Word Soup #3

I'm away in Norwich now*, but thanks to the miracles of blog scheduling I am speaking to you from beyond time. If things go badly wrong with the trains, I could even be speaking to you from beyond the grave.

Treasure it.

If you're not in Norwich tonight like I am, but in Preston - or within a stone's throw of it, then go to the usual place (New Conti) at the usual time for an evening of fun and frolics.

I'm not hosting it this time - Ann The Poet of Kendal Brewery fame is taking the reins for an evening of performance poetry, music and open mike.

More here.



*Don't think this means you can come to my house, touch my special bookcase, sit in my brown chair and burgle my precious items. There's a man with a stick waiting for you. Oh yes, I know all about burglars.

More Trips Out

Tonight I shouldn't be blogging, I should be packing my bag and doing something nice to my hair, because I'm reading at the Norwich Debut evening tomorrow night. Apparently, I'm one of the 'hottest young writers around'

Hear that? Hot. Whhesshh!

I have a new story out in a collection about The Smiths edited by Peter Wild. If you like the Annie book, you'll probably like my story. It is called Some Girls are Bigger Than Others. Toby Litt did a review of the collection here.

The picture is a christmas pudding on fire. That's a clever and cunning reference to me being 'hot' (Whhesshh!) as well as an allusion to the last line of my Smiths story.

You'll have to read it to find out.

edited to add: gosh, I sound like a tool. My cringe-radar is all out today, I think.

Mole

I saw a mole on the way through the car park outside the prison yesterday. It was scuttling through the long grass. Ash coloured suedey coat and big digger hands the colour of horse-noses/mouse feet.

I've never seen a mole before.


When I came out of the prison in the afternoon and walked past the same bit of grass, I saw it again, on its back. I touched it and it was stiff.

Now I'd like to find out everything I can about moles.

Normal "high-quality" blog posts to resume soon.

Cambridge Japes

I had a lovely time. Thank you Rosey, Natalie, Alaysha (I hope that is right) Pam and Clare. It was emotional to be back.

This place is the first place that I felt at home and the first place where I felt reading and writing for a living was an acceptable ambition. It takes confidence to say you want to be a writer (even if you never say it out loud, it is still scary) and Newnham is where I started feeling confident. I love this place. And I loved doing my reading and answering questions and listening to all sorts of other people who are going to be all kinds of different writers.

Ace! Top Banana!

And, while I'm here, or rather, while I was rooting about on the internet, what a shame it was to discover that Newnham is hiking up the rent that students pay to live there 8.5 % ( a year. For five years.) as well as charging top-up-fees. I'd never be able to go there now. Not in a million years. I only just coped with the post-degree debt as it was.

It makes me sad.

I know good things aren't always (and maybe shouldn't always) be free, and I know that Newnham gives very generous bursaries and financial assistance to students who need it.

But all the same, it is probably a good idea not to make it so that only rich students are allowed to go to a place that has such a profound, long lasting effect on the women who study there.

Seems a bit old fashioned to me.

The talk I gave was for the arts soc. That's where Virgina Woolf first mentioned that a woman needed a room of her own in order to write. A room of her own and five hundred pounds a year. Which, by today's standards, is quite a lot more than the average wage, tons more (according to S of A figs) than the average writer earns from her writing, and maybe not enough to have a room of your own at Newnham.

Just saying.

Guess What?

I'm giving up the day job to be a real writer. For a little while, at least.

I think I'll miss my borrowers, but I'll like being able to wear my own (unironed, not work) trousers every day.

My work trousers can be lonely and creased at the very back of my wardrobe, near the uncomfortable shoes and the bags I don't like any more, and the new things I am denying that I have spent money on until a decent amount of time has elapsed since the last time I spent money on new things.

I hate you, work trousers.

Titivate

Those of you who peep at this blog in a reader might want to click through because I've just added a few things to the side-bar including (by popular demand) a list of Festivals, readings and events I'll be doing through the summer and autumn this year.

Blog Free

I've had a whole week on annual leave from my library job, and I've been able to spend lots of extra time with the small-fry.

Who told me yesterday she liked playing with me and me NOT being on the computer like I was ALWAYS not having my eyes on her but TYPING a story and she would not wait one more minute but play with me NOW.

She's got blue eyes, and her iris goes violet when she's pissed off. It's a stop-typing-put-your-eyes-on-my-eyes warning. Scary. Apparently, I've got a look like that too.

Guilt comes with motherhood and it's there no matter what you do, but if you're owed email, blame her, not me. I'm off to do some dressing up for a fairy-castle tea-party with my very own enemy of promise right now.

Freckleton Frolicks

Here's a rare thing on this blog - a picture of me doing my thing, 'my thing' in this case, being a reading and Q and A at Freckleton Library.

I decided to sit on the table instead of on the chair because there were lots of people and I wanted to be able to make sure the people at the back weren't snoring and talking amongst themselves. There were also two children in the group, which meant as I read I needed to do a bit of hasty editing to get rid of some of the rude words... (I have no problem with my small fry hearing colourful language, but you never can be too careful).

