Boob Pencil

Re-solved

2009-01-04T23:38:00.004Z

I've done it again, I've copied this post from a comment I wrote on someone else's blog. I know. My bad*. But anyway.

Christmas and New Year were fun, time disappeared into some great time-sucking vortex as usual, and now I have been spat out the other end. As usual. The good news is that I achieved my aim and got my study** totally and utterly sorted before the festive season, to a degree of intense anality, so that all my cupboards and drawers and ancient files, boxes and bags are now in order, and when Number Two Son starts nursery next week I have no excuse for doing anything other than writing novels. Which is what I plan to do. It's rather exciting. And brings me to the point of this post, which is... New Year's resolutions.

I'm a bit wary about them as a rule. Mostly they don't get kept, at which point they transmute into large sticks for beating yourself with.

But anyway, I have told my son that I resolve to write a book, with chapters, especially for him. A funny one. So, a book which 6-yr-old boys who like to read funny adventure books aimed at 8-yr-old boys and upwards will like. And I'd kind of like to write a couple of grownup books too. But I'd better say no more than that, or I'll jinx it. I currently have what I think is a fantastic novel swilling around my head. It's been there a few weeks now and it seems to be a stayer. It's ludicroulsy ambitious. It's the kind of book that if I described it to anyone they'd look at me doubtfully and advocate caution. So I'm just not bloody telling anyone about it, and I'm still going to write it. So there. But I have to write the kids' book first. And finish the one I first-drafted while pregnant. And have a go at another one that's sort of half-written already. So Ludicrously Ambitious Book may only just get started in 2009, if that.

Oh yes, and I'm going to try and win a dictionary on Countdown. Or maybe a teapot. I have an audition tomorrow! I'm terribly excited! I've been practising an' evryfink!

*Where does this phrase come from ("My bad")? I first saw it on Anna's blog, but other people seem to say it too.

**It's probably just as pretentious and ridiculous of me to have a room in the house called 'my study' as it is to have one called 'the blue room', but I don't care. I have both. And no, I don't do much studying in my study. But I have written two novels here. And it is my favourite room in the house. And all mine. And if I want to give it a silly name, then I flippin' well will.

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Love Magic

2008-12-28T23:10:00.003Z

It's 20 years since I studied German, but I've just been amusing myself attempting a (very clumsy) translation of the German blurb and biog for my latest book...

Blurb:
Sexy and hilarious: A highly entertaining and quirky romance.
Henrietta had hoped that her move to the small town of Hebden Bridge would bring her peace and quiet. But no sooner has she moved in than her new neighbor Tawny sets up a successful New Age cult. And then there's the gorgeous and morose Leo, who is a magician but would rather not be, and his girlfriend, the charming Belle. Before you know it a confusing romance has begun, and nobody knows where it will end, or how Leo can get himself out of the whole mess without the help of magic. A magnificent satire on New Age cults and magic - told with much heart and humor. Do some psychic dancing yourself - and then try it out with your neighbours.

("Sexy and urkomisch: ein hoch unterhaltsamer Liebesreigen der etwas anderen Art.
Ruhe und Frieden hatte sich Henrietta von ihrem Umzug ins kleine Hebden Bridge erhofft. Doch damit ist es vorbei, als ihre neue Nachbarin Tawny diesen erfolgreichen Esoterik-Kult gründet. Dann sind da noch Leo, der hübsche, aber griesgrämige Zauberer, der eigentlich keiner mehr sein möchte; und seine Freundin, die liebreizende Belle - und schon beginnt ein verwirrender Liebesreigen, an dessen Ende niemand mehr so recht weiß, wie er ohne magische Hilfe wieder aus dem ganzen Schlamassel herausfinden soll ... Eine großartige Satire auf Esoterikkult und Magie - erzählt mit viel Herz und Humor. Tanz den Seelenzauber - dann klappt's auch mit den Nachbarn.")

Biog:
Clare Sudbery lives in Manchester. This highly creative author and mother of two has lived an animated life as, variously, a fanatical Scrabble player, a (failed) trapeze artist, a maths and philosophy graduate, a cleaner, a vegetarian and a lesbian member of a workers' cooperative, as well as a meat-eating, heterosexual computer programmer. She has therefore a tale to tell for every occasion!

("Clare Sudbery lebt in Manchester. Die freischaffende Autorin und Mutter zweier Kinder hat ein bewegtes Leben als fanatische Scrabble-Spielerin, (gescheiterte) Trapezkünstlerin, studierte Mathematikerin und Philosophin, Putzfrau, vegetarische, lesbische Angehörige einer Arbeiterinnen-Kooperative sowie fleischessende, heterosexuelle Computerprogrammiererin hinter sich. Sie hat also auf alle Fälle eine Menge zu erzählen!")

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Love Magic With Hindrances

2008-12-28T18:34:00.003Z

Oooooooh, no time to talk in detail, but thanks to Rob I've just noticed my book is up on German Amazon. I've no idea how final any of this is, as I've had no official word from anyone, but it seems we have a title and a cover and a blurb...

When I have more time I'll translate properly, but in the meantime here is the rather entertaining results from a free online tranlsation engine....

(for the original German see below)

Title: Love Magic With Hindrances

Blurb:
Sexy and urkomisch: a highly entertaining love round of that something other type quiet and peace Henrietta of its move had hoped for itself into the small Hebden Bridge. Yet therewith it is past when its new neighbor Tawny establishes this successful Esoterik cult. Then yet Leo, the pretty, but morose magician who would like to be actually no more are there; and its friend, the dearly charming would bark - and already begins a confusing love round, at whose end no one so quite knows more, like he without magic aid again out of the entire Schlamassel find out should... A magnificent satire on Esoterikkult and magic - tells with much heart and humor. Dance the soul magic - then work out it also with the neighbors.

Biog:
Clare Sudbery lives in Manchester. The free creating author and mother of these children has a moved life as a fanatical Scrabble player, (failed) trapeze artist, studied mathematician and philosopher, cleaner, vegetarian, lesbian member of a worker cooperative as well as meat eating, heterosexual computer programmer behind itself. It has therefore a quantity on all cases to tell!

(and in German...)

