Why bother?

I’m enjoying Newcourse Eve today – the day before my new course starts – Start writing fiction with the Open University.

You’re guessed it, I’m one of those people who has a novel ‘in me’  along with a liver and a kidney and a heart and the remains of the Weight Watcher’s choccie bic I just consumed.

Anyway, it got me thinking how very sad it is that so many people might be put off writing that elusive novel that they’ve always wanted to write cos they keep getting told they have a one in a million chance. OK, I have a one in a million chance so - hey – why bother? But that’s the thing. If I don’t bother, I will never ever write a novel. Never. And then my chances will become none in a million. You have to believe – you have to! Otherwise, what’s the darn point?  

And I’m thinking, if they wanna play the numbers game, let’s thinks of the stats; the chances of me ever getting published. First and more important – I am a writer by trade. It makes me laugh when people want to write a novel and yet they’ve never really written before! Well, I do it every day. I always have. I chose to do it for a living; I was tenacious and OK enough at writing to be allowed to do it for a living. And it’s not even about writing for a living. I write in every aspect of my life and pretty much force those around me to write in order to be part of my life. I don’t do telephone calls. I email and text, email and text. My poor hubby even had to resort to email to ask me out  – heck, I was surprised I didn’t insist on a proposal via email (he got down on bended knee in the middle of the woods on a beautiful Christmas Day in the end!) 

Second, my head is full of ideas and plots and narratives and characters. Again, it makes me sad when I hear an aspiring novelist who doesn’t know what they want to write about. WHY are you writing then? Surely the reason must be because you have an idea or a subject you wish to write about?

 If not, don’t bother …

But seriously, the aspiring writers amongst us need to at least feign arrogance to be in with the chance because if we didn’t at least pretend to ourselves that we believe we’re going to be published, then we’ll never try!  

Key to diet success? Eat chocolate … non-stop!

I just read on BBC News Online (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7056330.stm) that “fighting chocolate craving ‘just makes you eat more’ “.

So THAT’S why I had two helpings of Chinese on Saturday night followed by raspberry cheesecake and full fat ice cream. I was totally confused and bemused at the time, wondering what on earth possessed me! If only I’d eaten that darned chocolate bar earlier in the day …

 Well, now that I know, I’m just gonna eat choccie when I feel like it and not resist the urge. Morning, day and night. From now on, life will be far simpler. I will eat a healthy and balanced fat-free chocolate-crammed diet. What a gem!

It reminds me of that other headline I saw on BBC News Online once, that being overworked is the main reason for stress and tiredness. Well, whatdoyaknow … ! If only I’d know THAT little nugget of truth, I’d have quit months ago …

 

Unreliability staring right back atch ya!

We talk about those annoyingly unreliable people in our lives – those ex-boyfriends who always forget those all-important anniversaries (‘O s*it, sorry honey, the dog ate your flowers’); the friend who always cancels at the last minute (‘my cat has a phantom pregnancy’); the work colleague who never ever does those important tasks within deadline (‘sorry, I’ve just been toooooooo busy – looking at Facebook’).  But something dawned on me last night as I was eating a huge chilli con carni meal – isn’t it often the case that it is our very own sweet selves that are the most unreliable people in our lives? If you’re like me, you’re favourite phrase in the world is ‘O well, I’ll start again on Monday’. Every few weeks, I’ll come up with some crazy grand plan to live a pure and slimline life. 5 portions of fruit and veg a day; only one ‘naughty’ meal a week; exercise 3 times a week; drink 2 litres of water a day … the list goes on and on and on.   It lasts for, like, 3 days then vroom, the dedications go flying out the window like a rugby ball kicked by Johnny Wilkinson (give me a moment here as I drooooooool and reflect and worship at his altar!). I never ever stick to the promises I make to myself. Never.  At least my unreliable friend only lets me down 90% of the time. I let myself down 100% of the time. What gives?

A practical reason for snow angels

Temperatures of 17 degrees, warm weekend walks in the woods – nothing like a warm October during the age of climate change! Thing is, it leaves me yearning for the freezing cold and snow – yes snow! I was so yearning for snow and freezing cold that I wore my ear muffs and woolly winter hat in bed last night, I kid you not!