Highlights of the events were the chocolate eclairs and chats about writing afterwards, the interesting questions, signing books on the roof of my car (I tried to sneak away early because I had an attack of shyness) and the big nice bunch of flowers the Branch Manager gave me at the end.

One of the nicest, friendliest readings I've ever done. I like them much better when they turn into conversations, rather than me just standing opining into a microphone. Libraries rule. I'm on my way to another library tonight - Layton Library in Blackpool to join in with their readers' Orange Prize Eve party, and do a little reading for them.

If you're in the mood for looking at more pictures, here's a few from the last Word Soup.

Creative Writing Classes

I've had a few email enquires about the summer creative writing workshops that I'm doing. If you're interested in that sort of thing, all the info is here. If you're not, don't worry. I've got shed loads of interesting things to write about on this blog. Some of which will be happening soon and accompanied by pictures of bananas.

Word Soup #2

Last chance to get yourself on the train and come and see me practice my compering and more importantly, a whole line-up of not-me writing goodness at the New Continental, tonight at 8pm.

It's going to be a good one!

Bewilderbliss Interview

Here's an interview I did yesterday with the very nice Willow Hewitt from Manchester Writing and Bewilderbliss.

Bewilderbliss is a magazine and a website aimed at new writers in Manchester. They launched their first print anthology in March, during the same No Point night that I launched A Kind of Intimacy.

I think it's the first interview or feature that I've ever seen that acknowledges that I actually come from Preston and not Manchester. I like Manchester and since I studied there I have plenty of affection for and connection to the place.

But I like being from Preston, despite this truthful and very funny blog that gives you an insight into what it might be like to live here. If I lived in Manchester, where there are things to do in the evening, I might never get any writing done.

The Truth Inside the Lie

Max Dunbar picked up the little bit of discussion we were having here. Interesting stuff, and a reminder, as if we needed one, that is isn't only parents that may have things they want to say, but wonder if they should say on a blog.

Andy Dickinson, at the Bloggers' Meetup I co-ran and attended the other day, mentioned that unless you're very famous, blogs are a safe, almost anonymous place to kick around your ideas. His message - most people aren't reading your blog. That's very true - most of us don't have an audience half as big as we fear or hope for.

But I think Andy didn't account for the fact that to me, scribbling something on a piece of paper, in my own old-fashioned journal, or even trying to make it into a book, is almost disposable. Just because blogs are free and daily doesn't mean that they disappear as quickly as we or our audiences forget about them. Even if I delete this blog, it'll be on a cache or a waybackmachine somewhere.

Eeek! A thought to give you stage fright, if nothing else.

In Max Dunbar's post, he touches on something I believe in myself: sometimes the most truthful way of saying something is to put it inside the lie of a story. I'm not sure why that should be, but it certainly feels like the safest. And it makes answering the frequent: 'is your writing autobiographical' question all the more interesting to answer.

Yes, I say, I make it up.

Updates

Here's an interview with me on the Scribbler Blog - I'm number 4 in a series of interviews that Dean has been doing with all 12 of the Waterstone's New Voices lot, so if that's the sort of thing you're into, subscribing for the rest sounds like a plan.

Busy again - preparing workshops, funding applications and, best of all, a talk to give early next month at Newnham Women's Art Soc. I don't like clubs and societies, but this is the same society, the same venue, where Virginia Woolf gave a lecture that turned into A Room of One's Own.

Plus I get to go and stay in my old college and read in a room I was only allowed in to clean when I was actually studying there. And that is the only tit-ish comment I will make, because I'm actually so excited I've been bulk buying dresses from ebay (Jane and Sally my beautiful and well dressed friends - please ensure I don't shame myself) and rubbing my feet about under my desk whenever I think about it.

Next on the list of good news (I'm going to get out of the habit of moaning if I'm not careful) is a little letter I got at the weekend from CILIP, telling me that I'm now a real librarian. MCLIP. Chartered. Hooray! Apparently the doors of power will open and car insurance will be cheaper from now on. Non librarians, it is okay you have no idea what I am talking about. As you were.

Ace! Top Banana! Cocktail hour!

P.S If you're from Preston or nearby and you're reading this, you need to get yourself down to the New Continental for the first Preston Bloggers' Meetup - organised by Ed Walker and yours truly.

As Cool As Me

In Cognito

I read this, which made me a bit sad, because Emily's blog is one of my favourites right now. I used to read and write a lot more creative non-fiction than I do now, and I hope at some point to be able to go back to it and to make as elegant a job of it as Emily does.

But Emily's got a problem, and I can't even drive my measly bit of traffic her way without compounding it - which is how to write without revealing too much of yourself.

And how much is too much? I go by the cringe-quotient, but depending on how 'out in the world' I've been that day, sometimes my cringe reflex is on a hair trigger and its much easier and safer not to write at all.

It is something I think fiction writers struggle with as much as bloggers. The writing persona/e or 'style', which might be another way of describing what we are pretending to be when we write 'I' is something I've been thinking about in terms of how writing creatively for a blog is different to writing in a diary, which I also do, and different again from writing stories, which I also do, and different even more from writing things that are apparently not fiction, but borrow some of fiction's methods to tell their stories and yes, I do that a bit too.