Title: Liebeszauber mit Hindernissen

Blurb:
Sexy und urkomisch: ein hoch unterhaltsamer Liebesreigen der etwas anderen Art
Ruhe und Frieden hatte sich Henrietta von ihrem Umzug ins kleine Hebden Bridge erhofft. Doch damit ist es vorbei, als ihre neue Nachbarin Tawny diesen erfolgreichen Esoterik-Kult gründet. Dann sind da noch Leo, der hübsche, aber griesgrämige Zauberer, der eigentlich keiner mehr sein möchte; und seine Freundin, die liebreizende Belle - und schon beginnt ein verwirrender Liebesreigen, an dessen Ende niemand mehr so recht weiß, wie er ohne magische Hilfe wieder aus dem ganzen Schlamassel herausfinden soll ... Eine großartige Satire auf Esoterikkult und Magie - erzählt mit viel Herz und Humor. Tanz den Seelenzauber - dann klappt's auch mit den Nachbarn.

Biog:
Clare Sudbery lebt in Manchester. Die freischaffende Autorin und Mutter zweier Kinder hat ein bewegtes Leben als fanatische Scrabble-Spielerin, (gescheiterte) Trapezkünstlerin, studierte Mathematikerin und Philosophin, Putzfrau, vegetarische, lesbische Angehörige einer Arbeiterinnen-Kooperative sowie fleischessende, heterosexuelle Computerprogrammiererin hinter sich. Sie hat also auf alle Fälle eine Menge zu erzählen!

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Sandwiches

2008-12-28T03:39:00.004Z

"You English, with your sandwiches, on the bread which is so limp and the edges, so square. You are obsessed with these foods but they are so horrible! Ugh."

That wasn't a real person, saying that. Or at least maybe it was, very likely it was, but they never said it in range of my ears. No, that was said to me by one of the imaginary people that live in my brain. They follow me round and talk to me. This one was French, and was berating me as I drove down the motorway with a sandwich on my knee and a song in my heart.

For I happen to think that the sandwich - and particularly the British sandwich, with its neat square edges and nice soft bread - is a rather wonderful invention. Because I'm one of those weirdos who can't be doing with complicated tasty food that takes ages to make and more ages to eat. As Tom Robbins once said, it's the maintenance that gets me down about being human. And eating is just maintenance. Refuelling. It gets in the way of living. So you can go away with your crusty bread that needs two hands, sixty teeth and an oblivion of crumbs to eat. I want my food conveniently packaged. I like my eatables formatted in a way which allows for variety (so many different flavours of sandwich) (but OK, I might nearly always plump for ham, tuna or chicken) (and salad) (a sandwich isn't a sandwich without a little bit of something crunchy), but can be eaten with one hand. On the go. Without making a mess. Or losing half of it down some crack or other. Or cutting your tender mouth on sharp unfriendly crustiness. And can be made for yourself, cheaply and quickly, as a last minute thing, when you realise you're off out the door again on some errand or other, and you haven't got any money and you've forgotten to eat.

My handbag often contains sandwiches. And nearly always a cereal bar, or flapjack, or some emergency snack or other. Number One Son said to me today, "I think we should call your handbag The Magic Handbag, because it always has food in it." And what if you're caught on the hop, with no sandwiches in your handbag? Why, you can visit almost any shop in Britain and find a fridge in the corner containing sandwiches!

They are magic. I like them.

Can you tell?

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Always look on the bright side...

2008-12-24T03:28:00.001Z

This is a terrible cheat of a post, copied as it is from what I said in Bete's comment box. You're all reading Bete's blog by now, right? You should. It's good. I'm addicted. But anyway. He was talking about morbid fears and worries, and this is what I said... and I liked it, so I'm copying it here. Pollyannaesqueness an' all.

Two of my closest friends lost their fathers this month. Both were particularly stressful deaths. Another close friend is languishing on a sofa after major surgery.

Me? I'm pretty good. OK, so I'm poor and lacking in a much-awaited book deal, but I have the wanted child I went through hell to get, and I'm a full time writer looking forward to three (yes, three!) planned books to write in 2009, and I don't have to go to a job, and I have all I ever wanted. So I'm happy.

I learnt a long time ago that it really fucks you up if you allow other people's misfortunes to get you down. It also does them no good whatsoever. It's singularly unhelpful to everyone. So I don't do it any more.

Here's the way I look at it: I don't want my friends to be unhappy. I don't really want anyone to be unhappy. I want the whole world to contain as much happiness as is physically and philosophically possible. And this is a ridiculous position to hold unless I also extend the principle to myself. Because I'm human too, and just as I want my hearest and dearest to go well, they want the same for me. And I care about them. So I owe it to them to do my damnedest to raise my head and not dwell on stuff.

As for my own mortality, I don't think much about that. What's the point? When I'm dead I won't care. And impending bad luck? Of course bad things will happen to me. Whether or not I anticipate them. So why bother? Why not just continue blithely on, assuming that everything will be fine? And when the shit hits the fan, why not look forward to when the graph bends back on itself and good times come again?

I don't always manage this. I am by nature a worrier. But this is what I tell myself: When my head snaps up and I think, oh God, what if my son is dead? What if he has been hit by a car and nobody has told me yet? Well, if he's dead, he's dead. I'll find out soon enough. There's nothing I can do about it. Ignorance is bliss. At the moment I'm happy because I haven't yet been informed of his death. The misery will come soon enough. I should make the most of this state. And more generally: When the misery comes, it will be miserable. But as long as it's not here, I should make the most of its absence. My job, everybody's job, is to maximise global happiness. And that job starts here, in this chair.

PS I'm also drawn to death, darkness, gloom and despair. In a [whisper] kind-of-revelling-in-it sort of a way. I was brought up by a woman whose idea of a good Sunday out was to visit random churchyards and read the gravestones. And wrote children's books about necromancy. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. Each to their own. Melancholy can be beautiful. As long as you remember it's just a hobby, and doesn't mean you have to be miserable.

P.P.S. Happy Christmas!

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What to Write

2008-12-22T03:22:00.002Z

I'm always worrying that I'm no good at appealing to mainstream audiences. My books are just a little too quirky. So I think things like this: I am a human being with good insight, I must be able to reach a large number of people by portraying the things we have in common. Which sounds good, but what I'm really talking about is stripping out the aspects of my books which may make them less accessible, i.e. the aspects which are linked to my unusual life experiences. In other words... appealing to the lowest common denominator. Which is silly.

I should be doing the opposite. The way to reach out to readers isn't to remove enriching detail. My unusual characters / settings / experiences won't alienate readers as long as the core human stuff is well portrayed. As they say, write about what you know. People like reading about things / people they don't have direct experience of. What's important is to be honest and passionate and not try and hide aspects of yourself / your writing in order to please some mythical audience.

