Quick catch up

Turning off my Bangkok topic Twitter stream has been very good for me. It’s still bloody awful out there and everywhere I go I hear people say their company is sending wives and children home. But going on Twitter now means I hear my writing and blog friends talking about normal stuff and not dead bodies and fighting. I feel less anxious. 

I won’t go home until Son has done his exams… so we went to school this afternoon for a geography exam – it was only open for exams today – and we got there and back without seeing anyone with guns; we saw no razor wire, or burning tyres.  I did see some sand bags but I pretended they were for the rain. I waited the three hours in the coffee shop with my laptop rather than going home.  And I wrote. Well I got myself ready for the next step of writing.

In the gym on Sunday (oh yes! I was there voluntarily…) I was listening to A Conversation on The Writing Life with Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg. One of them described the different drafts that they do. In their second draft they write out a description of each scene’s business and they stick it together and then up on the wall. I’ve always been a cutter and paster: actually cutting up my essays and sellotaping them back together again in an entirely different order so this idea resonated with me. Then Liz said something in her post here about writing a synopsis in order to diagnose where the plot holes are.

I am struggling with the gargantuan thing that is my draft. It’s too big to see any sense in it so I’m going to make a mixture of these two pieces of advice in the hope that it gives me something of a manageable size to work with.

Oh and check this out: I'm one of the 32 blogs! Please come back on Thursday. I can't wait. Caroline's work is extraordinary. Her writing is like poetry that I can understand without having to read it six times. (Oh dear, don't think too badly of me.)

Twit-her

I’m having another go at Twitter. It wasn’t a rip roaring success last time. Nobody believes me when I say I’m shy but I am, so there.

Last time, I signed up to follow my friends (and they reciprocated) and all was well. But the minute a stranger asked to follow me I had a bit of a breakdown. I stood in a cyber corner, watching, waiting until I felt a bit more comfortable. Not a lot of fun for anyone. Then there was a snarky comment and went and found my handbag and snuck home - without even saying thank you to the host. (Closed up the account to friends only.)

But I’ve been watching Twitter over this whole Bangkok/Red Shirt thing, and I thought I might have another go. I'd like to be part of the writing twittering thing.

If you’d like to follow me, you can find me here:


Get Twitter Buttons

I promise to try really hard not to be the party pooper in the corner.

Twitter Titter

I’ve given Twitter a go. I like being able to ‘talk’ with my writing friends but I had a bit of a meltdown when a stranger began to ‘follow’ me. Agggh, I thought, I have to say something intelligent.

I did what I do at parties: I stood in the corner and watched.

Then I began to follow someone who looked interesting and I saw she posted a snarky comment about ‘if you want me to follow you, you’ll have to tweet more than once.’

When I realised I really didn’t want (her) or anyone I didn’t know to follow me, I accepted hmmm, yeah; I think that’s a no to Twitter then.

But I haven't deleted my account; I’ve locked it and thrown out the three followers I had that I didn’t know and now I can check up on my friends and keep them up to date on the important stuff: like whether I settled for egg mayonnaise for lunch or tuna.

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I have written my review of Doug Worgul’s debut novel, Thin Blue Smoke (Macmillan New Writing.) I need to let it brew before I post it. Please do come back tomorrow and read it.

Friday Photo is back... with some words

By rights, this should've been taken in Bangkok but I took it on the London Underground and I’m still reeling from shock.

I was on my way to the London Book Fair and I saw lots of people ‘dressed’ to be nude apart from a blue scarf. The promotion was Nude in a Scarf and I took one of their cards hoping their website might tell me what to wear, a la Trinny and Susannah. (I really do need a personal dresser.)

Sadly, when I discovered it was something to do with Peugeot I kind of lost interest (clearly I wasn't their target audience) but it's still interesting to note that their website urged you to join them on Twitter to find out what the campaign was all about. (And I'm still one of those mystified by Twitter and what it does...)

There's a better picture of these 'nude' people here.