I *heart* Mr Burns

Unsympathetic Main Characters are everywhere.
And so they should be.
Why are they everywhere? Could it be something to do with art imitating life, d’you suppose?
And for some reason I’m drawn to them. Right from my Heathcliff-ian beginnings (and whilst we’re up on the Heights, Hindley Earnshaw wasn’t exactly Pollyanna, was he?) through Ebenezer Scrooge and bang up to date with Draco Malfoy and my favourite recent cow, Darcy from Emily Giffin’s ‘Something Blue’.
But there are loads of others.

I’ve been reading a lot of teenage stuff lately – purely because I’ve been writing a bit of it too and it’s good to be ‘down with the kids’ *ironic snort – just in case anyone thinks I really DO talk/think like this*. And whether it’s simply attitude on the part of the teenaged MC or whether it’s the intention of the author to straightaway spark the attention of the reader with the brusqueness and uncaring attitude of the MC to make them keep reading, for me it works.

OMG, it’s almost akin to the John&Edward debacle, I’ve just realised. It’s so bad you have to keep watching or in this case, reading. Because you kind of hope it will get better or at the very least start displaying some redeeming qualities that will finally make sense of it all and turn you into a happy-er bunny.

The teenaged MC’s I’ve been reading are generally horrible about their parents, some of them bully their peers and almost none of them have anything kind to say about life and those who inhabit it at all. They’re just out for what they can get. None of this Famous Five nonsense where everyone loves everyone else and they all meet up in the Hols and bring sandwiches wrapped in tea towels, lashings of ginger beer - oh, and a friendly neighbourhood dog.

I have a feeling Enid would’ve liked today’s unsympathetic MC’s. And I think she’d have had balls enough to announce this assent.

And at the end of the day (God, did I really say that and mean it?) isn’t that what a good book’s all about anyway? Not trying to ram the writer’s moral judgement down a reader’s throat but politely hinting at the premise that everybody, however nasty they may appear at the outset, could turn out to have at least one redeeming quality which will eventually endear and transform a car crash story into something with more than a little uplifting hope.

And we all love a bit of hope, right?

My NaNo novel has an unsympathetic MC. And she has more meat on her than five Pollyanna’s squished together in a blender and turned to warp speed.

Ee-eww...

Somebody has to do it, right?

Even though it’s half term, which usually means not having to go into work, this is the second day I’ve felt compelled to go in – because we have Open Evening the day after we return and everything has to be ‘perfect’ for it. In fact whilst I’ve been in, windows have been cleaned inside and out, floors have been buffed and polished to a wet-look appearance and all the skirting boards have been glossed. Anyone would think we were having the Queen to tea.

And the amount of abuse we (that’s me plus Anne Other) have had to contend with about the avoidance of touching these surfaces – pretty difficult when most of it IS flooring – is tantamount to bullying. In fact Ms Other even had a roll of masking tape thrown the length of a corridor at her to alert her to said areas of avoidance.
I’d have wrapped the guy up in it if he’d had the nerve to do it to me.
But it is lovely not having the kids there. Oh, and the teachers if I’m honest. We can get stuff done without every five minutes having to sort out a mis-feed in the photocopier (not our specialist area but because it’s IN our area, it has become so) and answering questions that always begin: ‘could you just…’ ‘can you quickly…’ ‘I don’t suppose you could…’ because these little ‘jobs’ fall under the ‘Any Other Duties’ part of our Job Description and even if we didn’t help out of the goodness of our hearts, we’d be contractually obliged to carry them out anyway.
And of course whilst the feeling is great that we’re making in-roads into turning the school into the most fabulously adorned secondary seat of learning in the area, it also means that I’ve done bugger-all on the re-write since I started weeks ago and since I announced to the world and his wife that I was on the home-stretch.
So now I’m giving myself the predictable guilt-trip.
Hence the stroppiness of the last but one post, I’m guessing.
And once more (is there a Guinness record for this I wonder?) I’m battling with flu-viral germs that have yet again deemed my body their chosen temple of worship. I cannot remember a year when I’ve had three bouts of germs in five weeks. It has to be a record.
But my, wasn’t it lovely weather today?
(*pathetic attempt at being cheery in face of adversity*)

p.s. this display isn't one that we've done - ours are far, far superior to this and next time I have a full complement of brain cells I shall take a photo of one of my personal bests just to prove this!