The 'too quirky' thing is just an excuse. Good writing is good writing, and if it's good enough it should transcend everything else. So I just need to write well, be as passionate and honest as possible, and not worry about the market. For instance I know my characters are sometimes weak. If I work harder at them, it won't matter whether they're quirky or not. And anyway, like I said above, people are interested in interesting characters. Quirky can / should feed into, rather than detract from, this. And the same goes for plot, setting, style etc.

Thus endeth the thought.

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Doorstepped

2008-12-19T03:17:00.002Z

The other day, I was woken by a noise outside. I went to the window wearing nothing but a T shirt, and saw an empty car parked outside the house with its driver door open. I thought the driver must be standing on either mine or the next door neighbour's doorstep. I was standing right up against the window, craning my neck, trying to see.

Suddenly I realised the man who works in the DIY shop across the road was standing in the street waving at me. I was mortified. Instead of waving back, I ducked back behind the curtain. Then I felt very silly. I thought I should have at least waved back. And I still wanted to know whose car it was, but I was too embarrassed to open the curtain again. I tried to peep through the crack, but the DIY man was still there and I think he saw me again, and I felt even sillier.

Finally I looked again after I was sure he'd gone, but the car had gone too. Then the phone rang. It was a friend, saying she'd just popped a card through the door and left a present on the doorstep. Finally I realised the DIY man had been trying to tell me there was someone leaving a parcel on my doorstep. Doh.

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Is this how rich people do it?

2008-12-16T00:27:00.003Z

I've made about £200 in the last week, by sitting still. I'm due some money from my German publisher, and the pound has been plummeting against the Euro. Overall I'm £700 better off than I would have been if I was paid when the deal was first struck, back in the spring*.

I feel a bit guilty about it. Faintly uneasy. And slightly naughty. As though I'm involved in some kind of scam.

Life is weird.

Of course, some other tits-up economical happening will occur before I actually see the money, and it'll be worth ten pence. Maybe eleven.

Speaking of which, is it not one of the most annoying things when the bank pays you interest on your current account? You can be over a thousand pounds in credit, and then the statement arrives.

"Oh wow, really, you're giving me 9p? A whole nine pennies? A fifth of a packet of crisps? A tenth of a quart of milk? A millionth of a car?"

Why the fuck do they even bother? It's not pleasing. It doesn't make me happy. I'm not bowled over by their munificence. I'm just pissed off.

* [NB. If you are planning to make money writing books, factor this in: It's not unusual for the money to arrive twelve months after the news]

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Roll Over Beethoven

2008-12-16T00:16:00.004Z

Seen on a kids' quiz show this afternoon. A team of three are presented with a multiple choice question:

Who composed the wedding march?
1. Mozart
2. Beethoven
3. Mendelssohn

The children confer. "Well it can't be Beethoven, cos he's a dog."

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My Chins, My Family and Me

2008-12-12T03:00:00.001Z

Update: Apols for previous broken link. Did it in a hurry before going away for weekend. Should work now...

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Countdown, here I come!

2008-12-09T14:17:00.002Z

Tee hee, I have an audition in January, to go on Countdown. Of course they may well reject me for being too boring or too stupid, but forgive me a little hubris for thinking I'm neither of those...

I shall have to practise! Apparently it's all very informal and low tech. They test your ability to do the game, but with no visual aids - they just give you letters and numbers and you have to write them down.

I'm only average at the wordy bit (I generally manage 6- and 7-letter words, rarely 8 or 9) and utterly rubbish at the conundrum, but I'm good at the numbers. I'll be happy if I win a teapot. Which might not happen (unless everyone gets a teapot? But I don't think they do).

Haha. I'm excited. Even though there'll be no Vorderman. Boo.

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Flicking Scabs

2008-12-08T07:30:00.000Z

6-yr-old: "Clare, what's this on my leg? Is it a bit of old food?"

Me: "No, it's a scab."

6-yr-old: "So can I pick it off and flick it?"

Me: "I don't think it's ready yet. You'd probably start bleeding again."

6-yr-old: "Oh."

Me: "Did you know some people call scabs magic plasters? They're made out of blood. They cover up sore bits, then magically drop off when the sore bits are better."

6-yr-old: "And then you can flick them?"

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Sticky Stupid

2008-12-06T03:24:00.001Z

My son only sleeps solidly at night time, between about 11pm and 10am. During the day he rarely sleeps more than half an hour. So this is the only time of day when I can start a task and know I'll get a good run at it with no interruptions. But I do get tired, so in reality it means I have about 2-3 hours per night when I can get stuff done. As you can see it's past 3am, I've been sitting at this Goddamned desk for over two hours, probably three... precious time... and what have I been doing? Trying to get a fucking Word doc formatted correctly to print out address labels for Xmas cards. I think I finally got it sussed, but wasted a lot of misprinted sheets of sticky labels along the way... but now that it finally works I suddenly realise... I've run out of fucking labels. Already wasted a stupid amount of time on it, could have written the addresses out by hand several times over in the time I've wasted... and now I'll have to do that anyway. Cos I've run out of labels. And to think of all the other jobs I oculd have been doing in the time... and now it's going to be 3.30am before I'm in bed and I'm not going to get enough sleep and...

AAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGHHH.

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The Human / Dancer Conundrum

2008-12-05T23:18:00.003Z

There's this track they're playing everywhere at the moment. It's by the Killers, apparently (whoever they are). I doubt very much I'm the first person to comment on this, but it's annoying me so I'll say it anyway. It has this lyric: "Are we human, or are we dancers?" and all I can think is, THE TWO ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE.

Sorry. It's not that I'm a dancer, or feel any great need to defend them or anything, it's just a REALLY STUPID LYRIC.

Thank you. That is all.

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Have You Forgotten Yet?

2008-12-01T07:36:00.001Z

Part One

Following on from Friday, when I was transcribing bits from a novel called "Have You Forgotten Yet?" which I wrote two chapters of when I was 16...

And then my favourite bit, supposed to be fiction but actually just a long description of the tortures I regularly put myself through when thinking about the 21-yr-old who broke my 16-yr-old heart:

"It Worried her. Unfortunately, so did most things. She was increasingly aware and appreciative of the fact that she was experiencing a Great Change. Experiencing, she liked to think, was the wrong word. Instigating, she liked to think. That was what worried her. It shouldn't worry her, though. According to her new self-imposed Rules of Life, the cause of her change was unimportant. It should be enough that she was changing. That Worried her too.

