I am....

... a June bride
... a dutiful daughter
... a tattooed lady
... a terrible timekeeper
... a force of nature
... a loyal friend
... an unforgiving enemy
... a runner
... a writer
... a perfectionist
... an adoring wife
... a procrastinator
... an optimist
... a worrywart
... a barrel of laughs

Let be

Let Be
Many of us spend most of our life trying to live someone else's life. We are great fixers, and as we watch others we can hear ourselves attempting to 'sort them out'. We hear it in our conversations with others and with ourselves. It sounds like, "They shouldn't...weren't they awful...did you hear about so and so...in my opinion they should". In these moments we waste time trying to write the script of others and forget to write our own. We have no right to write another's script and any attempt to do so is futile, frustrating and doomed to failure. So let be, and taste the freedom from the subtle tensions and anxieties about others by letting them write their own script. Don't miss your life by trying to live someone else's.

Happened upon this today, and it occurred to me that if I spend less time concerned with the doings of others I might get more writing done. But then again, if I didn't dwell on the actions and motivations of others quote so much, what would I write about?

Ground control, or bladder control?

It took Lisa Nowak 12 days, 18 hours, 37 minutes and 54 seconds, travelling a distance of 5.3 million miles, to secure her place last July in one of the world's most elite clubs: voyagers to space. It took her about 14 hours, and a journey of 950 miles, on Monday to destroy it.
Mrs Nowak was charged with attempted first-degree murder yesterday in the most bizarre incident involving any of Nasa's active-duty astronauts. The charge, together with others of attempted kidnapping and battery, relate to an apparent love triangle she was embroiled in with a fellow male astronaut and a female air force captain whom she suspected of being a rival to his affections.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2007498,00.html



If you haven't already spotted this story in the media then I urge you to take a look. Astronauts, nappies, kipnapping! Truth really is stranger then fiction ~ but I can't help feeling that if someone entered such an incident into a novel it might attract criticism for being too far-fetched and improbable...

Victory for the little writer

So, many many moons ago the nasty people at Writer's Forum declined to pay me for a story they had published (see post below)....

This was a bittersweet experience for me: on the one hand I was thrilled to be published, but on the other I was annoyed that we litle writers were seen as so dispensible and unimportant that upholding their end of the payment deal was optional.

I'm nothing if not determined and pro-active, so i logged onto moneyclaim.gov.uk and filed a court order for the non-payment, including the £30 fee for issue of the order and £20.00 to cover lost interest and time wasted spent chasing the blasted non-payment.

I had a cheque for the lot within five days.

Result!

Of course they'll never publish me again, but I can do without that sort of "help" in the early stages of my career.

Lesson learnt: writers have agents because they get screwed over a lot a lot a lot.

Show me the money!!!

You may remember this , when I was thrilled to have a story accepted for Writer's Forum magazine. My first published piece, my first step onto that first rung of the writing ladder, the slowly advancing hangover of reality when it became painfully clear that the bastards were going to rip me off by not paying me!

THREE times I've asked for the cheque now, and three times I've been fobbed off with vague excuses and meaningless promises that it will be "looked into". Latest is that I may have to contact the publisher directly myself to get it. WHY THE HELL SHOULD I?????? Your magazine published my piece, now pay me for it.

Writer's Forum ~ don't buy it! They treat their authors like crap.

Who do you think you are kidding, pikey charvas?

This has made my day!

Forward! Concertgoers put yobs to flight as band plays Great Escape
Steven Morris, Friday July 7, 2006 The Guardian

A group of drunken youths thought they had picked an easy target when they decided to disrupt a brass band's open-air concert watched by a crowd of pensioners. But they thought again when the band struck up the theme from The Great Escape and - as one - a "Dad's Army" of around 20 war veterans rose from their deckchairs and advanced towards the mob, prompting them to turn on their heels and flee.

Les Brown, 78, a former RAF pilot who served in Egypt during the second world war, said: "We got so fed up with these little toerags, some of us decided to stop them. The Great Escape music came on and I looked round and caught glimpses of other people obviously thinking the same as me. We stood up and kissed our wives and marched towards them. It felt like I was back in the war, coming up against a fierce foe.

"But we were a determined lot. We might be old, but these youngsters didn't stand a chance in hell. I've never seen a group of young men look so scared as when we started advancing."
The showdown flared in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, on Sunday, as the yobs - aged between 18 and 25 - spilled out of pubs after the World Cup.

They descended on Grove Park, carrying crates of beer and began playing football close to the bandstand where the Redland Wind Band was entertaining around 300 people. It continued to play - until a ball was launched at the conductor, who halted the performance.
The band provided a suitably stirring tune as the pensioners, some with sticks, others on Zimmer frames, advanced on the 30-odd youngsters shouting: "Forward!" and "Away with you!" To the surprise of some, they obeyed.

John Horler, 60, who runs the cafe in the park, said: "Suddenly, about 20 of us, mostly aged 60 or 70, got up from our chairs and advanced. It was amazing - totally spontaneous - and the kids could see we meant business. It was like a scene out of Dad's Army. Maybe it was the Dunkirk spirit that spurred us all on."

Marvellous stuff!

Running

I am currently working on a piece about running & writing, how I feel the two counteract and complement one a another, how they're both hard as hell to get started at but better than almost anything else once you're in the flow.

In the meantime I recommend that you check out this excellent post, which replicates my thoughts on running almost exactly:

Hello, It's Me.: Running vs. Cycling

"I like running because it is simple and, on a good day, can free me like nothing else. Running is just about me and the machine that is my body. Although I have managed to spend a lot of money on running-related gear over the years, the only thing that is really necessary is a good pair of shoes. Well, and a good sports bra. But that's really it. [.....]

I guess I must have a bit of masochist in me too because I also really like the aspect of running that forces me to summon up from deep within the vast amounts of sheer will that are required to keep my body going even as my mind does everything in its power to convince me that I can't. It's like a battle within myself and some days it's hard to predict the outcome. But every finish feels like a victory - whether it's a race or a tough hill workout or a recovery run with Otis.

Hell, just lacing up my shoes feels like an accomplishment some days. And I'll take it. I also respect running because it's tough. And there's no cheating or in-between. You can't coast or glide to recover - you're either running or you're not. And the difference between the two is all up to me. I like that. Even though sometimes I hate it."

And this is another great post from the same blogger, again about running.


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Honorary degrees for media names. This infuriates me, it really does. Even as a twenty-one year old graduee, sitting in the convocation hall in July, hungover and dangerously over-heating in that stupid cloak & mortar board, I remember feeling a sense of complete coutrage when they wheeled some journalist I'd never heard of onto the stage, waxed lyrical about him for twenty minutes then accorded him the exact same honours as those of us who had worked for our degrees. These days I am even more irate about it: I am currently working full-time (9-5- monday to friday) and STUDYING FOR MY SECONG DEGREE IN THE EVENINGS AND AT WEEKENDS. Add to that the other stuff which is either essential (supermarket shopping, cooking, cleaning, eating, showering, paying bills, etc etc) and the self-indulgent luxury stuff (running, writing, socialising once in a blue moon, sleeping) and I am generally to be found in such a state of exhaustion that I could cry. Silly me ~ instead I should be poncing around in a wanky car a la Clarkson & wait for a degree to fall into my lap.

"Celebrating the award with [Billy Connolly] in 2001 was his wife Pamela Stephenson, who five years earlier had completed six years' study for a PhD in clinical psychology at the California Graduate Institute. In the light of Connolly's honorary degree, one really wonders why she bothered." Indeed.