Happy New Year

Remember to make your New Year's Resolutions

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic and
Timely


as I learned on my most recent bout of residential management training (I also had to climb a pole, got stuck and cried, but lets not rake all that up again, shall we?)

My Resolutions are to do more good stuff, and less bad stuff.

What are yours?

Disappointment

I looked at this picture today. It is not mine, but from here. This is The Mount, in Fleetwood, Lancashire. A little bit more googling and browsing and I turned up this - The Mount's official blog.

The Mount is the name of the hill - a pretend, artificially designed hill - and the thing on top of it is called the pavilion. You climb (not a hard job, unless you're pushing a toddler in a pram, as I was) right to the top and, apart from the view, which is of a grey sea and a lighthouse and some memorials to lost fishermen and a lost fishing industry, getting up there is a disappointment. Right at the top, and the pavilion - not as nice in real life as it is in the photograph - is shut up and shutters down. It doesn't have opening hours - it's been like that for years and no-one I've been able to ask (including the very nice librarians at Fleetwood Library) knows what it is like inside. Although they did tell me all about Decimus (tenth child - his mother probably had better stories) Burton.

I suppose I was hoping for a tea-shop or at the very least a skanky public inconvenience. Nope. I took a note of the graffiti and moved on.

I was out in Fleetwood because I was wondering how to do research for a story I was planning to write. Going there and looking at things seemed to be a good start, although because I didn't know exactly what I was doing - either with the research, or the writing, or even the pram, the trip seemed like a disappointment.

I'm just going through the copy edits on A Kind of Intimacy and have been reminded that the hill and the pavilion thing became a setting for a nasty scene towards the end of the book - my Annie climbs up there and - out of breath but hopeful - meets a bad man in a denim jacket who didn't bring flowers but a bad joke I stole from my brother.

Seven

Socrates, who has a new chapbook out and Stephen, who edits Robot Melon, have both tagged me to say seven things about myself.

1. I think I broke a small plastic pink hoover with a multi-tool in order to get the batteries out of it this morning. I wanted them for my digital camera. The person who owns the small plastic pink hoover is probably going to come back home before the person who has the power to fix the possibly broken small pink hoover comes home. I am scared.

2. My mood over the past two months or so has been affected by the complete works of Paul Auster, who I discovered in October and haven't left alone since (is this a stage?) as well as Johnny Cash live albums (the prison ones, predictably) and Sara Maitland's silence and, a total lack of nicotine and an increase in food and an intense bout of writing and less sleep followed by an intense bout of not writing and more sleep.

3. I really like oranges, satsumas and clementines. Christmas is a boom time for small orange fruit. My lips and face are constantly sticky with orange juice. There are lots of little piles of peel where ever I go. Peel piles. I love the peel piles.

4. I'm really worried about one of my LITHOPS. It has gone sort of soft. I don't know why. I am certain I haven't overwatered it. I watered it a tiny bit. But I watered the other one too and that one is thriving.

5. I had a bit of an epiphany in the last six weeks or so. Not a bolt of lightening, but a gradual dawning. I care more about what I think about myself than I care about what other people think of me. I think most people come to this when they are about fourteen. I'm a late starter. I do less things I don't want to do now. I don't do thinks that make me feel icky or embarrassed any more. I please myself. I like it, so far. It could be the death of my 'career'.

6. I'm going to have hassleback potatoes with every meal. I'm having them tonight. They are delicious. I'm going to take the leftovers with me to work tomorrow and arrange a posy of hassleback potatoes on my desk.

7. One of these is a lie. Whenever I'm tagged I usually lie to get a small and petty revenge on being forced to write about things I don't want to write about.

Hassleback + Novel

My agent got back to me with some feedback about Cold Light. He thinks the same way as I do about where it is now and where it needs to go next, which is a relief. I like getting a pat on the head and being sent back to the coal face for a few more months.

I've taken a little break from it for a while to do the final checking of the manuscript for A Kind of Intimacy (Out In 88 Days Buy Now while Stocks Last Available at all Good Bookshops) and I am amazed at how closely the book has been read by my editor. She has noticed little details about high heels, hem lines and birthdays. She's tolerated my indiscriminate use of the comma with a graciousness that awes me.