The trouble was, six months ago she had been more or less as happily ignorant as the rest of the world. She had met Richard. He thought about a lot of things she didn't, but she realised they were worth thinking about, and she was the kind of person who would have thought about them if she'd thought of it. She had agreed wholeheartedly with him that most people were very screwed up and didn't even know it, and they never really considered their own opinions or the way their minds worked.

Because she agreed with him, she immediately accepted and shared a feeling of superiority over others, contempt because she considered these things and they didn't. But now, after an intense relationship which in itself seemed as though it had probably been a mistake because she had never been honest with herself, she was at last alone and, finally, honest with herself. Finally, she was a superior being who really considered her considerations.

But if she had never had this extremely unusual relationship with Richard, she would never have been able to look back at it and realise how very dishonest she had been, with herself most of all, and would never have proceeded to put things right and really search her true feelings. If she had never met Richard, she would never have been introduced to these new ways of thinking, no-one would have been able to explain Life to her from a viewpoint remotely touching Richard's. So was she, in fact, simply becoming a person moulded to Richard's ideals? Was her whole progress, her whole new self simply Richard's creation?

She had frequently caught herself out recently thinking things simply because she knew Richard would approve. Changing herself to a state of mind in which she could become more like Richard. This Worried her.

Surely, though, she and Richard would never have been so close if it hadn't been for the fact that they had such remarkably similar minds? Surely he had simply enhanced and developed her true inner self, which had been waiting for just that, and her new self was so very like him, and so very much a person he would approve of, because this was the person he had spotted when he met her, the person he had been drawn to, the person she had proceeded to bury unwittingly in layers of affection, cuddles, kisses, witty conversation and conventional love, because that is what she had considered was the right thing to be?

So: she thought he had lost sight of the original perceptive, intuitive girl and become overwhelmed and stifled by a conventional 'close' relationship in which he had felt compelled to spend every spare moment, every private thought with someone else and he had finally ended all ties, losing all hope of the 'flexible close relationship' which he had believed in.

He had returned to his former friends, his former solitude, leaving Ann, bewildered, overwhelmed, upset, and, finally, enlightened. The real Ann, or so she felt, began, hesitantly, to emerge. She had not yet, though, reached a stage where she felt confident to show this person to the world at large. She still presented an insecure, giggly, slightly bored countenance to her schoolfriends, though the mask did seem to be slipping; she was showing more and more her scorn for the everyday quibbles and foibles of the world, not least her own, of which she was increasingly ashamed, but also increasingly defensive, as she enjoyed a good giggle and it annoyed her when 'people like Richard' as she would occasionally view him, were so very snooty and scornful of such things.

Needles to say, it Worried her.

She had been interested to observe, recently, the true meaning of the verb 'to worry.' She had never noticed before, that the phrase 'the dog is worrying the bone' was not simply employing a different meaning of the verb 'to worry' but was in fact using it to mean exactly the same as in 'she was worried by current world affairs.'"

Tee hee, how's that for sixteen-yr-old angst?

"she was the kind of person who would have thought about them if she'd thought of it."

Hilarious. Particularly as I don't seem to have changed. Still worrying about writing a "deep" novel, still worrying that people might think I'm silly and childish and then thinking fuck it, I like being silly and childish... hmm.

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I am not a thought

2008-11-28T07:19:00.001Z

I'm having a big clear-out at the mo, and keep finding interesting things. This evening I found three attempts at novel-writing, all done in my teens (none of them got past chapter two).

The first one is my favourite. It was written when I was 16, soon after I split up with My First Love (as mentioned in my 1985 diary, here for instance). It's very autobiographical, but also very philosophical, and contains such gems as this:

"She shut the book on Taoism. If she had understood it correctly, the novel she was about to write would have to undergo a lot of re-thought. 'Not that there's any reason why I should immediately Do What It Tells Me,' she reprimanded herself sternly. She wished it weren't so easy to hear a confidently-expressed opinion and immediately feel the need to mould herself to it."

and this:

"She wanted to Write a Novel in order that other people would read it and be impressed by the true superiority of her mind. She had intended to make it extremely intelectual [sic], full of plenty of thoughts on life, long descriptions and space-filling, so that no-one should guess it was written by a 16-yr-old and people would accept it as a serious novel."

and this:

"According to Taoism she could abandon attempts to assume a sophisticated literary style and simply be herself; tell a story, try to transmit a message in her own language, leave out any pretension. But surely this would mean it would not be accepted by publishers and fail to impress those misty beings who she wanted to impress?"

and this:

"She was fully aware of the fact that she didn't know who she was, what she wanted, where she was going, it was a well-cliched question to which she could find no real answers except that she was a teenager, and it was well-known that this was the most confusing period of life, when people 'found' themselves, pondered for a few years on the actual reason for their existence and eventually found an answer. Or did it simply mean that her mind was more open to queries, but after a while, without ever having truly reached any answer or decision, it would find itself a rut, finally give up? asking questions and accept ignorance and an illusion of happiness, concluding that it now knew what it wanted and get it? It worried her. She was sure that she should seize on her state of mind and make the most of it, really make an effort to understand her existence before the doors were locked for ever."

and this:

"She was a Thinking Girl, she knew that, but if she needed a philosophy then what already-existing philosophy of her own was she basing this need on?"

and this:

"I am here.
Now.
My thoughts are so very disconnected, distant.
I am not a thought.
Not a being in my brain. When I think, I feel far away. In an abstract plane of existence. Then I suddenly comprehend that I am the only one. Everything, everyone else is OUTSIDE. Only something transmitted to me through sight, sound, belief."

and this:

"I am the centre of all I perceive. I do not know that anyone else exists, but I would never have considered pondering upon their existence unless one of them had suggested to me that I have no proof."

and this:

"I can consider my future, my past, my experiences, my opinions, my ambitions, my needs, my worries, but I cannot comprehend Me. In The Present. A complicated network of nerves, impulses, cells. Scarred, shaped, coloured only by the past, and assured of continued survival only by the future. I have fingers above and toes below only because that is the way in which the human race has evolved."

and this:

"She had experienced these instances of bewilderment / understanding before. She could not endure them for long. She could well imagine writing a science fiction novel about a man who had such a clear picture of exactly the life he was experiencing and the fundamental improbability of it all truly existing, that he would go insane."

and this:

"She wonderd if she would have been so very determined to be an author, seeing in everything the possibility for a plot, if she had not had a mother who was also an author. If, but, or when, very useless prepositions really, and very typical of the English language."

and this:

"She could not seem to stop herself from imagining herself on a chat show, telling the world about her childhood."

