Of Hovels and Novels October 9, 2007
Posted by Jen in : Journal , trackbackOh dear. I seem to have gone a bit quiet. Well, to be honest, I haven’t gone quiet at all, I’ve really been quite noisy but the noise has been coming out of my mouth instead of my fingers.
I’m still recovering from the shock of throwing a dinner party on Saturday evening which somehow cost me about £160 and took two full days of shopping, cooking and cleaning. Take one guest who’s vegetarian, one who hates vegetables, one who only likes sausages & chips, one who faints if he doesn’t get copious amounts of raw meat and two veg, one who’s low-carbing and one who’s normal but critical and, um, shove ‘em all in the blender. Aaarrghh.
Ahem. The house is now messy again and I’m now nearing as ‘normal’ as I get and back at the writing. And the job-hunting. And the sneezing.
I’m desperate to finish the novel so that I can start it again – to make the bitch bitchier, the quirks quirkier, the sads more sobworthy. The prospect of editing and re-writing excites me, appeals to my neurotic, nit-picking nature.
Impressed with Helen’s methodical post-it perfection, I thought I would share my very own cork board craziness. I like to consider it a fair representation of my mind’s inner workings: I have no idea what’s happening from one chapter to the next (in fact, I haven’t even got chapters yet!) but I have pictures of my characters’ houses and the bracelets they like to wear.
It’s a worry, quite frankly. This writing lark has driven me quite daffy and I fear I shall never be the same again. Thank goodness for that, eh?
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Thought things were a bit quiet down your way, though must profess to feeling a little on the silent side myself. I’m blogging a little but not commenting much.
Rewriting is exciting - I’m making the grit gritier and the blood bloodier - but making me almost too excited to write and I have to keep jumping up away from computer to compose myself and look out of the window. Don’t know if that is the creative juices flowing or too much coffee. (only had one cup so far though - daren’t have any more!)
The post its do make me look a little methodical (read sad) don’t they?! LOVE your cork board it looks a lot more writerly and creative!!
£160 dear god woman!!! I have to say that with a list of demands like that my guests would have been told to bring their own dinner with them. (This probably explains why I don’t have many dinner parties - I don’t think I make a very good host!!)
I like your tulip and love the fact that you have pictures of your characters houses and no chapters yet!! Sometimes you just have to shake it all up and see what comes out
C x
I think I’m with Carol on this. 160 is a lot of money…’Specially when it’s in sterling and not in yo-yo’s. My dad had a phrase when I was little that might be of use to you in future: “You’ll get what you’re given and like it!”
Either that or change your friends to one’s with more normal culinary expectations!
Perhaps I shouldn’t be saying this to you before my party… I promise you can eat whatever you like if you can make it over! Even if it means I have to stock pile all manner of bizarrenesses!
x
But what on earth did you give your dinner guests to eat? I assume that they were all hugely fanciable or brilliantly witty or useful to your career, otherwise it was a dead waste of 160 quid, wasn’t it?
Helen - I’m chuckling at the image of leaping up with excitement or frightening yourself with the gritty bloody bits. Hope it’s the creative juices working - they don’t make you wee as much as coffee.
Carol - I’m such a perfectionist, I just wanted everyone to be happy. After all that, I didn’t get so much as a text frm anyone to say ‘thanks’. Maybe they were all poisoned?
LQS - I might adopt your dad’s phrase in future. I hope there will be cheese and pineapple on pointy sticks at your party? And jelly? And frozen sausage rolls that haven’t quite thawed in the middle. No? Thank goodness. (Apart from cheese and pineapple on pointy sticks. Yum.)
Tony - Erm, no. I mean yes. No, they were utterly useless guests, destined never to improve my career and yes, it was a crazy waste of money. I made an Indian feast - hedgeclipping curry for the veggies and a slightly fluorescent organic chicken job for the meaties. Never again! You, on the other hand, sound far easier to please
Ah, Jen, what devotion to the art of cookery, what honesty! Of course you knew that for a lot less than £160 your local Indian takeaway would have delivered you a superb meal for a dozen; you would have dug out all your quaint old tourist-tat pots and dishes etc, to present it in, made sure the foil boxes were discreetly disposed of, and then smiled modestly as your guests told each other that the food was “so different from what you get at the Bexhill Taj Mahal”.
