of wildsheep then lose him to wolves. damn.

shall happily fall back on yoghurt (in fruit coloured clothes)

161104

mmm lovely day off working on the ole pressure sores.

151104

"do you have a list of all the books written for 5-8 year olds?"


(yes madam i'll just hit 'print' and if you'd like to come back in the new year...)

141104

I have a drum kit in my loft that I didn't think would be there when I got up this morning. Interesting!

Reached 19,000 words tonight.

Ernest & Julio have earned their place in heaven.

121104

apologies for the shoddy commitment to this wonderous site. yesterday i was out til half one getting drunk round soho and china town ( as i recall )

i was hung over all day at work and now i'm home desperately trying to hit the 16K mark on my writing and drinking more red wine and feeling scared of another day of headache and strauss waltzes piped directly into my BRAIN from the speakers.

still laughing about how i pounded down the platform at st pancras with the doors beeping and threw myself headlong onto the floor of the carriage before the doors shut.

73 words to 16,000.
half a glass more til i'm anyone's (again)

101104

It's Wednesday
There's no need to be afraid
On Wednesday
We let in quiet and we let out ***** (insert name of colleague)
And in this shop of plenty
We spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around your books
on Wednesday.

But say a prayer
Pray for the other days
There are four more working days just out there
And they're days of dread and fear
Where the only words are flowing
are the bitter words of fear
Well today thank fck he's home
instead of heeeeere

Feed my ears
Let them know it's quiet time
Feed my ears
Let them know it's quiet time...... etc

091104

"Eats shoots and Leaves?
I think it's about punctuations."

081104

OUCH.

some nasty beggar posted this on my other blog:

Where is the creativity, the inspiration... the message? What do you want to say to me, as a reader. Where is the substance? Your word choicage is distasteful, your descriptions uncoordinated and unclear. It lacks the subtle grace, that literary mood that pours us into the subject, forces us to embrace it.

Your presence as a writer is as a hopeful mid-teen girl (perhaps 17? 16?)

Am feeling surprisingly hurt.

I replied:

May i remind you of my inital post which said:

THE EXCUSES
Clearly this place is going to be awash with lifeless prose from time to time but that's partly due to the fact that NaNo is trying to get me to write 50,000 words in 30 days. The other reasons are obvious!


I am taking part in a project designed to get us to write 50,000 words in one month. There is no time for revision.

I was 15 very many years ago and frankly, I find your choice of words (rather than the cumbersome 'word choicage') distasteful.

I notice you remain anonymous.


OUCH. I'm going to bed.

071104

given the option 'keep or chuck', 9/10 i will opt for chuck. And so i have spent a happy afternoon emptying my loft of bicycle chains, stuffed toys from 30 years ago, old curtains and what can only be described as miscellaneous non-descript items.

don't tell anyone but it's being boarded out for a big christmas day drum kit surprise for mini-me.

061104 (b)

yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!
yoghurt! yoghurt!

061104

(post to be read with a Blackadderesque German accent)


I am ringing from Germany.
I have a fantastic Elvis book.
I would like to talk to someone about importing.
I have been given your number.
I was told you are central to the company.

me, shamelessly laughing down the phone: oh you were, were you?!

I hope this is true?

041104

an american friend tells me that the newly appointed senator (that still just sounds star wars, sorry) for south carolina wants to see all homosexuals and women who have had children out of wedlock, out of their jobs on moral grounds. this seems like a moderate, well thought out plan and we should all congratulate them on their broad minded insightful opinions.

rule britannia.

021104

two days into NaNo and i'm number obsessed already. 1700 words a day. every break today was throwing down words onto scrap paper and i have another 1000 to write before bed if i'm going to keep to target.

keep the comments coming here please. remind me of sanity.

011104

Who is the mystery Danon and where is the elusive Lotuseater? These are the questions that have taunted me today as I have wandered the tortured walks of Milton Keynes shopping centre abating my existential angst with remarkably large chocolate chip muffins and filter coffee.

tick followed tock followed tick

It seems pointless waiting til midnight but midnight it must be.

I thought a panicky thread would be a good place to start while i while away another 80 minutes and then crash into bed being too knackered and grouchy to bother writing anything.

Of course I have no plans beyond it's about a girl who writes something strange in the end of year book then dies so what she writes takes on prophetic proportions and ends up unravelling the lives of everyone around her. That should secure me half a page. Now where to find 50K words??

I'm thinking that I am actually allowed to think about plot as I go along and it doesn't matter *overly* if it's not all planned with teutonic precision and written out in triplicate by midnight.

Really, if you plan badly and want to stick an extra chapter in at the wrong place, just do it - call it postmodern or a lost manuscript unearthed by a secondary character.

311004(b)

Tonight I went to an early all souls service to commemorate the life of a close relative. Weirdly, who should I run into but the same french teacher that i met earlier in the week. Nothing for years then twice in one week. Spooky. Also had to smile darkly at the fact that I was snooping round a grave yard, tending a grave in the pitch black except for eery golden flood lighting on a medieval abbey on Halloween.

311004(a)

boo