[to be continued here, on Mon 1st Dec]

___

Ectopic

2008-11-26T13:45:00.004Z

No, don't worry, not an ectopic pregnancy. They're horrid. That would be horrid. I'm not having one of them.

But for ages now I've noticed that sometimes when I get uber-tired, late at night, I get a weird fluttery sensation in my throat.

With hindsight I'm very surprised that my hypochondria hadn't kicked in yet. I would have expected me to self-diagnose everything from cancer to subcutaneous egg-laying spiders by now. But for some reason I'd just noted it and then forgotten all about it. It's just that funny thing that happens when I'm tired.

Then last night I suddenly decided that actually, it wasn't exactly in my throat. It was more like upper chest, and oh my God, is it my heart? So I tried taking my pulse while the flutters were going on, but Oscar was being skrikey and distracting so I couldn't get any kind of obvious conclusion. I tried again while I was singing him to sleep with The Endless Lullaby, but my own singing somehow prevented me from feeling my pulse properly. Then finally he was asleep and I could focus on what I was doing and hmmmm, somehow my pulse seemed to miss a beat every time the flutter happened.

I still thought I was probably imagining it and it was probably indigestion or something, but I went to bed before I was intending, then got up early and rang the doctor in the five-minute window you get between 8am and 8.05 if you want an appointment that day.

And there I am in the surgery, feeling silly, because I seem to make doctor's appointments every five minutes and it's never anything serious, but anyway describing my symptoms and thinking how laughable they sound.

"Oh yes," he says. "It's called an ectopic beat."

What? You mean it really is my heart?

"Yes, but it's nothing to worry about and they probably wouldn't do anything to treat it anyway."

So, we decided I should give up caffeine (again), as I think that's when it happens: When it's late at night, I'm super-tired and I've been drinking coffee or my super-strength fair trade cocoa what is simultaneously comfort-drink and a stimulant.

If the caffeine-free-ness doesn't get rid of it, there'll be ECGs and stuff, but it's still nothing to worry about.

And of course it's only after I leave that I think of all the useful questions. Like, I can handle living without coffee, I've done that before, but my lovely hot chocolate? I mean, he said it doesn't really matter, right? So maybe I can just carry on drinking and fluttering and everything can continue as normal? Or do I have to never have caffeine ever again? And do I officially have a heart-thingy? Do I have to announce it to people like yoga instructors and aerobics teachers and aeroplanes and other people who ask about these things?

And what is it with me and caffeine? I gave it up a long time ago cos it give me heartburn and I was also suffering from anxiety. Then I developed a bit of a thing for it during pregnancy cos I was getting so very very tired, and one cup of strong filter coffee each day really perked me up... but it exacerbated my IBS. Gave me diarrhoea and stomach cramps, in fact. And now it's fucking with my heart, on only one cup a day? Caffeine really doesn't like me, does it?

My body's behaving a bit like my car at the moment: Showing its age, frequently breaking down, full of little quirks and foibles so that simple tasks have to be approached from oblique angles and a lot of maintenance is required. Just since Oscar was born I have had sore/tingle wrists, forearms and knuckles (carpal tunnel syndrome), a weird-shaped stomach (muscle diverification), painful knees (worn joints), a hurty back (heavy baby, general wear and tear), leaky bladder (weak pelvic floor), and now this. Pah. I want a refund.

But the weird patch of ouchy skin under my thumbnail is apparently not cancer, as I thought, just a wart.

So that's all right then.

Update: According to this site here (I know, I know, never trust anything you read on the internet, but still...) the ectopic thing really isn't anything to worry about and I don't even need to give up caffeine, except that they seem to imply it should be more random than my experience, but still, probably nothing to worry about. And my pulse, BP etc are all fine and the flutteriness isn't painful or even uncomfortable so it really isn't anything to worry about.

___

Being Sensible

2008-11-24T01:18:00.002Z

The "Party Like it's 1999" series is temporarily suspended, pending approval. I had a bit of a Sensible Moment. Which is all very well, but now the blog is contentless. I get so little computer time these days, I've taken to having marathon blog-writing sessions and then splitting the results into parts and scheduling them to be posted in advance.

So, um. what do I have to report? Oscar is lovely. Teething at the moment, but even that isn't phasing him much. It just means he wants to chew everything, but hasn't got the manual dexterity to put things in his mouth without dropping them or jabbing himself in the gums, which makes him annoyed. But even that only means minor whingeing from time to time. This evening he wouldn't go to sleep and kept chuckling at everything. Which may have something to do with the pub lunch I had this afternoon, which involved the chocolatiest chocolate pudding ever, and two pots of super-strong tea, culminating in far more caffeine than I/he am/is used to.

He's four months old now, does a lot of smiling and a fair bit of laughing, also cooiung, gurgling, squeaking and squealing with delight. He can't roll over yet. That's the next thing, then sitting up, reaching out for things, crawling, reaching out to be picked up. I'm getting bored now, want him to learn something else. He's a lovely easy baby though, in that he doesn't cry much and sleeps well at night, although quite demanding during the day, hence all my jobs getting done at stupid a.m.

Last night I drank two pints!! of beer and listened to a lot of glam rock after watching some documentary or other about it on the telly. The first pop music I was ever aware of / into was glam rock. It was the mid 70s, I was five or six. There are a whole load of singles from that time that send me into ecstasies of nostalgia and always have. By people such as Slade, Mud, Sweet, T. Rex, Suzi Quatro, Status Quo. I particularly liked Tiger Feet (I used to imagine people with tigers' feet, it was a nice image) and Girls Grab the Boys (made me think of kiss chase).

When I was six, I had this massive surge of nostalgia for my fifth summer (1974). I think that's when I first experienced nostalgia. It was incredibly strong. It was like it had been the best summer in the whole world ever, and there would never be one like it again. I think it may have been about this time that I developed all these nostalgic attachments to all those glam rock songs, but there was one track above all others that from that point until, well, now, had this powerful effect on me whenever I heard it. It was / is the epitome of cosy warm home-coming nostalgia. I played it to Ally last night and he didn;t get it at all, said it was just bog-standard 70s rock. It's Davy's on the Road Again, by (I think) Manfred Mann. I just think it's gorgeous. It wasn't even very famous, I have no idea why it has such a strong effect. Maybe it was playing during some significant event in my life, but if so I don't know what.