But hey, who cares cos I’m off to Iso-Syote in December, a delectable Lapland winter wonderland; the snowiest part of Finland. Some say it’s sooooooooo snowy, you can’t even walk in it. You kinda have to step out your log cabin (yes, a log cabin, that’s where we’re staying), you’re up to your knees in snow, then you kinda have to lay sideways and manoeuvre yourself through it (I fear this is an old wives tale, but I live in hope). It’s like snow angels with a practical reason that goes beyond showing off!

Anyway, here’s a pic of Iso Syote, these are the cabins we’ll be staying in …

 

Treat the choccie muffins mean, keep ‘em keen

I was chewing on a low-fat choccie muffin today and dropped a bit on the floor. Usually, I’d grab it up and stuff it in my cakehole (waste not, diet not). But someone walked past and I just couldn’t bring myself to pick it up off the floor. Why didn’t I pick it up off the floor? Was I ashamed I’d look like a dirty little fugly scum ho? No, it was more than that – I didn’t want to look needy. I didn’t want to look like I really needed that last morsel of low-fat choccie heavan. I wanted to play hard to get with that choccie muffin.

That got me thinking. Does that old adage “treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen” also apply to the chocolatey morsals of our life? Is there an innate aversion within most of us to appear needy? To even knowing the needy (when I say needy, I don’t mean needy as in homeless / foodless / ill etc. Read on to see what I mean)?

Frankly, my dear, there damn well is. Certainly for me anyway, and many of my nearest and dearest. It’s not just the chocolate muffins and men in our lives as well – it’s also those random people ’ships’ you float by in life. They seem like fun at first. You hop into their ship every now and again, they hop into your’s. The Pinot Grigio flows as fast as the laughter. But then your ship starts to get a bit over crowded so you try to move away; float toward your usual familiar waters. But before you know it, you hear a disturbance, you turn around and they’re clinging for dear life onto your ship. The worse thing about this all isn’t their neediness. No, it’s your response to their neediness – it’s the way you stamp on their fingers and they’re spiralling off into dark, murky waters. 

Monday = Mundane

Isn’t it interesting how the following words appear to be closely aligned to the word ‘Monday’:

 Mundane

Mandatory

Mandrake (note – this is a poisonous plant)

I’m sure there’s more out there but I’m too Mondayed out to think of any …

The Beeb’s Orla Guerin

I just interviewed Orla Guerin, the BBC Africa Correspondent (and former Middle East Correspondent) for the mag I work for. I know it sounds like a cliché but she really is so lovely and accommodating and real. And she’s only in her 30s (I think) but she’s done so much and seen so much. Makes me wonder whether I have done enough – but then she did talk about her job taking over her life and that just isn’t something I want. There’s too many walks to take, books to read, friends to see and emails to write …

Email, the grandaddy of cyberspace

I love to email, we all love to email – it’s the thing we do in the noughties, right? To me, email is like a soft fuzzy comfort blanket. Take it away and I start stamping my feet and whining like a baby. So I was kinda freaked out to read an email (coo!) from some web guy here that opened the door to a new approach to email. That is, a kinda collaborative web page (like, hey, a blog or a wiki kinda thang) with links to various projects and the opportunity to add comments on those particular projects (see http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue45/web-focus/) . Simply: no-more-email.  Just web. And wikis. And blogs. And I’m thinking, for chrissakes, no!

There’s something about email that brings out the Virginia Woolf in all of us, allows us to deliver a stream-of-consiousness that is unrestricted by blogs and stuff. I can’t tangibly explain why really. Email? It’s the proverbial chat over the garden fence. Collaborative web pages? It’s like a meeting at work.

Sure, email can get you in trouble. Like that time I forwarded on a joke from a friend to a few people. Thing is, what I failed to delete off the bottom of that joke was a whole conversation about how I snogged a boyf of one of the girls I’d forwarded that email too. Or the time I emailed a colleague while working at a company during my uni days, saying the boss was a perv and was no doubt shagging his PA then pressed ‘print’ instead of ’send’. Yep, you’ve guessed it, it printed out to my boss’s printer. Or the time when I referred to the person who we were buying our house from as ‘not having the nonce’ to do anything right then forwarding it on to him by mistake …

 But still, I use email freely and without fear. It’s like that friend you can’t help gossiping with even when you know what you say could be passed on to the wrong people. You do it anyway cos it’s like purging the soul; like scratching that itch that just won’t go away; like grabbing that last handful of peanuts when you’ve already eaten several handfuls …

 So halleluiah to email, the grandaddy of cyberspace. Long live email.