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!

TIMING; Belt or Otherwise

A belt snapped and off went my Clio to the scrap-yard, to be ripped apart. What health bounds before me on these legs? Shall I walk everywhere or wait for buses? I could stride towards the train; a half-way trip of exercise and relaxation – more reading!

The life of a passenger might not be quite so bad. There, I’ve talked myself into it, a quiet happiness and more money…but then I’d be able to pay my debts so actually less money to me, but a more settled life and future.

Yes, this is a whole new way of life. When I was in Glasgow I lived beside the subway and could walk to work – though I always took the subway for that one stop. But this is almost the Highlands! It takes over an hour to get to Glasgow  on the bus; it would take me days to get to work! Well, that’s an exaggeration. A long time, but I could spend all that time reading. I like that. I haven’t had a lot of time for reading recently on account of fannying about on the net.

So, everything in front of me is rosy. That romantic far off future where everything is perfect and dreams come true. The truth of it is the reality of public transport and our notoriously changeable weather. I can work from home, for the moment, but as soon as my boss can change my shifts to all days I’ll be out in the cold, waiting for a bus – with my book.

Meanwhile, I’ll be saving up all the money I’m not paying to get to work, to buy a new old banger!

A NEW DIARY

Last year I kept a mundane diary and I’m glad it’s done; it was pretty boring, except for a few exciting bits, like my granddaughter rushed to hospital with Meningitis and a grandson kidnapped by his useless father and taken to live in Birmingham.

     So, when my daughter gave me another diary for Christmas I nearly had a fit. It’s okay, it’s not full page days. I’ve taken on the task of filling this book with a poem for each day (or just a scribble in poetic form)…and without further ado, I present to you, the first few days of 2010:

1^st

Ooh the yearly eating and drinking

not driving home but staying overnight

at someone’s pleasure is becoming stale –

next year I might forgo the alcoholic part

and drive back to my controlled space

where I depend only on myself, and the patience

of Npower regarding old, multiplying bills.

Already, the change is upon me; it sifts possibilities

I feel pregnant with it all.

 

2^nd

Editing, so that someone can sit in judgement

announce me writerly enough for full membership

of their community – makes me want to sit up

pay attention to the change that’s coming.

I am not the same as I was.

 

3^rd

Ooh the last of five days off – it hovers

and drips away. A new year waits in the corners

normality will assume its position and settle

around my shoulders like a boa constrictor.

 

4^th

The first alarm of the year sounds itself

too early in this snow-laden gloom

I wish it to Hell and gone, wish for solid riches

to pay bills, to shoulder the burden

of my existence while I play with words.

Come hither, First Novel

end your days with me.

Let me type those two words, The End

on your gravestone

for this is the year of your birth.

 

5^th

The white world of 2010 stretches our patience –

this is not Norway; we didn’t sign-up for this ice

and our cars are a constant worry. God

give us the power to stay on our feet

and not break bones or skid off roundabouts.

Let the raindrops fall and we’ll never complain

again. We want to feel the warmth of soft

Scottish rain on our hair, see it carry away

the snow, slush and ice…and wash our cars.

 

I LOVE MY PHONE

I LOVE MY CAR

PORTENT

Oh my God. I’ve just begun the first day of the new decade with an iron in my hand! I haven’t touched an iron in years. What does this mean?

Well, it started because I made myself a new bag, that had to be pressed flat, so while I was doing that I thought I’d iron a shirt that I can’t wear because I won’t (normally) iron. One little detail and my life has slipped down some kind of housewifey tangent; I’ll have to do something more normal to reset the balance. I had a Scotch egg for breakfast – could that be considered too straight because of the ingredients? And now I’m on to the ginger beer.

In two hours I will be sipping sherry, preparing to scoff an enormous meal at my friend’s enormous dinner table in her enormous dining room, then on to wine which inevitably leads to a change of rooms and the whisky – Ooh the whisky. So I’d better go find something suitable to wear for this gathering and dig out an entertaining poem to read.

 

STAR STRING

There was something strange in the sky tonight. A little while ago I went into the kitchen to see if I could see the Blue moon and instead noticed a star really sparkling. The longer I looked at it the longer it became, until it resembled a string of stars, like maybe three or five, going down in a line. Very weird. I opened the window to see properly in case it was the double glazing affecting my eyesight but it was really real. Actually, I’ll just go and see if it’s still there – hang on…No, the sky is swamped in a great stretch of grey cloud, but I’ll have another look before I settle down and try to sleep, again.

So I begin the new decade sleepless; maybe this is part of my old age, that I’ll only ever need a few hours of sleep a couple of times a night – all the more time to write!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

And here we are, in the countdown to a new decade – wonder what they’ll call this one: the tennies? So this is where I promise to be good, better, perfect; to write more, finish a novel, clean the flat, lay the carpets, sit at a desk instead of lounging in bed with the laptop…be more professional. There is a profession that’s conducted in a bed and it’s not writing! Oh but I love this bed, this room and my position in it. I almost got the armchair emptied today – maybe tomorrow, or later tonight.

I’ve even got a little drink beside me; leftover chardonnay from my visitors in June – waste not want not. There’s lemonade in it, but that’s flat, but I might be driving tomorrow so I don’t want to open the whisky, and it’s such a waste to drink by yourself. I’m happy with my flat old wine and lemonade.

My biggest success this year has been the fall of television. I meant to call Virgin today and cancel the cable; I hardly watch it at all now. So, this could be it – the year I become a real writer as opposed to a couch potato! Hmmm, howz about that then?

I began a brand new short story today for a competition in January and plan on putting this large bum on the seat to do just that more often. I know I’ve said that before but what better time to say it than the end of a decade and the birth of a new one.

See ya sooner than you think. :-)