I also don't know how I heard all these tracks, as I'm pretty sure I didn't have control over any radios at that age, and my dad was a Radio 3 / modern jazz / Beatles and The Who man. We did watch Top of the Pops as a family though, so maybe that was the sole source of my exposure to the pop music of the time. Well anyway, last night I had fun playing all the old tracks. And drinking two cans of beer.

A small thing I noticed in the midts of it all: Our cats do enjoy jumping from surface to surface in the kitchen. Sideboard, kitchen table, work surfaces, they're all pretty much the same height, and good vantage points for keeping an eye out for mice and dogs. I guess if they were lions in the wild, they'd be perching on rocks. And then I thought how much lions would appreciate it if you scattered kitchen units around the African savannahs. Perfect for perching on. Not sure anyone else owuld appreciate it, though. And maybe they'd need to be proportionately outsized, to account for the size difference between domestic cats and lions.

I leave you with that thought. Good night.

___

Venn That Tune

2008-11-22T01:24:00.004Z

Bringing the Poetry of Maths to the Magic of Pop!

I just bought six copies of Salvadore Vincent's new book, Venn That Tune, cos it's such a perect choice for people who may be hard to buy for otherwise.

It was published Nov 13th, and (to copy from Salvadore / Andrew Viner's PR material) is a book of classic song titles portrayed as Venn diagrams and graphs – what’s not to love?

Here are some sample pages:

See more at www.vennthattune.com, where you can order the book from Amazon, as well as buy Venn That Tune cards, clothes and other accessories, or join him on Facebook.

___

Fairy Tales, Part Five

2008-11-11T07:30:00.008Z

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

That night, I went to bed at a decent time. So when I visited the following day, I was more composed. And there were no birthday parties, so the place itself was much more relaxed and relaxing.

Barbie knew who I was straight away, and remembered that I had visited the previous day. The staff brought them some afternoon tea - toast and jam, and biscuits. Barbie was determined to give me hers. I tried to refuse, but in the end we compromised, and she sent for a knife so we could cut it in half and share it. This had always been her job - to provide for those who visited - and she wasn't giving it up lightly.

We went upstairs to their room, and Oscar gurgled happily on the floor while Felix showed them his gymnastics and then played hide and seek under one of their beds. We looked at an old sketchbook of Bill's, containing sketches of Barbie, her brothers, Bill's sister, when they were all young. I helped change the settings on Bill's mobile phone. I felt useful, and the conversation wasn't stilted.

I drove back to their house - the one that was only mentioned in code, the one Barbie couldn't remember ("What is my home, I wonder?") - much happier.

We lit the fire I had laid that morning, toasted marshmallows and had bedtime stories by the hearth.

That night I looked through a giant box of photographs and picked out my favourites to put on the mantelpiece. There was one of Barbie and Bill on their wedding day - late thirties, I think. Barbie is wearing a printed silk day dress covered in tiny leaping deer. I have this dress in my wardrobe. I loved vintage clothing when I was a teenager, and Barbie gave it to me then. My mum remembered how during her own childhood, she loved to look at the deer. It felt very odd, she said, to see me wearing it. But I wouldn't fit into it now. My grandma was a very thin young woman.

I had long phone conversations that night with my mum and my aunt, describing the visits and all that I had found in the house. I admitted to reading Barbie's diaries and was reassured that she had always said people could read them. They were not hidden away. My mum told me how Barbie liked to have her daily "Quiet Time", when she would read her Aldous Huxley and various other writings on theology, philosophy, psychology. We discussed the possibility of taking The Perennial Philosophy into the care home. Barbie couldn't really read it any more, but she could hold it. She would probably still remember that it had meaning for her. She could leaf through it and see the cuttings, carefully inserted between the pages. She could place it at the bottom of her clothes drawer.

I created a Visitors' Book for subsequent visitors to the house, and wrote a great long entry describing my stay. I packed, making the most of the time when my boys were asleep. I stayed up late again - 3am this time - and again was discombobulated the following morning through lack of sleep.

At the breakfast table I finished reading Elaine (their live-in carer)'s diary. Her last entry described the day she took them to their new home. How Bill sat upright in the front seat and stared ahead, not looking back. How Barbie sat in the back, crying, with Elaine's dog's head in her lap, saying, "Is this the last time I'll see this house? Is this the last time I'll see this garden? Is this the last time I'll see this gate post?" When Elaine said her final goodbye at the care home, Bill cried. Elaine described it as one of the worst days of her life.

I sat there, looking out of the window at the beautiful autumnal fell, and cried yet again. Such sad, sad images. And of course I'm crying now.

It's possible for them to be taken out for day trips. If they wanted, they could revisit their house. It's not on the market yet. But everyone seems to agree that it wouldn't be helpful. It's already part of their past.

While I was there on the second visit, Harold, the previous day's birthday boy, stopped for a chat. He was very interested in, and appreciative of, Oscar and Felix. He told me about the cat and the puppy that live in the home. He told me about his great-great grandchildren. It was an animated conversation, and at one point I glanced at Bill. He was beaming at us all with unmasked delight.

I asked Bill how he was settling in. "Very well," he said.

"Fewer worries now, I suppose?" I said.

"No worries at all," he said.

"No worries at all."

Vigil of Nuptial Mass
by Barbie

I see now on the eve of our new love,
Our days together as a shining stream,
The turbulence of our discoveries -
The moulding of the pattern of our dream.

With a new tenderness I now look back,
And see with older eyes our flaming days,
And smooth them with faint fingers of farewell,
Knowing our love will flow in different ways.

All that I lose, I know I will receive
In different coin - I will learn with use,
And with surrender let me not regret,
My obligations let me not refuse.

Help me to give for all your freedom lost,
A new companionship - a patience new,
A free dependance and a loyalty,
A love that strengthened, will itself renew.

May we be blest in our new way of life,
May we each help the other to be strong,
And in the consummation of our love,
Find how completely do we each belong.

___

Fairy Tales, Part Four

2008-11-09T07:30:00.007Z

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

They were both in the lounge, where the residents were lined up in chairs around the outside of the room, waiting for a party to start. It was a 90th birthday do for Harold, one of the other "inmates" (Bill's name for them).

