Sunday 11 October 2009

Stuck For A Subject

Couldn’t think what to blog about this week.

The new bed and the agonies I went through before it arrived thinking it would be too high for the dogs? Nah, who wants to hear about my sleepless nights worrying about dogs with broken legs? My own fault for not understanding the dimensions of the bed. I thought it was going to be 90 cm high. Enough said.

The two boxes of floppy discs discovered under the old bed containing over a thousand short stories and several novels? Nah, who cares and how is it relevant?

The parents/grandparents at the school gate . . . probably best not go there in case I am sued/beaten up.

The school teacher that died recently who has left a gaping hole? He was a man who loved teaching and when he taught my daughter godknowshowmany years after I used to go to his youth club, he still remembered me. My youngest son went along to his Saturday sports club. I never knew him forget a face or a name to go with it. He was one in a million, a truly lovely human being.

The fact that this time five years ago my first grandchild was six months in the womb and now there is a fifth on the way as well as two step grandsons? It makes my head spin.

Or maybe – writing related – about how I picked up a copy of Yours magazine and was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it and how one woman’s amazing story in there has inspired me to think again about an old old dream I had.

But none of these things are particularly interesting and so I decided not to blog about them.

Except the floppy discs under the bed – well maybe. In the days when I was writing two or more novels a year as well as the short stories I must have been suffering some kind of cranial diarrhoea. It seems that practically every idea that went through my head ended up being written down.

My trouble back then – no editing skills. The novels are rough and far from ready. These days my trouble is I can’t get the editor out of my head and while I’ve got rid of the cranial diarrhoea I’ve managed to become creatively constipated.

So the ideas still come thick and fast, but I spend so long working on each one, writing and rewriting and then rewriting some more, a lot of the ideas are lost.

It has been a somewhat hectic week – the girls are getting along well together. The two year old is enjoying mothering the 8 month old and mealtimes are . . . interesting and a lot of fun for the dogs.

And today I’m off to visit my other two year old girl who lives away but speaks to me on the phone and says “Love you Meema,” and makes me cry. Makes me want to build a big comfy nest and gather them all in under my wings which is kind of weird because I don’t even like children!

11 comments:

  1. No doubt the bed, the dog with the broken leg, the mothers outside the school and everything else will be appearing soon in a short story.
    And as for collecting up all the grandchildren, well that's OK because they are not yours and for some reason we have endless patience with grandchildren. Didn't have it with our own kids, though. At least not in my experience.

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  2. I'm intrigued by the discs under the bed, Teresa. I am the same. I have some dating back to 10 years ago, packed full of ideas and stories I may never use. They are very rough, but then again, maybe you have inspired me to take another look at them -- if I can get the floppy disc drive on my computer to work lol.

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  3. My word! Plenty of fodder for stories there, Teresa! Sorry to hear about your daughter's old teacher.It's always a sad occassion that, particularly when you knew him well too.

    Hopefully you'll get lots of sales out of the short stories on the discs when you've edited them too!
    Julie xx

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  4. True true, Lynne - I have much more patience with the grandchildren than I ever had with my own kids.

    Yes check them out, Lynette, you never know what treasures you might find.

    Maybe I will, Julie, but I'm more interested in looking at the novels right now - well I will be if I ever get round to it!

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  5. Oooh, I'd like to know more about the discs.

    And as for the parents/grandparents at the school gate - it must be a universal thing, because I could tell a few stories about the ones at our gates that would also get me into a lot of trouble.

    Your grandchildren sound adorable.

    XX

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  6. Oh dear - talking of animals with broken legs ... Cookie Crumble's latest trick is jumping up on top of the kitchen cupboards. I'm terrified for her when she jumps back down. And Tabitha's latest craze is living on the conservatory roof. What's the matter with these cats?

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  7. Can you still access the stuff on the discs, Teresa? With your editing skills, there's probably a mountain of material there you could turn into publishable stuff

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  8. Glad I'm not the only one, Suzanne!

    Argh Helen - I know how you feel. I'll never forget hearing Gizmo miaow and looking up to see him looking down at me from our roof - I swear he was laughing at me doing my nut down below!

    Glynis - My Trusty Sidekick is converting all the files that can be saved into Word documents, so maybe I'll get editing one of these days.

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  9. Hi Teresa
    I wonder why we all feel we must write a novel ( I include myself in this). Do you think it's because we feel that somehow makes us a "proper writer"? Anyhow good luck with transfering the files and the longer works in progress. Just received my advance copy of PF - our stories follow each other in this issue - and I just wanted to say how much I loved your story "Penny For Your Thoughts". I wrote a diary every day from 12 - 16 years old and now that my own daughter is that age, I find it useful to dip in now and again to remember what it was like. Nothing much changes really, does it? My daughter still frets about the same stuff I did. Thanks for another lovely story.

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  10. Thank you Lydia, you've made my day!
    I haven't had my PF yet - I'm looking forward to reading your story.
    Funnily enough I was reading through my teenage diaries a couple of weeks ago. Like you I used to write in them every day. They really were like trusted friends weren't they.

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  11. I think diaries helped me make sense of things somehow and yes, it was as if a friend were waiting to hear all about everything! Congrats on anthology!

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