Another Thing that makes me happy!

"Flight of the Conchords" was easily the best new musical sitcom of last year. Here's one of my favourite bits when Brett decides he fancies a fellow billboard-holder...

DISAPPOINTMENT, ACTUALLY

Forget Love, Hate and even maybe indifference – I have decided (therefore it must be true) that Disappointment is the strongest of all emotions known to man*.
*I’m guessing this doesn’t apply to animals because as we all know, the Bear is the beast we should all be aspiring to. S/he is not bothered about the weather. She wears her coat whatever the season whether it’s in fashion or not and doesn’t give a monkey’s what her cave-dweller friends think. In fact she probably doesn’t even have friends – she’s that un-bothered. Not fussed to the enth degree – timesed by infinity. Such a laid back Bear.I have left what others would deem perfectly respectable jobs and/or relationships based purely on levels of disappointment.
Does that mean that I have particularly exacting standards that are difficult to achieve without some kind of qualification? Not really. I just know what I like and my standards of ‘like’ are not way and above the normal levels anyone would expect of… well, anything really. Points in case:
1. I like a hot meal. If someone has spent a good few hours preparing, overseeing and presenting something on a plate that they consider worthy of eating, then the least I can do is eat it whilst it’s hot. I have felt my soul torn asunder by the simple act of someone dear leaving a plate of my lovingly prepared food until it is pretty much chilled and the feelings this induced were extreme. Cut to the quick doesn’t even go halfway.
2. I like a clean house. But, as you all know, I am not a stickler for housework per se. Of course, we all know dust levels achieve a certain level before they just give up so who am I to argue? I will not be the one to stand in the way of dust achieving its personal best. Cruel I am not. But I don’t like to be brought up on my standards of housekeeping and when told that the downstairs loo smells like a Gents, do not react favourably to this. Am I the only one in the house dextrous enough to grip a bottle of Bleach? This question disappoints me.
3. Specsavers were *this* close to getting some kind of communication from me about their levels of brilliantness. Their customer service has always been second to none, the smiles I have been greeted with and the cheery waves of goodbye and the utmost professionalism every worker seems to have, has absolutely bowled me over (no mean feat). Every time I’ve left their premises this year I have felt positively uplifted and certain that I shall return and even spread the word. Until yesterday. When the Girl and I had a pre-booked 2 hour contact lens appointment which they had somehow overlooked. Of course, the rest of the day had been carefully planned around our 2 hours appointment and from the minute their computer said ‘No’, the whole day fell to bits. Other planned things got messed up. Tears ensued. Cakes consumed.

I don’t ask for much. I’d like to be thanked by even one driver when I wait for them by a parked car to let them through. I’d have liked Specsavers to have gone out of their way – the way we’d gone out of our way to plan our day with military precision around an appointment with them – to have somehow redeemed themselves instead of making a different appointment. I’d like my hot meals eaten when they’re still at their best please. And I’d like not to be made to feel guilty about my standards of hygiene when I’m trying to write a goddamn book and still trying to catch up on two weeks worth of washing and ironing that didn’t get done because I wasn’t well.
Post-Bug Grouch? Yeah, that’s me.

Says it all...

Loyal followers and readers of this blog will know that I hate, with a passion, those e-mails that you're expected (for 'expected' read 'guilted') to send on to five-ten others etc... don't get me started.

And this makes exactly my point. Albeit American - but you'll get the gist.

Ooh, and thanks to my loyal follower and reader of this blog, Luisa, who unlucky for her also has to work with me in the 'paid' world. She sent me this. She knows me so well.