There was no space for me and my sons to join them, so they moved to two armchairs in the hallway, where apparently they spend most of their time. In what was once a mansion this hallway is the hub, with a giant sweeping staircase, a huge arched window and doorways leading off to all the other parts of the house.

Barbie didn't seem sure who I was. She repeatedly asked for Oscar and Felix's names, and whether I had any other children. Bill had no such difficulties. He is the older and more physically infirm of the two, but his mind is still sharp. Felix drew them both a picture of a ship, and they took it in turns to hold Oscar until he needed feeding. Barbie was pleased to see me do this. And finally, when I explained that I was Ally's partner, she knew who I was.

I tried my best to make conversation. I had been told that Barbie didn't easily remember their house in the Lake District and that Bill preferred not to talk about it, so I tried to avoid that subject. But I told Barbie how I had found the 1927 school magazine, and she was pleased and knew what I meant. Also the photos of she and Bill in their bathing costumes at Mevagissey, in the 30s. I tried to think of other things to talk about. I had thought that I could ask about their youths, about what it was like to be a young couple in the 1930s, but neither of them could remember details and I felt mean for drawing attention to their failing memories. The 90th birthday party was in full swing around us, Oscar was fidgety and kept wanting fed, Felix was bored and restless, and I was exhausted after only four and a half hours' sleep.

The plan had been to stay a little longer and be shown their room, but I didn't want to rush them into moving when they clearly weren't ready yet, I had run out of conversation and my nerves were jangling, so I made my excuses and left. I tried to stay jolly and light, but my face wouldn't obey my manners, and as we left my eyes met Bill's and I'm sure he understood how desperate I was feeling.

As I was driving away, I cried. Because Barbie remembered my boyfriend before she remembered her own granddaughter. Because of all those diaries, meticulously kept and for what? To be read by whom? To be forgotten by their author before she was even dead? Because of The Perennial Philosophy and a thinking thoughtful woman who could no longer even read. Because my grandmother was still there, was still a lovely sweet woman who loved children and babies and kept saying what a fruitful lot we were, but was only half there.

Felix said he wanted to go back to Manchester, and I cried.

[to be continued here]

INVASION
by Barbie

There are dim realms of my spirit crowned
With airy filmiest fancies of my mind;
And there I go adventuring, along
White paths of introspect that slimly wind
Away into deep shadows of my thought -
By all the tended shrines of little loves,
Serene each one in separate place apart,
- Secret and lovely - where the spirit moves
Contentedly, dreaming and slowly-going,
Through the quietness there ...
always I have kept
These inner places jealously apart;
And these have tended and these loved, cleanswept
With draughts of pleasure, and of pain.
And in my times of pain the thought of these -
My little loves - would come with gentleness,
And the sweet air of them, and peace would ease
The tiredness that I felt, and dustiness.
And I've been rich in treasures as a king.
Proud in the beauty that I held secure,
Knowing the pleasure that my thoughts could bring.
And then you come - and through these ways you press
In sudden ownership: .... and yet there seems
To be a still more perfect harmony
Smoothing and lightly touching all my dreams
And so completing them .... and I have found
That there's no shrine that I may keep apart
For you - you wonder hand in hand with me
At will - through all the valleys of my heart.

___

Faulty Equipment

2008-11-08T15:35:00.002Z

Have you ever noticed how tempting it is to view GPs and other health professionals as though they were manufacturers of faulty equipment?

"This isn't working. What are you going to do about it?"

Also: Sumo wrestlers look like babies, but with tiny heads.

___

Fairy Tales, Part Three

2008-11-07T17:30:00.003Z

Part One
Part Two

Barbie and Bill are in a care home, but their house in the Lake District hasn't yet been sold. I decided to take Felix and Oscar with me, to stay there for three nights, visiting them during the day.

Whenever I'd thought of them leaving, tears had threatened. They valued their independence for so long and so well, and neither had been keen on the thought of leaving. Their home and most of their possessions, left behind, probably never to be seen again. But it wasn't until I got out of the car and let myself into their empty house that it really hit me. Such a well-known place, with all its familiar smells, but the key ingredients missing.

We had been eating fruit in the car, and along with bags of food and belongings I found myself carrying two banana skins into the house. I looked around for the compost bin, and that's when I lost control of my eyes. The composting of vegetable waste is deeply ingrained in me, and all because of Barbie. As soon as I had a garden of my own she lent me a book on how to create compost, and yet here I was in her house, adding skins to a heap that she would never make use of, that probably nobody would ever use.

Felix was nervous of the big empty house, wouldn't go anywhere on his own and made me change the sleeping arrangements so that he, Oscar and I all shared a bedroom, and I had to sit at the end of his bed with Oscar feeding on my lap until he went to sleep. But finally both he and Oscar were in bed and I had the house to myself.

It smells of books, old paper and old wooden furniture. The staircase smells of Digestive biscuits. The staircase at Whitewells smelt the same, I don't know why. One of the first things Felix did when we arrived was to look for the Digestives tin ("I like my great grandma, she gives me biscuits"). He was so disappointed to find it contained only water biscuits.

My mother had fished out a manuscript, the very first novel my grandmother wrote. When she was told the house would have to be sold to pay the nursing home fees, she wondered whether this book could be found and sent round the publishers again. It was a carbon copy and covered in crossings-out and edit marks, making it hard to read. There were also carbon copies of three other unpublished novels (she had five published altogether, I think), and my mum had been wondering what happened to the top copies. I'm good at finding things, so my mission was to find these missing manuscripts.

I'm also incredibly nosy. I looked everywhere, becoming increasingly aware that I wasn't just looking for manuscripts. I was looking for... well, I'm not sure. Insight? Intrigue?

I looked in clothes drawers, in wardrobes, under beds, on top of cupboards. I found journals everywhere. The most recent were written on scraps of paper and the backs of envelopes and bundled together with string, but it seemed that up until a year or two ago she kept a diary every day of her adult life. And I read them. Well, I dipped into them. And felt guilty. But did it anyway. Somehow, now that she can no longer write...

I wouldn't have even considered it a year ago.

