Running amok

The editor of "Yours" magazine called me yesterday, to say she wanted to publish a short story I submitted, ages ago, in their year-book, which was a real thrill I can tell thee. I mean, it doesn't come out until October, but still - woo-hoo!! Funny how a bit of unexpected news like that can give you such a boost. It was like the writerly beast within me had been unleashed - sorry for the visual there, hope you weren't eating - and within minutes I found myself rooting out some short stories that had been languishing on the shelf, like little spinsters, for months and giving them a bit of a tweaking. I've already sent one off to "Best" magazine, and the others will soon be sent out into the world to seek their perfect partners. No doubt they'll return in due course, having been bitterly rejected, and I'll have to let them move back in again and start doing their washing and...oh sod it, I can't keep up the analogy. You get my drift. It was exciting all over again.

I'd also composed roughly 28 stories by bedtime (only in my head, mind you) and couldn't get to sleep for trying to work out a truly spectacular Twist in the Tale ending to one of them, which didn't happen even though I tried to programme myself to dream the answer. By mid-morning, I was somewhat flushed and wild-eyed, but as I went tramping round the fields with Molly-dog, brain still in over-drive, I came up with the truly stupendous idea of transferring my novel-in-progress to...ta-dah - A BLOG. Like this one, but as though I was the main character, telling her story to the world!!! I know! Brilliant. (You'd think I was the first person ever to think of this...) It's because I've been struggling a bit with the Voice, which I want to be chatty like I am on here, but more Fictional, obviously, only I haven't quite got it right yet, so I'm going to give it a go and see how it pans out. Not for anyone to read, or anything. Just as an experiment really. I'd taken my Moleskine** notepad out with me (despite the raging wind and rain - I must have looked insane) and under cover of a towering Oak (okay, it was a big tree, I don't know what sort) I even wrote down some ideas. Trouble was, reading them back when I got home, they were more like responses to the ideas, so I'd written things like "Blog?!?" "nice one!!" "chapters maybe???" "why though?" "taxi-drivers can't do that," which was a bit confusing as I've now got to work out what the ideas were in the first place. Of course, all this smacks a bit of getting out of Getting On With It, but in fact, after the phone call yesterday, I feel more like getting on with it than ever, which can't be a bad thing. I've already made a start, and it feels...well, schizophrenic, but in a good way. I'll let you know how it goes.

**Did you know that Moleskine is apparently pronounced "Mol-a-skeen-a" ?? How flipping pretentious does that sound? Bad enough owning one (I couldn't resist - see Lane's post about notebook addiction) but if I said to my family, "I got my Mol-a-skeen-a out in the field today," they'd assume I'd flipped and bought myself a firearm. At the risk of sounding dumb, as opposed to Up-Myself (as the Teens would say), I've decided to stick to my "hide-of-a-burrowing-mammal" pronunciation. I don't suppose anyone will notice. Will they??