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Doing the Write Thing August 28, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Journal , 26 comments

I am feeling very lucky today. While the rest of the country appears to be bombing full pelt in their cars from one place they don’t want to be to another they’d rather not be going, I am huddled in my thermal pyjamas and one of lovely bf’s huge, huge fleeces that almost comes down to my knees.

I am sitting under the gazebo, writing, writing, writing, as the rain rustles the apple tree leaves. Huge, scowling clouds are grazing the tops of the trees in the woods on the other side of the valley.

The house is empty and I have smoked salmon and scrambly eggs to look forward to for lunch.

I am happy. But. I need to pull my finger out and make some money. Write some short stories. Send them off. Write more. Write better. Write even more and better than that!

I can’t bear the thought of having to give this up and go back to ‘real life’. I’m gonna do it you know. I really, really am. See? I’ve written it down now, so I have to.

 

Too Tyred to Type August 24, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Dieting Misery, Journal , 18 comments

Ugh. On the recommendation of someone who shall not be named, but who I’m currently cursing, I have embarked on a diet. Another one. Sigh.

This isn’t just any old diet. Oh no. ‘Tis a detox too. I’m only on the second day and my poor body is begging lifelessly for a proper cuppa tea.

Instead, I am frowning, drinking Rooibos (unpronounceable so now referred to as Rudeboy’s Tea) and swallowing Nurofen by the handful. My neck feels as if it’s made of rubber and my head is likely to fall off and roll down the garden onto the compost heap at any moment. Concentration? Zero. Possibly less.

I hate dieting. I’ve done them all but, being a greedy-guts Taurean and latent lush, have always slipped back into naughty mode. Pathetic. Gin and Jaffa Cakes was my favourite diet ever – it even worked and I was terribly cheerful all the time. Low fat, you see? Genius.

But. Drastic measures are called for. Before being non-working, I used to rush home and strip off my suit (admittedly becoming rather bum-hugging) and change into either trackies for dog-walking or jim-jams for writing/studying. When I actually tried to put my jeans on, well! I’d have had more luck cramming a live jellyfish into an eggcup. Blushing, I sneaked into Gap and bought the next size up.

But, erm, let’s just say that they weren’t terribly successful either.

So. Neris and India’s Idiot-Proof Diet it is. I felt slimmer after an hour just reading the book but that was probably due to holding my sides laughing. Oddly, I’m not laughing today.

Am having to give up any pretence of writing and am instead tottering off to the beach to watch the dog learn to surf .

Taureans aren’t cut out for dieting. Luckily, Taureans don’t believe in horoscopes either.

Pffffff. Cup of Daffodil Tea, anyone?

 

Of Unfulfilled Desires August 20, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Journal , 17 comments

Grrrrrrrrrr. I’m getting on my own nerves which, I’m sure you’ll agree, is not an entirely good thing. The cause? My frantically fickle nature.

O, for the joy of being non-working and having time to write my novel. It’s all I want to do, the very essence of my being that drives me on.

Coolio. Job abandoned. But, ooh, now I have time to do other things. Perhaps poetry will be my thing, despite me being a bit crap at it. Short stories then. Yes, I could enter competitions. Cue a mountain of Writing Magazines piled around my head in bed this morning. God, I’m so inspired, this is the solution I’ve been seeking. Use competitions as prompts to write stories and if I don’t win (of course I’ll win, this is my thing man!) I can send them out to magazines who will surely want to publish them, thereby allowing me just enough money to carry on being non-working and writing my novel. God, genius or what?

So, what to write? Cue random mind-mapping. Being a gluttonous Taurean, food tends to feature in most ideas. Of course! Sod fiction - I’ll write features about food! Ooh, what about noodles? I quite fancy becoming a master of stir-fries. Cue gormless wandering around house without specs to search for Wagamama Cookbook.

I have now been up for almost two hours but achieved bugger all. I’ve had lots of ideas though, that’s good isn’t it? Oh, that reminds me, I must read my book about getting ideas, that’ll help.

Ugh. I’m doomed to lead a life chasing rainbows. Sounds quite poetic though. Maybe I could write a poem about it?

My mother summed up my poetic, rainbow-chasing nature years ago.

“Oh, you’re never bloody happy. Stop fannying about.  Just decide what you want to do then bloody well do it.”

She’s very sweet like that. But there’s a problem.

I want it all and I want it now.

Of Panting & Underwired Words August 16, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Novel , 15 comments

It’s funny how things happen all at once or not at all. I wrote 1,000-odd words yesterday (as opposed to 1,000 odd words).

My inspiration? Pants. M&S boring pants and bras, thrust into my thoughts while buying school uniform online. Hmmm, I wondered, what sort of undies would my characters wear? Not M&S, that’s for sure. After a browse through Agent Provocateur, my thoughts were off like whippets. I changed a character’s name from Nicky to Rajni and, somehow, she just sounds far more like herself now. She is also headed for glamorous, sumptuous seduction which I’m rather looking forward to writing. Saucy, sexy opulence, mmmmm.

They do say that there’s a little bit of us, as writers, in our characters. So am I set for some delicious decadence? Nah.

I have another character. I get to be like her, slomping and sliding knee-deep in mud with a stinking dog. I secretly prefer that to a life of excess though. Shhh, don’t tell anyone will you?

