Home thoughts from home

Doing a great course at Leicester Writing school called Poetry Toolkit run by Alison Dunne. Homework was to write a poem modelled on the poem What I really believe by Selima Hill from the Bloodaxe book "A little book of meat".  This is my version: What I really believe I believe that aubergine tastes better than steak; I believe that no-one is born evil, they become so through lack of nurture; I believe that marriage is for life, not just for Christmas, though Christmas is particularly hard; that you shouldn’t judge people, especially if you’ve not walked a mile in their shoes; that you should over prepare, and then go with the flow; that children really are the future, and nurturing them is the most important job in the world; that if Shakespeare was alive today, he would be script writing for Eastenders. that the only time we have is now, And we should be happy each day with how we’ve spent it; that there is...

So finally got a short piece published anonymously in the Guardian, really pleased and proud. The only caveat was the sub-heading on the online version about   'I've no intention of ever going back to paid work. I'm 59 and I nearly died from a perforated bowel. Work isn't everything'  which isn't quite what I meant. Work is fine if you love it, the important thing is asking yourself the question about how you spend your time. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/feb/23/what-really-thinking-survivor-serious-illness If you knew you were going to die at eight tonight, would you want to have spent today doing what you're doing? That's what I'm asking myself every day. All through my recovery people said, "Bet you can't wait until you can get back to work." No, I've no intention of ever going back to paid work. I'm 59 and I nearly died from a perforated bowel. Work isn't everything. Family, friends, films, art, ...

Jonathan has made a video of me reading White Rabbit White Snow for the Storytelling Superstar competition for World Book Day   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgRHH4AR-A4

This is what annoys people about the internet - I copy my story from a word document and in the Blog Post it has squares for the punctuation and I have no idea why (how frustrating!) Seems to be solved by closing and reopening browser (thanks to son for advice!) and also copying from Word cut and paste apparently often causes problems.

So the three grown-up children went their different ways – one to University, one travelling the world, and one to work in the local cinema.  Their mother warned them; whatever you do beware of the big bad wolf that is debt.  But they just laughed at her and said ‘We’ll be alright, we can make ourselves safe from debt’ The first son had a student loan for his fees and maintenance but it wasn’t enough for rent on accommodation in London. His nice bank offered him a student loan and said ‘don’t worry we’ll hardly charge you any interest’ but at the end of the degree, he couldn’t get a job and the bank said ‘you’re not a student now, so we can charge you much more interest’, and his Job Seekers Allowance wouldn’t even cover the interest on his debt.  He had to move in with his second brother. The second son travelled the word taking part-time jobs labouring or farming wherever he went, but then in Goa he got appendicitis and had surgery and had to be flown back to ...

Interesting article about Helen Garner, whose The Spare Room I've recently enjoyed very much http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/truly-helen/story-e6frg8h6-1111115933083 I particularly like this quote "She pushed out small collections of stories before drifting into non-fiction, essays, columns, film reviews, lured by the quick sprint and what writer Janet Malcolm refers to as the stirrings of reportorial desire." This question of invading privacy comes up a lot when reading Garner's autobiographical novel (where she IS the narrator). Janet Malcolm is an interesting journalist who is very aware of how a journalist crosses a line to get on intimate terms with a subject. "Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible." "Like Sylvia Plath, whose not-niceness she has laid open with surgical skill, she discovered her vocation in not-niceness ... Malcolm's...

My story is on-line at hhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/mystory/stories/survival/171914/ Nice to see it in print but competition closed and so there are some amendments I would've done to 'him's that aren't very clear - however it does say what I wanted it to.