TRUTH & FICTION

Aye, the years are fair drawing in; I’ve been thinking about dying, and how it could come all too soon. Really, I have pondered on the fact that my family are not long-lived and I might only have a very small amount of time left to do the things I want to do. Hopefully I will be the exception and will bang on ‘til I’m a centurion. Mostly, I want to see my grandchildren grow up but the fact is, that the longer I live the more likely it’ll be that I’ll lose a child and I definitely don’t want that.

So, to be that selfish I will have to be tough enough to keep going through the loss of my friends and writing buddies, and whatever the barmy politicians drag us into – the way they’re going the western world could be wiped out this decade!

Someone recently asked, why do you write? I said I wanted to entertain my future progeny with true stories, and strangers with my fiction and poetry. It’s so easy, these days, to communicate and spread our personal history; we can tell the stories that would have died with us.

When I was a child I loved to sit and listen to the adults talking, gossiping and telling tales of old childhoods; my children had only a little time to spend on that because technology was interfering; my grandchildren won’t have a minute to allow old tales to sink into their memory. I hope there will be at least one amongst those future grandchildren, however great, who will be a reader and perhaps a writer, but interested in what has gone before.

I have experienced a lot in my life, and the horror is hysterical in its own way – I will make it attractive and someone will read it, I’m sure. But, I’m having fun learning how to show them how it was for me…of course, I’ll fictionalise the sexy bits so they won’t know what’s true to me or someone else. Ordinary life will be straight and true.

EATING THAT FISH

The idea was to invite those who eat fish over to mine; I would cook number-three grandson’s catch and serve it up. So, the menu was:

Sea trout – cooked with lemon

Chips

Tomato ketchup

followed by

Marshmallows for pudding

I travelled across town by bus to pick up the three youngest and bounciest of my son’s children, and took them to the park for an hour – hoping to run the little devils calm. It didn’t work. Enthusiastically independent, they soon had me exhausted – it’s taken me all evening to get over it all!

The fish was lovely but they didn’t eat it because it was a real live (dead) animal and not covered in batter or breadcrumbs. An experiment gone wrong; they’re too young for real life.

What a great idea to have marshmallows for pudding – one half of the table racing the other to see how many we could eat.

I am so glad to be back in my hermit status; the flat has been trembling at the memory of their visit and things are almost back to normal.

When I returned them to their happy and relaxed parents, Bingo was laughing at the thought of me being in her shoes…and that was only with three of them and only for four hours! Oooh, I feel so old.

The Fisherman

Number 3 grandson caught his first fish - it's big enough to make his father jealous... and, it will be moving to a freezer near me verrrry soon!

I've given myself a deadline for the 1st of March to begin my healthy eating lifestyle, again. Out goes all the chocolate and in with all the fish, meat and eggs and green veg I can muster. Sad, but inevitable :(

PILLARS OF THE WORLD

This is the first book I’ve read this year, and I loved it. I was sucked into this world from the beginning and read it in a week – which is good for me.

Written by Anne Bishop who is the author of the bestselling Black Jewels Trilogy – well that’s what it said on the cover. I’m researching Fantasy as a genre because I want to write something witchy and magicky, so had called for suggestions. What a wonderful start; a very satisfying read.

The story drags us into a world where a struggle between humans and Fae has existed for generations; witches live in a kind of peace between them until the arrival of the witch-hunter.

It is written from many points of view which immediately gives the reader the three stars of the show in three quite short chapters. Something mysterious is happening to the world of the Fae, the witch-hunter is killing a witch, Death’s Mistress is gathering the dead, and our young MC is being treated unkindly in the village. What more could you want? I read on, and on. My first taste of Fantasy since I was a teenager is a success, I’m glad to report.

And now I have to choose another. I’ve had a great time these last few weeks, swapping books, and the day that five books were stuffed through my letter box was definitely red letter. Imagine, watching the postman squeezing all these brown parcels into that hole in the door – so fast that I couldn’t get to it to open it for him! I’ve abandoned a Terry Pratchet, The Wee Free Men and don’t think I’ll go back to it, yet. The Name of the Wind is calling to me so I might answer it first.

THE LONG HAUL

I’m saying goodbye to my old writing community; after three years it’ll seem strange not to click in there for a chat, but it’s time to move on, for a while. I might return at some point because it feels like home. I’m a bit like a teenager, running off to join the circus – belting out into the world to see what kind of life I can make for myself. More like what kind of trouble I can get myself into! No – I’m too old for trouble.

And, I’ve got a new one to pick up the pieces, to critique my blunders and help me shape this novel that feels as if it’s on the road to the end. This week I posted what I thought was a well-edited version of Chapter Two but there were a couple of great slovenly elephants sitting right in the middle of it! Cheek. Litopia has so many brilliant eyes and opinions that a writer can’t help but improve because of it. It’ll do me.

As the years went on, I neglected my old group, Women’s Fiction on WriteWords. I also neglected my writing but I keep the online friends I found there and hope to always have them around, in the ether, in the world of writers and artists – some of them are in Litopia too. Maybe all roads lead to this utopia for writers. I know that I’ve trawled and tried many, many groups and communities, as have a lot of fellow Litopians – so I’ve moved in lock stock and smoking barrel.