 

East Sussex porn queens do it in wellies. Apparently.



Of Daily Desperation (and Doing Diddly-Squat) August 13, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Journal, Novel , 16 comments

Oh my Good Lord. I’m having what could be referred to as One Of Them There Bad Days.

I got up at 5.30 to write. But the words were stuck. Completely and utterly stuck. I tried squirting them with WD40 but that didn’t help at all. That crescendo of agony is building, that feeling of having the answer on the tip of your tongue.

“Yes, yes, I know who you mean. Yes, the one with the freckle and one arm shorter than the other who bonked the piano teacher who lived in the house with the wonky chimney. Yes, I know, oh God, what-the-buggering-hell-is their-name?”

Erm, yeah, that kind of feeling. But, when words are stuck on one’s tongue, they tend to fall out eventually through a process of either logical convolution or alcoholic jollity. “Mark, Matthew, yes it definitely begins with an ‘M’… um… Martin… GOT IT! Captain Putridini.” Thank God. The torture is over.

But it doesn’t quite work that way with writing words. My fingers are paralysed. I sit here, for hours, trying to force the words out. They’re all in there, crammed in tightly up to my elbows. I can feel them, I know what they will look like when they finally burst out. But, really, tearing my own toenails out with a pair of rusty pliers would be easier today.

The new Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook is running a blog competition ‘for anyone who blogs, or who would like to blog, about their writing experiences…’ I somehow doubt that these are the experiences they were hoping for. Oh dear. Where did I put the WD40?

Of Burts and Brollies August 10, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Journal , 16 comments

Really? It’s Friday again? Crumbs, how did that happen?

I’ve had a rare child-free week which has been jolly marvellous. I have written words aplenty (approximately 5,000), sunburnt my bottom (while reading Jilly Cooper) and talked lots about doing a detox ‘n’ diet week (while swigging G&Ts and munching Burts crisps).

I spent Wednesday gallivanting around Brighton, agreeing with lovely bf that we would make a concerted effort not to go shopping after a wine-fuelled lunch (obviously part of diet ‘n’ detox regime). After wine-fuelled lunch, purchased lilac and lime green cushions, a psychedelic brown & orange flowery umbrella, bright orange nail varnish and tealight holders in luminous, jewel-like colours. These currently grace my study for the purposes of candle-lit novel-writing sessions which will occur during my time of alcohol abstinence.

Managed to drive home from Brighton without getting lost, sobbing helplessly or having to stop at a pub for hysteria-induced wee-based activities.

All these achievements can be considered evidence that I am really quite enjoying being a non-working sort-of writer.

Rejoice, rejoice, my friends for I do proclaim: Sanity will one day be upon us and we shall all carry black umbrellas. Something like that anyway.

I am Expecting August 6, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Journal , 14 comments

I don’t know what I’m expecting. But something’s there, in the offing. I can smell it. I can sense it. I can feel it. When I get up to write and open my study door to the garden, the air outside is ready to burst with the sense of expectancy. It’s that September feeling, new but cyclical: new uniform, new pencils, new friends. It’s not September though. I’m so impatient, I want to run up and down, to dissipate the expectant energy of the something.

But the something isn’t an urgent something. It’s a lurking something, waiting, waiting, waiting. It makes my tummy swirl – though my tummy doesn’t know whether to be nervous or excited. Even my tummy doesn’t know what the something is. I’m trying to be patient but I want to hide behind a wall, to leap up like a Jack-in-a-Box to see what the something is before it’s ready. Before I’m ready.

Perhaps it’s already there. Perhaps it was always there. Perhaps I simply have more time now to notice it; to sense it. More time to notice things changing.

Oh, and I dreamt of an owl last night. An owl, perched on the back of a chair beside me, looking at me. ‘Wisdom’, he told me. I don’t do ‘wisdom’ – I’m usually too busy doing ’spaz’.

I worried a while ago about being stuck on the stepping stones. I think my muscles are flexing now for a bit of a leap. Let’s hope I don’t fall in the water…


It’s Good to Talk August 2, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Journal , 16 comments

Number 2 Son has been telling me about his dad’s new girlfriend. He had been given basic facts but has not yet met her.

‘She’s Russian and she’s way taller than Dad and she’s called Olga or Vulgar or something. He says she’s 29. She can’t be 29 though, can she? Dad could never score anyone who’s 29 – he’s not exactly what you’d call attractive, is he?’

Yes, I should have made some serious point about age not mattering or looks not being the most important thing in life. But I was too busy sniggering. Oops.

Anyway.

While I was out emptying the dog yesterday, both Number 1 and Number 2 sons were instructed to speak to The Russian Girlfriend on the telephone.

Number 1 son could only report that the whole communication thing might be a bit more productive in person.

Number 2 son looked mystified when I asked if she could actually speak English.

‘Um, I don’t think so.’

‘Well, what did she say?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, what did you say?’

‘Mainly just “pardon”. I think I’ll be saying that a lot this weekend.’

Number 1 Son, to his credit, printed off some Russian phrases to help things along. Sadly, he found it all a bit tricky and has resorted to talking very slowly, very loudly and in a rather alarming German accent.

This should help international relations no end. Oh, how much do I want to be a fly on the wall??