Love this so much!

Because I've been a bit icky and I don't have a brain cell left that isn't covered in mucus for gathering words and sticking them together to make a coherent sentence that would make anyone smile right now, sit back and enjoy the glory that is one of the greatest scenes from 'Beautiful People'. Ah, we still know how to make great TV, don't we?

X-Factor Twins (prove the) Rule!

In a week where personal opinion is made public, I have decided to air my own.

Those zealously gelled X-Factor twins are on Hit-lists all over the show (see what I did there?) to be dragged kicking and screaming in a very inharmonious fashion, from the X-Factor stage.
Thing is they won’t be.
And why won’t they?
Quite aside from the fact that their continued presence there is a bit biased:

* by the whole of Ireland and Louis’ family calling in to vote,

* because if Simon WAS so dead set against their being finalists, then he’d have had the power to have overruled his team-mate,

* and, paramount, it retains enthusiastic viewing figures because the whole country tunes in hopeful of watching them be voted off,

like it or not, they actually DO have the X-Factor.

Which is precisely why they’ve been allowed to remain in thus far. Simon’s no air-head. He might be Botox-ed to the gills and have the hair-do of a Gorilla, bless him, but he’s not stupid. In fact I have the utmost respect for the guy (apart from the weird things he had at his 50th – which could have been his crisis-point or a cry for help). And everything he ever says (music-wise) I always wholeheartedly agree with.
‘Y’know,’ he said last night. ‘In a strange was it was like watching the Exorcist for the first time time… although you hate it, you just HAVE to watch it again.’
Absolutely spot-on.
They are certainly an embarrassment to music lovers everywhere and if this was Britain’s Got Talent, they wouldn’t have got this far – because they haven’t. Got any talent.

But they DO have the X-Factor.

And what is this elusive factor called “X”?
The ability to humiliate oneself in front of cameras, whether unbeknown or engineered. These boys are either incredibly dense or incredibly clever. Either way they have managed to already make a name for themselves without having one talented cell in their combined bodies.
I didn't so much cringe last night at their pathetic attempts to sing whilst trying to remember their silly little 'moves', as applaud their bravado for giving it a go and making themselves look so foolish.
And they’ll get to the semi finals (I might eat my words after tonight’s voting of course, and I shall eat them with relish) because it will make great viewing. In much the same way as Chico was – and Same Difference. It’s cringe-worthy viewing and doesn’t the viewing public love to have a good squirm at the expense of somebody else?
Big Brother?
Living Like Animals?
Snog, Marry, Avoid?
Dating in the Dark?
Need I go On?
And whoever decided last night that on Diva Night they should be allowed to sing a Britney Spears ‘classic’ is just typical of the mentality of the X-Factor producers. If I am living in a world where Britney is already a Diva, then please stop the madness, I’d like to get off.
And have a pee. But then I’d get right back on again because it’s compulsively irritating.
And that’s what makes somebody somewhere an awful lot of money – oh, and the world go round, no?

This makes me H.A.P.P.Y!

SOMEBODY STOP ME!

Ever since the decision to undertake the re-write (daunting but not a little bit exciting. But still more daunting than… anyway) I have found myself in an eBay frenzy of mental-sized proportions. My wardrobe has exceeded its fill-by date and I’m no good at chucking away even if it doesn’t fit or look any good.
These are the rules:

“one day I’ll get (back or just) into it”
“one day this’ll be back in fashion”
“one day I’ll like it better cos I’ll be too old to give a toss what I damn well look like” (I fully intend to be a bitter, crusty, moaning old baggage of the highest order)

Whereas what I should actually be telling myself is:
“one day I’ll know better”(I won’t of course – this is ingrained madness) (hereditary)

There’s a White Elephant in my wardrobe and he keeps wanting buns.