WriteWords is worth every penny of its yearly fee; it served me very well. Over the years I was also part of several other communities and enthusiastically took part in all sorts of writing games and exercises but now I need to settle down for the long haul; it’s time I was serious and put my nose to the ground/grind. I think Litopia is the grown-up place, the colony where career is held up to a mirror and you have to see your real self - not a picture of Dorian Gray.

My Bench at Loch Lomond

THE SUN IN MY FACE

On my way into work on the train; a train with a pretty clean window, for a change but the scene is not as stunning as it was the last two Mondays - but interesting.

I like the red blob; wonder whatever happened to the clown it might've been attached to!

There's something so peaceful about this - kind of holy, isn't it.

I'd like to live here, in a castle keep of my very own.

HAPPIER

I have just discovered Google Docs. How F.A.B. is that? I was prowling the app store looking for something to hold and move files, found a cheap office thing that invited me to connect with the Google Docs and I love it. I've never really used Google except to search...and here it's got all these lovely functions and stuff! You might not see me for days - weeks even!

So I've copied loads of bits of stories and ALL the novels over there so I can edit, write as the mood takes me when I'm out and somewhere with wifi. I've been inspired to blog three times tonight; once in my DIET blog too. Only good can come of this.

Well, What a Surprise - not

Well, I think I’ve battered Chapter One into the right kind of shape. Now I can push through the next four chapters to get to the muddy bit; the bit that hadn’t been written/created before I dived into Nano. This is where I have to take myself in hand and do the Billy Connolly impression – ‘Appreciate Cunningham, appreciate!’ to which I must reply, ‘Sir. Yes sir!’

I can feel the excitement bubbling up; the idea that I’m going to write through the missing middle of this book and eventually write the ending that’s just appeared in front of me (with a bit of help from Lulu) makes me want to freeze everything around me. I will sit down and do it, as much as I can as often as I can…but I’m still me – lazier than a sloth!

Internet and writing forums are my life blood but I don’t have to keep checking every ten minutes – I could get a whole paragraph done in the time I waste popping in and out of sites. Maybe a timetable would work. Pshaw! (I think that’s how they say that) ‘Know thyself!’ (Is that a bible quote?) This is just a little hump in the middle; it’s not a huge bloody mountain – it’s just that if feels like work. I like to slide along on the seat of my pants – do things off the cuff at the last minute.

I’ve been in this area for almost/about 15 months and am only now changing my doctor – days before I need my repeat prescription! It takes two weeks to get an introductory appointment so I have to go two days without my medication and pick up the scrip at the old place on Monday. Slap me now. Yes, I know I’ve demanded that before.

When I started this entry I didn’t plan on battering myself but it was inevitable.

TWINKLE

Thinking about fairies, my mind springs into a land of lilac and green. My whole bedroom is painted lilac (I was given the paint) and I stuck luminous stars on the ceiling with a crescent moon (was given them too) to bring a little magic into my life. The light shade is pale blue, an upside down cotton, four-sided pyramid with a tassel dangling about breast-height (this was another gift). If I could just get up off my arse and accessorise it would be little-people heaven, with crystals and all sorts of witchy bobbles. Actually, the ceiling is the only part of the room that could be called finished!

Though, I can feel the energy and impulse to lay carpets and style the walls with whacky and wonderful pictures, returning. The ideas sit in front of my eyes as I aim for sleep and slip back when I wake every morning. Soon, I tell myself, soon – but it’s almost the end of January already! I moved in here fifteen months ago and am still treading floorboards, looking at bare walls.

I suppose I could think of the flat as a new novel, or an autobiography, or an art journal; I’ve just bought a beautiful book about keeping an art journal, and created the first page. There are no fairies on that page but I have a lovely key-hook bar-thingy with fairies and tulips on the ends…and there’s a gorgeous pewter fairy who has lost her feet – I need to pin her up somewhere.

All my pretty things need homes; they want to be a part of my space – instead of hiding in drawers, cupboards, boxes and shelves. So, I shall spread my wings, sprinkle my fairy dust and wave my wand until this flat twinkles with eccentricity.

BABY STEPS

These legs were made for walking, and that’s just what they did. I walked into Alexandria yesterday, and this photograph is the proof that I was on a pavement. It wasn’t so bad, and only took about ten minutes. Of course you know that my first stop was a café, where I rested with my £1.40 latte and mused at the audacity of this extreme exercise. Then I took out the lovely iPod Touch and had a read of The Circular Staircase.

Being out in the world without wheels is strange, especially when you don’t have the luxury of the Glasgow underground to carry you super-quickly into town or the west end. I’ve only been in this area for about fifteen months and really don’t know much about the buses but as soon as the weather brightens I might remedy that with an all-day bus ticket on one of my days off. That’s a plan.

And I’m planning to do it all again today. I got a bus back yesterday, with a haul of books from the charity shop. All I need to do is get up and out of this flat. Oh but the sky is dull and grey and not inviting at all. There is no milk or toilet roll. It’s a new year and the universe has set me upon a new path so I should embrace it and socialise these old bones. Right, I’m up. I’m going.

LOCH LOMOND IN THE SNOW

And here's my loch, skirted with that long-lasting white stuff! That is my bench, on the point of land. A fantastic position to muse.

Ooh isn't it stunning? Even using the phone camera I've captured magic.

Give a little wave to The Maid of the Loch!

Just discovered that my real camera is broken - thank the gods for the phone :-)

What a great writing table!