I found so much. Not just the journals, but letters and photographs. Cuttings kept, favourite and interesting passages from books, carefully transcribed. Articles, poems and short stories written by Barbie. A letter to Santa written by my sister and kept with Barbie's handkerchiefs. A letter written by a fictional character created by my mother and/or her sisters as a child, and something about a "Lovers' Gang". Stories and articles written by my mother. Letters written by myself as a teenager. Letters written by my aunt when she was briefly at boarding school. Photographs of my grandparents as a young couple in the 30s, on the beach at Mevagissey, larking about. A copy of my grandmother's school magazine from 1927, containing a poem about violets by one Barbara J.

Dipping into those journals, various themes recurred. An interest in theology and philosophy. Several quotes from The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley, a copy of which I found at the bottom of a clothes drawer, tatty and spineless and full of clippings and letters. Careful notes of piano lessons and piano practice from a 1951 diary. Details of housework and gardening and what she cooked for tea. Constant mention of her children and grandchildren, how nice it was to hear their voices when they rang. In a 1979 diary, a description of a visit from my mother, my sister and me. She would have been in her sixties then, and I suddenly appreciated what a lot of housework and cooking she did when we all went to visit. It must have been exhausting, and she describes being tired, but she wouldn't have dreamt of avoiding it as long as she was capable.

She describes one meal, cooked for us all, with Golden Cap for pudding. I used to love Golden Cap. It was an upside down suet pudding, with golden syrup on the top / bottom. A bit like sticky toffee pudding. With custard (I didn't like the skin). Yum yum. And fresh buttered artichokes, from the garden.

The other weekend I visited my friend Rachael's allotment, and she dug me up some artichokes, which I boiled and ate with Lurpak butter (slightly salted), and thought of Barbie.

And after I had searched through the house and created a pile of things to look at later (letters, photographs, poems, short stories) and things to take home and read (manuscripts of three novels) and even some work (the manuscript of her first, semi-autobiographical, novel, which I am charged with editing according to her notes and making readable for the rest of the family), I sat down and read Elaine's diaries.

Elaine is the woman who lived with them, approximately two weeks out of every four, in the last eighteen months in their own home, and took care of them. She kept a diary of her visits and has left it behind for the famliy to read.

It gripped me. It was beautifully written, witty, and very honest. Some days she had to escape to the neighbour's house or to the beach with her dog. Sometimes she hid things from them, or locked Barbie out of the garden, and all of it faithfully recorded.

I didn't go to bed until 2.30am, and then under duress. I wanted to keep reading, keep looking. I was woken at 7am by my eldest son. The usual trick of sending him downstairs to watch telly on his own wouldn't work in this big old empty house ("It's like a castle!"), so I trugged down after him, bleary-eyed.

Later that day, tired and slightly overwrought, with a son who was missing his dad and asking to go home, I pulled up in the drive of my grandparents' new home.

[to be continued here]

High Vocation
by Barbie

A day of tasks all dovetailed in,
Each following one from one,
Dictated by necessity, -
Things clamouring to be done:
The dishes swimming in the sink,
The kettle's urgent noise,
The black and sluggish-drawing flue
The floor dust hid by toys -
It seems at whiles there isn't time
To stop and know one's mind;
Explore the Spirit's plenty
A quietness to find.

But when the evening lamps are lit,
The fire burns clear and bright,
And curtains with their gentle folds
Are drawn against the night;
The bustling voices of the day
Are quietened and stilled,
And languid hands lie in the lap -
The heart with peace is filled...
The body's tiredness frees the mind
Relaxed - and lights the way
To know itself, and find anew
A purpose in the day.
Then comes that lovely certainty,
One to one's task belongs -
The work is worthy of the way,
The singer of the songs.

___

unstoppable water

2008-11-07T01:49:00.000Z

I had that bath.

I broke the tap.

Bugger.

___

Damned by Faint Success

2008-11-07T00:49:00.002Z

Ugh, it's no use, I'm sick of having blog content dictated or censored by the needs of PR.

The fact is, I am an only-very-slightly-successful-and-actually-almost-failed author. I'm not supposed to write these things on my blog in case some publisher is reading and thinking about publishing me and gets put off by the stench of not-very-success or maybe even failure, but fuck it, that's what I say.

I just read about somebody else getting a book deal - a two-book deal, in fact. And I am pleased for them, really I am. If they're getting published it means they wrote something publishable, and that's all there is to it, and it's a fucking hard feat to pull off, so WELL DONE THEM. Really. I'm not being sarcastic. It's not their fault that they've achieved the holy grail and I haven't (well, not really). I'm being jealous, is what I'm being. Jealous, and suffering from a minor lapse in optimism and patience.

I suffer from book-related jealousy a lot. Luckily I'm all sensible and kind and nice and well-adjusted, so it doesn't manifest as ill-will towards my jealousees (of which there are many), just a faint self-directed unattractive whining why-can't-I-have-what-they've-got misery.

My first novel was published, and getting that news really was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me, and that excitement carried me forward for a good year or two, but it was only a small publisher, only a thousand pounds, I was interviewed on Woman's Hour but then the publisher ceased trading and now it's out of print and people keep buying the stupid buggering thing on fucking Amazon Marketplace for a penny (ONE MEASLY PENNY!) and I don't even know about it (no, that's right, I don't actually know, I'm just guessing, but I bet they fucking do) let alone receive any income for it.

And now there's a second novel, and it's being published, hooray! But oh. In Germany. In German. Ha bloody ha, and it is funny, and on my better days, which to be fair are most of them, I laugh about it, ho ho, it's being published but nobody I know will be able to read it because it's in a foreign fucking language (apart from those that speak the foreign fucking language, well done you, no really, it's rather clever of you) and supposedly there are other countries all over the world that would like to maybe perhaps well possibly publish it, and they're reading it right now, as are various UK people, which is why I really shouldn't be writing this, but FUCK IT THIS HAS BEEN TRUE FOR OVER TWELVE FUCKING MONTHS and meanwhile nobody ever buys it, and Frankfurt has been and gone, and now there's a fucking recession on top of everyfuckingthing else, and meanwhile I have supposedly been an actual real full time freelance writer for 17 months, except I haven't cos of pregnancies and babies and to be honest I haven't actually earnt practically any money at all, and I'm going to start up again in January and write yet another book and finish the one I wrote earlier this year, and who knows maybe one of them will sell and maybe the German book will do really well and people will buy it off the back of that but then again MAYBE THEY FUCKING WON'T just like they fucking haven't so far and oh fuck it, this is what it's like being a writer.

Just in case you were wondering. This is what it's like.

And now I've got that off my chest I'm going to go and sulk in the bath.

___