I've been thinking about this, partly because I'm always thinking about it, and partly because I'm planning a workshop for beginner bloggers who are also writers later next month, and I'm wondering how to bring up these ideas in discussion without putting everyone off. I don't think starting a discussion about twitterfeed with a quote from Thomas Wyatt would appeal.

I know I expose much more of myself in my fiction than I ever do here (this nasty piece of exposure notwithstanding). But I also work in an environment where it's really important the borrowers don't know much about my personal life. So there's not much about my personal life on here, and what there is, I often make up...
(Gasp! All complainers can be directed to the title of this blog - up at the top where it has been for the last two + years). Maybe I'd blog a little bit more like Emily if I didn't work where I do.

I don't think it is about finding a voice, or a medium, a form or an audience - I think every successful piece of work is a fine fit of all of these things. So Emily's problem might be a conundrum about what words are on the page, and which of these words belong to the facts of her real life and equally, how many people read them.

What do you think? Chime in if you've got an opinion.

I've been drafting this blog post for about two days and I can't quite put my finger on a conclusion. I think I will one day. Probably on the back of an envelope somewhere, in scratchy writing no-one but me will read.

Top Banana

I've been informed I do far too much moaning on this blog. I also do far too much moaning in real life. What can I say? I enjoy it.

But Top Banana Days do exist.

There was a very nice review in the Independent.

And an American book deal.

I know Brian's been waiting for this one with bated breath.

And, just to even up the score: my throat hurts.

Ace!

Image stolen from Dead Insect

Linky

Here's another kind review of the Annie-book and here's an essay I wrote for Norm Geras' blog.

Things to do

Take a fair turn in doing the recycling
Stop washing the cat's food bowl with the human cloth
Take cups downstairs, not leave them at top of stairs
Formulate a dusting policy and/or strategy
Change hoover filter
Do you have to wash the inside of the bin?
Hem work trousers with needle and thread, not sticky tape.

Take own carrier bags to supermarket
Iron the back as well as the front of work shirts
Don't buy own-brand washing up liquid
Remember the playgroup forms
Where are the playgroup forms?
Find out about registering for online expenses claim.

Sweep out back yard
Stop banging on the party wall
Wash hair with two different kinds of shampoo
Find that cradle cap cream - the herbal expensive kind
Buy filing cabinet
Buy dynamo and do not use sarcastically
Inform A____ of change in bank details
Can I do telephone banking?
Make a list.

Preston's Poppies

Since January, I've been working on a number of linked writer and reader development projects in my community. I've set up a blog with the aim of rooting Preston writers out of the woodwork and getting them talking to each other. I've run a pilot creative writing course, had creative and business feedback on that and then planned a whole summer of writing workshops. I've put together a live lit night (Preston's first regular reading night) and collaborated in the creation of a community writing project that, if the funding comes through and I think it will, will take up a significant chunk of my summer. I'm also developing a regular sideline in manuscript appraisal and creative mentoring which is one of the most interesting and challenging kinds of work that I'm doing and something that I never thought I'd enjoy as much as I do.

Good time to switch to decaffeinated tea, eh?

There's going to come a time when I need to step back from this kind of work. It is draining, and it doesn't leave much time for novel writing or family life. But right now, it is intensely and immensely rewarding. I've stood on stage and spoken to people (not read - which is easy) and nothing awful happened. I've approached people I didn't know and asked them to tell me about their writing. I've refused to work for free, fallen down and ripped the patent on my best shoes (not a metaphor) , bought two boxes of paperstick 2020s and I've (drum roll please) learned about tax.

I used to think, along with lots of other people, that Preston was the end of the world - a kind of cultural black hole where people spent a lot of their time striving to be sullen, critical and mediocre (attitudes I perform very well myself.) Preston felt like the kind of place where being interested or interesting was dangerous - and more than a few of the writers, graphic designers, journalists, web developers, artists and musicians I've spoken to recently have been victims of Tall Poppy Syndrome somewhere along the line.

The best part about all of this busy, frightening, new work has been the people who I've been able to meet. Eeee, what a cliché. And that's coming from a misanthrope... In Broadgate, my own patch, and across the wider city, there are so many good things happening right now. I've met writers in Fulwood, Frenchwood, Plungington, Ribbleton and Howick. This isn't about cultural development or the burgeoning creative industries. I don't think this post is going to be interesting to most of the regular readers of this blog, but it might be interesting to me and a few of my new friends, who it is about.

Andrew, Mel, Ed, Steven, Chris, Viv, Liam, Kim, Tim and Riversider.

Extra Large Legs

My excellent and good friend The Rob took this picture at the London Book Fair.

See - I don't need to go Down South ever again. I've got a team of ninja spies.

P.S Soop The Looop was great, apart from lighting and laptop 'areas for development' as my boss The Council would say. Other areas for development include my compering, which leaves much to be desired (blushing, stuttering and muttering anyone? No? Didn't think so...)

I'm really excited about the next one. Emma and Annie are coming to town!!