Busy Hamster
Tuesday, November 23, 2004 , 7:16 PM
I took a breather between social outings on Sunday to go to a pub and write another short story — this time the correct length for the competition I had in mind. I won’t post it here, ’cause one of the conditions of the contest is that the piece be unpublished.
Okay, it is posted to my website, but I figure it doesn’t count if I don’t publish the address. Of course, if you’re really clever, you could probably find it if only you could figure out my naming convention for the site (namely that story filenames begin with “stry_” followed by the story name, and this story is named “The Half-Dead House”, and that I wouldn’t include the word “The”, a hyphen, or spaces in a filename).
I did also post my longer first story, though, which you’re welcome to read. It’s called “Spirits”.
Also, shortly after my mum sent me her sequel to the “Mixers” stories, my friend Paul pitched in his version of events. Hey, I thought I was supposed to be enteringwriting contests, not holding them!
Done like dinner.
Saturday, November 20, 2004 , 10:35 PM
My throat barely hurt at all this morning, and I felt full of energy, so after my requisite two-hour chat with my folks this fine Saturday morning, I went out with my writing gear to find a place to work. That was a bit of a challenge, because the high street is teeming with Christmas shoppers. I found a place, though, sat down with my notes, and made up the missing pieces of the story I wanted to write.
It was as easy as letting dogs out into the yard. Unfortunately, though, there’s a maximum word count of 750 words for the contest I wanted to submit this to. The story I ended up writing was 2328 words. Oops. So I let three times as many dogs out as I should have. I can’t make this story shorter without injuring it, so I’ll just have to write something else. I’ve already got something in mind.
This is why I don’t understand how people can say it took them ten years to write a book. An average novel is 100,000 words. So a person just needs 50 days like the one I just had, and there’s your book done.
I took myself out for supper and did my edits while I ate… Or rather, OVERate. And now I’m sitting in bed surrounded by notes and scraps of paper and books, with all kinds of extra time on my hands. Ahh, this is my favourite kind of Saturday.
Last night, I had a nice, easy evening talking to a new friend named Geoff, then Patrick joined us and we moved to The Waverley, where we watched Liz be busy and efficient, and Philip showed up, too. I left early, ’cause my throat was getting sore from the smoke and having to talk loudly, but still, being *almost* better felt SO good. Today is even more of a treat.
Last night I had a perfect moment, sitting with a shot of (medicinal) whisky, leaning with my chin on my hand, my mates chatting around me, in this old pub that’s covered in a thousand yellowed posters from decades of Fringe festivals, along with lanterns, two small crocodiles, a dozen metal contraptions of various utility, a few musical instruments, and a small postcard of the Queen and her consort looking surprisingly casual on the till.
I stole the moment for my story, and I nicked a detail from my friend Niall’s life, and cast Liz in it, too (just a walk on; she does speak, though — thank God she’s not Equity). It’s not like me to do that, to use threads of reality quite like that. Usually my work is, well, Tennessee Williams put it best:
“My work is emotionally autobiographical. It has no relationship to the actual events of my life, but it reflects the emotional currents of my life.”
I always find it a bit insulting when people say, “So where did you get that from?” as if I couldn’t have justmade it up, which is kinda my job. With these short stories, though, there isn’t the time to grow these details from scratch, so I found myself just nicking things from the window-boxes of others’ lives instead. Novels are so much easier to write.
I will post the story here, but not tonight. I’m working on my Pocket PC, ’cause if I turn on the PC (which I’d really have to do to add a new page to my site and update the navigation), it’ll suck away the rest of my evening.
It was great to have all my gear working and be able to work away from the house. Being healthy again was fun, too.
Okay, time to tackle some of this other stuff, and to do some outlining for the other story that I have to write. Seven hundred and fifty words isn’t much space to make something happen in. “He left the house, he had a meal, he went home” is about the scope of it. In two thousand words, you can also visit some friends, go to the zoo, and think about what’s happened, too.
*gulp*
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 , 9:47 PM
I’m sipping tea. Not real tea, of course. I hate the stuff. This is green tea with lemon or somesuch. I’ve already done the old trick of putting my head over a pot of steaming water, only I added a few drops of thyme oil to the water. That’s what Verna says to do; she’s the favourite alternative health practicioner for the people atwork. I’ve also been gargling with salt water.
As you might have guessed, I’m sick.
My uvula is a swollen, sore earthworm that gets pulled down my throat every time I swallow.