Christmas involved successful experiments with the hassleback potato, inspired by Emma J. Lannie's story.

I finished the Adorna/Desiderus blog project and am interviewed, along with Tolu, about the product and process here. If you're interested in how we did it, what we thought we were playing at, or have some praise/abuse/tips to send our way, the litfest blog is the place to do it. Thank you to those who helped: acknowledgements are here.

Defrost

I'm feeling a bit better now. I bought some new trousers and ironed them with scented ironing water.

My computer at home is unplugged. I haven't picked up a pen outside work for over a week now.

I didn't destroy anything. I Flirted With The Idea. That seemed to be enough.

I had some nice emails. A friend told me that Dostoevsky burned the first draft of Crime and Punishment. That made me feel better. Thank you.

My friend threw a wet towel at me as I languished in bed. He said I needed to get up and take a shower and stop moaning. I did. That made me feel better. Thank you.

I have some excellent ideas for the final editing tweaking of Cold Light.

Number three came to me a few days ago, almost fully formed. I'm excited again.

Also, BT agree that I don't owe them any money. They owe me money. I have a credit from them. I should have new shiny tinterwebs at home before Christmas. I am going to spend the birthday of Jesus catching up on my emails.

Not Writing

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by a feature writer for a magazine. She came to my house and I made her tea. It was very nice. About half way through the interview I mentioned that I kept a diary and she asked if she could see it. I took her to my room and opened the wardrobe and showed her the box of notebooks (nearly a hundred of them, I think - and many are A4 sized and hardbacked) that I have been writing since I was thirteen. Also lots and lots of boxes of paper and typed things.

I think I can now pinpoint that as the start of my slide. It wasn't emailing the novel off. It started a bit earlier than that. Seeing that box.

I can't tell you how overwhelming the urge is to start undoing. I fancy burning or deleting. A little bit at a time, the way it was written. Just rubbing out slowly.

I am not depressed. I am mainly curious about what would happen. I want to stop all these words. I am thinking, every day, about Sarah Maitland's silence.

My feelings at the moment are quiet, and a bit contemptuous or disgusted.


Can people forget how to read? Like, see words and not have an image or a message telapathed into their brain?


I want to make spelling errors in public.

I want to delete files at random on my computer and lock myself out of my email account.

97% Shame

LITHOPS STATUS: Green

That's right. I finished a good-enough-to-let-someone-else-see-it-draft-of-Cold-Light and emailed it to my agent last week.

Then I went home and laid on my bed and got roaring drunk. Roaring. I didn't even eat oranges. While I was lying on my bed, odd lines from the novel kept popping into my head. Lines like: 'Uncle Ron dropped his trousers for a bag of Everton Mints' and 'Gordon buys petrol in tiny amounts' and 'the biggest eye in the world'. I sort of writhed (wrothe?) about in shame and tried to stop the email leaving my account and suffered a hangover and did it all again the next three or four nights.

Shame. Anxiety. Mainly shame. Some embarrassment. More shame.

My state at the moment is fragile and delicate. I'd like to be a Victorian lady in a white dress, fainting away onto a chaise lounge. I want to flutter my hand at my throat and sigh. Smelling salts. Indisposed. Does indisposed mean anxious and worried and nervy and generally slightly useless in a harmless, attention seeking way? I suppose it could mean bleeding or starving, but I mean attention seekingly crestfallen. Sigh. Swoon.

There are some good things.

A story of mine is forthcoming at Dogmatika. It is called 'A Bin Bag Full of Compost' and some of you may have already hear it because I read it at Beepfest, the time I failed to wear the pointy red shoes and displayed a remarkable lack of self control when presented with free bottles of beer.

I am also forthcoming at Sparks - a live lit night in Brighton organised by Jo Horsman. Because Brighton is about as far as it is possible to get from Preston and still be in the same country, Jo is going to read it for me. Thanks Jo!

On top of that, I am forthcoming at two festivals next year. Salford and Edinburgh.