I should stop putting a ‘watch’ on every item which catches my eye because it’s fatal. That little *ping* which announces that my watched item is Ending Soon and that’s it.
A well-hidden freakishly scary competitive streak launches me into the “quick-quick-buy-buy-BUY” frenzy and I can’t stop until I’ve managed to out-bid that other person who’s sitting there with a massive make-or-break re-write to do but leaps at every *ping* opportunity thrown her way to duck out of it briefly.
Only it’s not a brief ducking.
The minute I’m committed to buy I start to sweat. Too late. It’s not like having a try on in the shop and deciding it’s not really what I want. That’s it. No returns. Stuck with it for the rest of my days.
Re-list it? Yeah, yeah it would be SO simple, wouldn’t it?
But then I’ve got to take a photo of it, decide how much I want to start it at, angst for 5 days over why nobody wants my cast-offs and then worry that what I’ll get won’t cover the price I paid for it in the first place – plus there’s that tricky question of how much postage – oh AND having to buy a bag or two to put them in – and then that trip to the Post Office … my God, does it never end?!
That level of hesitation and anxiety I could do without right now. I’m in the middle of a re-write, didn’t I tell you?

Major Rewrite reporting for duty...Sir!

So I’ve decided to go for the re-write. At an age where I should be opting for safer, easier, calmer, less-stressful alternatives, I have decided, with the help of some pretty cool writer-friends that instead of just flinging the latest Teenage Thing, ‘Double History’ into the file marked ‘Written, Unwanted but Not Forgotten”) I shall be re-working, re-jigging, re-casting, deleting, introducing and pretty much giving the whole thing a makeover of the highest order.

No mean feat for a gal of indeterminate years.
And I don’t do Mean Feat lightly.
Meat feast, maybe. Mean feat - not so much.

But it will prove things. And I’m all for proving things.
1. I am not a flake (they’re crumbly. I’m not)
2. I can be organised.
3. I can be disciplined.
4. I can deliver.
5. I will invent a 28 hour day.

And, above all, when I was re-reading it and wondering how the heck I could possibly re-route approximately three quarters of it, I felt the original excitement, the warmth and the sheer fun of the whole thing returning to me. It deserves to have some time spent and work done on it.

It’s too easy to just wave it goodbye and put it down to experience. I believe in this book and I’ve never had *wholehearted* belief in anything I’ve written before. But this one calls to me. It reaches out its hand to me and it begs me to take it to the park and push it higher and higher on the swings…
(sound of needle scratching across vinyl)

Watch this space.

Ahhhhh, if only every Rejection made me feel this good!

Dear Debs,

Many thanks for letting me see this. I really enjoyed reading it. You're obviously a good writer, and I think this story has lots of potential. But I also think that as it stands it has a few flaws. In the hope that you'll find it useful, I've jotted down some notes (attached) about what I felt wasn't working (and some of the things that did). They’re in no particular order…

I realise there are rather a lot of negative comments there, but I hope you'll understand that I wouldn't have written them if I didn't genuinely like your writing.

You may well not feel you want to tackle a rewrite of DOUBLE HISTORY, which I'd completely understand. But if you do, or if you're still looking for an agent when you finish HALF A WORLD, I'd be delighted to hear from you again.

With best wishes,
The Lovely Lovely Agent Person I sent the full Manuscript to 3 weeks ago.
I *heart* her.

See? I can write! She says so. So ne-er!

