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Of Bah Humbuggery December 27, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Journal , 16 comments

Well, we appear to be surviving. The boys have, after two days, abandoned their high-tech pressies in favour of a balloon-modelling kit. They have toiled for hours to transform the long, thin balloons into – you guessed it – swords. They are now fighting with what could be considered festive vigour.

Christmas Day passed without tears and I have not yet succumbed to my usual distemper, insisting on taking the tree down at the end of Boxing Day. The rogered angel with her doleful glare is set to stay a little longer.

Lovely bf is swigging Lemsip at a rate of knots, prompted by my caring reminders.

‘Have you had your anti-moaning drugs yet?’ I demand at regular intervals.

Tomorrow is No 1 Son’s 14th birthday, the huge hairy-legged beast. He has opted for a pub lunch in our local. I’d quite like to adopt that as a tradition as he gets older. It sort of occurred to me, in a moment of alcoholic sentimental feebleness, that the Crimbos he has now will be the ones he thinks he had all through his childhood.

No 2 Son, meanwhile, was very helpful on Christmas morning when I confessed that I had hidden some of the presents away so well that I couldn’t remember where they were.

‘Oh, they’re in the cupboard under the stairs, under a quilt,’ he answered without a flicker of guilt.

I’ve decided that, sweet as it may be, his whole ‘believing in Santa’ thing is proving rather expensive.

I will be adopting drastic measures before the next Christmas onslaught. Ho ho ho.


Free Festive Fings December 21, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Journal , 27 comments

The tree is up, ahead of my usual bad-tempered schedule. The lights are twinkling merrily though the angel looks, as always, as if she’s been molested. I can’t bear to buy a new one though. It wouldn’t be right.

The boys are heading off for the weekend and lovely bf has disappeared up north to the land of pies and whippets to visit his family. It’s just me for the weekend. All on my little ownsome. I toyed with the idea of extreme partying but have settled instead for writing, reading and long soaks in the bath with plenty of wine to hand. Oh, and the Strictly Come Dancing final. Sad, I know.

Everything outside seems shrouded in mystery. The trees are secretive, bare and still, in the fog. Everything has stopped. Streams and ponds have frozen mid-ripple. The scary skull that lives in the window of an oast house on my secluded dog-walk is wearing a Santa hat.

I’m smiling. It’s nearly Christmas.


Of Steely Stubbornness December 17, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Journal, Novel , 18 comments

Over on the Novel Racers’ blog last week, I raised the subject of sacrifice.

I confessed that I had just turned down a job in publishing, something I’ve been hankering after for ages. Instead, I’ve taken a boring Customer Service job in a building society. Why? Because it gives me two more days a week to write.

What I didn’t mention, for fear of being laughed out of Blogland, is that I’ve also decided not to sign up for the next module of my degree. This decision is actually making me feel a bit sick. But. I have been oomphed. I have also discovered that being oomphed can be surprisingly horrid, rather like having your bare bottom beaten with a wet Woman’s Weekly.

Several of the lovely Novel Racers have been chosen for the Messages book. I moaned and groaned all weekend to longsuffering lovely bf.

‘It’s not fair,’ I whinged. ‘Cally only submitted six pieces and two of them have been picked. It’s not faaaaaiir…’

‘And how many did you submit?’ he asked bravely.

None. Bloody none. Well that’s it. It really is. I’ve started my early-morning freewriting again. I am even holding myself accountable to this ritual by posting it, warts and all. Crazy, bubbling, frothing nonsense tumbling from the depths of my mind. Crikey.

Seriously. No more excuses. Hedgewizard was spot on when he succinctly pointed out that I’d find the writing a whole lot easier if real life would just fuck off for a bit. I don’t suppose it’s going to though. Like the people I’m envying right now, I’m just gonna have to get on with it.

 


Of Present Perceptions December 11, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Journal, Novel , 19 comments

Just like Mr Benn, I decided to try on a new life when I was 14. I was starting a new school and planned the re-vamped me all summer: come September, I would be trendier, cooler, less square and, after a bit of dieting, less round too. Instead of being a flute-tooting bookworm, I would be like the other girls who had boys chasing them. I would snog in public and everything.

Yeah, right.

Just over four years ago, I left Jersey. I left behind all my friends, family and the claustrophobia of growing up on a small rock. I can re-invent myself, I thought. I would be trendier, cooler… ahem.

You know what? I’m now 38 and still the bloomin same. And I’m beginning to think that might be alright. Ok, so I’m not a jazz pianist or a psychotherapist and I only have two kids instead of a set of triplets or a hippo who lives in the bath.

But it’s just occurred to me that this is what my novel’s about: being grown up enough to be yourself.

I still want to be a writer. I still want to run away to France and speak French to real French people. And even though that’s not really what ordinary people like me do, I’m going to do it anyway. And even when I do all that, I’ll still be me. Just as well really; it seems that I’m only just getting the hang of it. There again, I would quite like to become a gladiator. Or a spaceman. Maybe I’ll go on a bit of a diet again tomorrow.

Oh dear.


Of Broken-Down Brains December 7, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Journal , 13 comments

I do sometimes wonder whether I might be completely mad. If my brain were a car, there’s no way it would pass its MOT.

Let’s look at the evidence, shall we?

Yesterday, I was at a writing workshop run by Sarah Salway. A Creative Non-Fiction workshop. And what did I do? Got all in a stew because I couldn’t think of anything to ‘invent’ and came over all peculiar and swoony because I was just writing things that had really happened. Ugh. Took me ages to remember that that’s what I was supposed to be doing. And then, just as I thought my brain had caught up with the day, I realised that the other people were writing about quite sensible stuff like families and death and proper life-changing stuff. And what did I write about? Old men and sex. And nasal hair. Not that I’ve been having any sex with old men, you understand. Just talking about it with them. Accidentally, you understand. Best I don’t even mention it.

To make matters worse, I was told at the beginning of the workshop that there would be no looking in the fridge. I had clearly been outed as a fridge-foraging freak. You can only imagine my shame. It’s not as if I was even going to do it. This, sadly, makes me fake furtive fridge fiddler. Bugger.

There are, needless to say, many other recent incidents of empty-headedness but I can’t seem to remember what they are?


 


Of Chilled Inspiration December 5, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Journal , 9 comments

Ooh, I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to Sarah Salway’s Creative Non-Fiction workshop tomorrow. Surprisingly, she is holding the course at her house. This, of course, means that I will be obliged to have a furtive forage in her fridge.

Just imagine if the reason I haven’t been published isn’t because I’m crap or that I haven’t actually finished writing my novel but simply because I’m not feasting on the right food?