And you wouldn’t have had all those little bits of left-over herbs, spices and obscure vegetables to use up afterwards!
I hope a good proportion of that 160 quid went of booze. Sounds like you needed it:) You are very brave to feed others such a feast and shame on them for not texting you you. I’d be on my knees with gratitude if someone ever fed me:)
I like your cork board and I’m guessing by the pictures that one of your characters is very fond of candlesticks. Is she a murderer?
xx
You’re a brave woman for sharing your post-it board! I use OneNote - kind of like a electronic pinboard which I could never bring myself to post. So fair play, I love it!
Oooh lovely post it board. Love the daffodil.
You are brave to tackle the dinner party with such a mixture of guests. Did you have a lovely time during the meal? Preparation always strikes me as a bit of a nightmare, but I hope the event was lovely/drunken/funny and stuff.
JJx
160 pounds?? that is a LOT of money. …but those things always seem to cost a lot more than you think they will…the thing to do is not add up how much you’ve spent…..and then you won’t have to know. It’s the bury your head in the sand technique. Always works.
and I definitely need to get some character pictures happening - one of my problems is that I forget stuff all the time…… on page 5 Jane will have green hair and live in a blue house…..by page 10 she’ll be bald and live in a teepee.
Tony - Indian takeaway it is next time!!! And don’t even talk about the obscure spices - I need a bigger kitchen to store them all in!
Lane - you know me too well. Rather a large wodge of money was booze supplies, ho ho! Candlesticks? No, actually, there’s not a murderer in sight…
Hellojed - Ooh, I can’t get on with electronic note gadgetry - I like to have stuff plastered all around me. I am a hopeless scruff.
JJ - No 2 son made the daffodil years ago and it’s followed me around. Luckily, one of characters fills her house with her kids’ tat too. Dinner party prep is quite nice until one runs out of time - I’m always running about in my undies with a wooden spoon when people arrive. But yes, it was most fun
Rebecca - I think I’d quite like to be bald and live in a teepee. It’s hard to keep the continuity in writing, especially when we do it in fits and starts…
i just make curry, rice and naan and say i used to be a hare krishna. served with beer and or fairtrade red wine that seems to satisfy the pickiest people..ah then again thinking vegan..carb-free..MEAT? pfffft. this is why i dont do dinner parties. bet you had a good time though. i got a job. i now work for The Number 1 computer company. i am a speaking monkey. my task for the next three weeks is to blank my mind, absorb my paranoid supervisors beliefs and *poof* i am ready. Hare Krishna experience still handy therefore. damnit, i will sell anything. i just sold my brain. on the other hand..its that or the old guy in the woods offering 20 euros. okay, i also have a spare kidney if anyone…x
Hey Sis - I don’t think people would believe me if I said I was a Hare Krishna. Ooh, a speaking monkey eh? That’s a good job title! Hmmm, 20 euros for the old guy in the woods… you’d better send him this way. Being a grown up is such fun… X
hi there, your dinner party must have been some event. Hope you managed to enjoy it along the way.
I also work from home and know how challenging it can be to stay inspired. I don’t write professionally, however my course does demand a lot of self reflection
£160!!!!!
Wow! Can I come for dinner?
Praise be to the gods of never being the same again!
Keep writing keep writing keep writing.
x
Hullaballoo - hello, I like your name! Working from home is so much harder than people think, isn’t it? Self-reflection can be harder in a contained space… so easy to become over-analytical perhaps?
Caroline - I can honestly say that my cupboards are now soooo bursting with herbs and spices that we will be eating curry forever more so that I get my money’s worth. Alternatively, they will stay in the cupboard unused for approximately twelve years after which which I will tut loudly that they’re all out of date and I finally need them again