Home Sweet... Supermarket

You could be forgiven for thinking I actually live in Sainsbury’s. It’s a bit addictive.
And my Grand Design would have:
The living room down Aisle 9 (cushions and plasma screens- quick dash to Aisle 24 for some popcorn, Tortillas and dips perhaps),
The bedroom would be the Aisle of – not-white-Chocolate (hee!) and other sundry delicacies (maybe a quick sprint to the body sprays for added allure),
The Dining Room would be those lovely Take Out bags, not fussed on Chinese, Indian or Guadalajaraen (I made that up – don’t try pronouncing it).
My god I can even post a letter there.
And get cash out. And buy a family pack of knickers if I’m caught short.
And it’s about the only place I bump into friends. Just like being at home. I swear the cashiers know my Nectar card number off by heart. And they know more about my dress size, bathroom habits and taste in music than the Husband.
I always only ever pop in for a loaf of (Tiger – gorgeous) bread and some milk. But I can’t just leave it there. My list items are replete but I am not satisfied. I am hungry for more. The bestseller chart books beckon me for obvious reasons and there’s a special on Aloe Vera enriched toilet rolls. Oh. My. God. I could have the bottom-equivalent of a facial during every trip to the toilet. How glamorous is that? And they’re on special offer – which I know at the back of my mind merely means they are cheap right now and once they get you hooked on the things they will revert to full-blown ridiculous price but by then you can’t go back to the usual two-ply. They are posh-bog-roll pushers these Sainsbury’s people but you didn’t hear that from me.
And because I need neither of these wildly extravagant items, of course they come home with me.
But then so did the lovely hug I got from my friend and ex-next-door-neighbour Gill on the way in – most unexpected and a pure delight because even though I hardly ever see her, she is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met and I hope we’ll stay friends forever.
Ah, that’s the Wonder of Sainsbury’s.
Or was that E-Bay?
No – perhaps it was Woolworth’s… but let’s save that for another day, eh?

A room with the 'flu

One of the greatest things about working in a school is the fact that Management are incredibly understanding when you have to take time off for a sick cherub. In fact guidelines allow each member of staff three days per year precisely for this occurrence.
Which is nice.
But it does make me feel like a proper fraud when the child is fifteen going on thirty at the best of times when I phone to tell them she still has a roaring temperature and a hacking cough with a chill factor of winter-weight-duvet-by-the-radiator-still in bed proportions.
I can hear my inner-voice sniggering like a demon on my shoulder.
‘What, she can’t get out of bed and get herself a cup of tea?’
Um… no. And even if she were to attempt this feat (at the best of times unnatural) I would fret irrationally about boiling water and scalded body parts en route back to sick-bed because of the aforementioned duvet-constantly-wrapped-about thing.
‘She couldn’t get herself something to eat?’
Er… no. Actually. Because I do all the thinking around here. It wouldn’t cross her mind to equate a grumbling belly and a thumping headache with something so banal as hunger, unless I suggest it – then it’s the most obviously simple solution in the world. And so much nicer because Mummy made it (always ‘mummy’ to a sick child).
And even though I’d be home by 1.30 at the latest, I know I’d be arriving to a tangled, sweaty heap of phlegm that hasn’t even gone for a pee because her water bottle’s empty and she still doesn’t ‘get’ that infections have to be constantly flushed from one end to the other unless encouraged.
Oh and there’d be sick on the bed.
Which is always nice.
She might be 15 but she’s still my baby and when she’s ill I like her to cling to me like a hot little puppy as if her recovery depends on me. Because one day it won’t. And I’m not ready for that just yet.
Oh, and I DID work from home which kind of appeased my guilt-addled brain. So I don’t feel like a total fraud.
Just a bit.
And it’s not every lunchtime I get to sit in bed with my daughter, two bowls of hot tomato soup and watch the Aristocats.
Pass me the tissues - it’s going to be a another long old day.

TAXI!