Sickness is boring. I have short stories to write! I’ve got about four different ideas banging around my head like tricycles in an attic, but my body aches, and I don’t have the energy or concentration for a writing session. I have been able to do some outlining, though.
(*sips tea*)
I just called my mother. I saw she was online on this new program called Skype that we’ve been using to do VOIP or internet telephony. Talking is free now, so suddenly we’re having more conversations. I love the connection this gives me to my family. Technology can be a good thing. (It can also be a distraction that nibbles at one’s soul like sugar cookies, but that’s another matter.)
Mom said I get sick because “all you eat is parsley sandwiches”. That made me laugh out loud — inflicting pain on her, because her old iMac doesn’t handle sound very nicely.
I’ll “awa’ to ma kip early the nicht”. It was so nice to hear my mammy’s consoling voice: there’s nothing like being called “Snookums” by her. (And only her, mind!)
~
I took out my “industrial” this afternoon. It’s a piercing I had, a bar going across the top of my left ear. I had it done last summer when I was in Toronto. I kept thinking about being in the workshops at work next month, and visiting with my relatives the Sadlers before I go back. Having a needle shoved through your ear is a pretty strong statement. Every time I thought about it, asking myself why I had it, the answer was “No reason.” My body’s still rejecting it in icky ways, with lumpy scars and strange wetness, and the statement it makes is an empty one. That’s not the outward show I want to put on. So I took it out.
The different piercings I’ve had in that ear each followed some painful incident in my life. I guess it’s like sailors getting an earring when they cross the Cape of Good Hope (or so I’ve heard): a symbol of endurance. Rather than make such a commemoration, I think I’d rather walk forward into the future pain-free.
~
I just got an e-mail from a friend with the subject line “Nina”. This has happened to me a couple of times lately, people writing to me with nothing but someone else’s name in the subject line. I immediately assume that person is dead.
Nina wasn’t dead.
If you write e-mails, don’t do this.
P.P.S.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004 , 11:14 AM
One of my best mates from Toronto, Steve Heipel, has just been published in Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine.
His poem is called “Raspberries in Kelly’s Garden”, and appears on page 308.
Heip’s been whingeing forever about how he’d never be published, but to his credit, he still took action like someone who might be. So now he’s proven himself gloriously wrong, and has to shut up and accept that just maybe he’s talented.
(Not that publication is the final arbiter of who’s talented or not, but having other people think you are and be willing to put money behind your work does saysomething.)
Salut!
, 10:46 AM
“Hello. How are you? I am fine. I’m sorry I haven’t written in a long time.”
That’s a quote from pretty much every letter I wrote as a child to my Great Aunt Jen, who lived by herself in a flat in Glasgow, enjoyed the odd tipple, and liked to watch snooker on the telly.
I’ve been enjoying some nice quiet time, in-between fireworks with friends (Liz captured that event, saving me the effort), and catching up with some other mates. MyPocket PC has been in at the repair centre, which is a major knock to my lifestyle. It means I have to work from home, stuck in front of the PC while the broadband delivers every kind of distraction under the sun. I did manage to turn the computer off, though, and enjoy some quiet evenings with lots of time for reflection, making notes, working on some things I’ve been thinking about… and cooking. Lots of cooking. It’s not something I associate with myself, but I actually quite enjoy it. The simplicity of chopping vegetables is very calming, meditative.
I even baked a cake. A year ago, my brother sent me a birthday cake in the mail as a joke: a cake mix, candles, and a little tub of icing. The icing is gone — I dipped into it a while back on impulse, and had to throw it out when I left town for a few weeks (though I doubt there was anything real in it to go bad). But I still had the cake mix in my cupboard. I never have eggs in the flat, so I couldn’t add the last ingredient the cake needed. So finally this weekend I bought eggs and…
My oven is crap. It’s a little tin box with a tiny blue flame at the back (which I have to light manually, sticking my head in like Sylvia Plath). It doesn’t heat things properly, as anyone I’ve tried to bake for can attest to. So instead of half an hour, I left the cake in for an hour. Even then, one of the two loaves was still like chocolate pudding inside, but the outsides were splitting open like little models of the Grand Canyon, so I took them out and put them on the counter overnight. And yesterday, I ate cake! With vanilla ice cream and maple syrup — as if it wasn’t sweet enough.
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p>Yesterday my Pocket PC came back. I’m free! I can go outside again, out into the world. I can work from the library or a cafe. I can be amongst living, talking human beings! Except I’ve got so much food in the flat. Hm.
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