My dad had the right idea.
When I finally managed to attain dizzy heights of social whirlness during my Sixth Form Years (still the Best in my Life – and I knew it even at the time) I would invariably need a lift somewhere. Actually, make that EVERYWHERE.
But asking for this favour was heart-palpitatingly uncomfortable and always met with shockingly terrible umbrage. Like I was going to starve the other occupants of the car from their allotment of oxygen or something equally tragic.
There were sighs. Rolling of the eyes, tapping of watches; Jeez anyone would have thought I’d asked them to inject their eyeballs with Catnip so I could write a poem about my findings thereon.
Prior to these years I hadn’t any reason to be driven anywhere much since the park was only a twenty minute roller-skate away and my best friend (of which I had probably one at a time, depending on wind-direction it felt) lived within spitting and earshot distance. Any party I was invited to was up the road, round the corner and I walked. There and back. With no mobile phone.
Remember, there were no paedophiles in the seventies.
And then once the 6th Form EBBO party invites started rolling in, Dad decided to start charging for the use of his time and transport – perhaps in a bid to put me off ever asking for another lift for as long as I lived.
But I HAD parties to attend. My presence had been REQUESTED. You know what it’s like, right? So I agreed to the charges. So he upped the ante and introduced a new rule. Not just me – he’d charge EACH FRIEND I’d invited along fifty pee each way regardless of how far the journey was. (In hindsight and had I known of, I’d have displayed a greater interest in the Edinburgh Fringe that IS for sure).
I was mortified and believed my life would be well and truly over.
But instead of the whole thing becoming the most cringe-worthily embarrassing thing to have happened to my newly-discovered social vista, it actually turned out to be amongst one of the best memories OF the Best Years. Because not only did Dad have an Ex Army Land Rover (one of those green ones with no central heating and a windscreen that folds down for some reasons – Shooting the enemy perhaps?) but he had the driest sense of humour and the cheekiest character my friends had ever discovered in a parent and journeys to and from became even more fun than the party we were going to/returning from.
I could have sold tickets for a lift with Dad.
And if I’d had any business acumen about me I’m sure I could have charged my mates double per journey and they still would have given me a tip.
‘Oh Mr Cooper, you’re so funny!’ girl friends would howl with laughter as he drove us back from a disco at one in the morning. And he loved it. The adulation, the audience, the half-drunken party girls rolling around in the back of his land rover as he took a corner too sharply on purpose. (Pre-seat belt law).
He’d never admit to it, of course. He still made out it was all a huge effort on his part and I was ruining every evening he had to come out to pick me and my seven mates up from wherever we’d spent our evening.
And now I’m the Taxi to my little teenaged Angel.
But I don’t mind.
Much.
Not even when we get halfway there and she realises she’s forgotten her purse/mobile/lipstick. Because I didn’t give birth to her to grumble at her and bemoan the fact she’s interrupting my evening/weekend. She’s the most important thing in the world to me and if she needs a lift even twice the way round it, then I’m the Mum to proudly *do the driving.
(sniff)

*Of course Step-fathers are equally amazing and don’t moan very much hardly either – especially if there’s football/fishing/DIY/cookery programmes on the telly.
(but you didn’t hear me say that)

That's the Wonder of E-Bay!

There’s not much will make me laugh gleefully whilst driving home from a hard slog at the office*. Terry Wogan (as I think I mentioned previously) will make me chuckle on the way INTO work – when I don’t know what seventeen types of horror await me once I get there – but on the way home? At 1pm?
There’s a scintillating choice of either the local Radio’s Lunchtime disco which you have to be in the mood for and not mind the occasional slam into an advert for second hand cars or carpets at discount prices; or else there’s Jeremy Vine going on about something morbidly miserable and listening to his callers whining on about how unfair something is and having a cut-throat argument with another equally irate caller on Line 2. During which you can never hear either argument because the other invariably rants ferociously over the first. It’s not Radio. Its reality TV with the picture turned off.
Bah.
So I wasn’t expecting the News to herald anything of interest other than someone else getting killed somewhere and/or another Salami sweeping somewhere else and Gording (Effing**) Brown saying something disturbing about the state of our economy. Like he knows what’s wrong with it – er…hello?
So thank God for the ten year old girl who listed her Grandma for sale on E-Bay, that’s all I can say. And thank God equally that I had a pack of Handy tissues in the car to soak up my wails of wet hilarity as I drove home. Now that’s what I CALL entertainment.
Which ludicrously lovely story reminded me of another guy who got so bored trawling through items on E-bay that he listed the cup of tea he was drinking and took a photo of it, throwing in the half-eaten biscuit he was dunking into it at the time as well.
He got £2.50 for it.
Not a bad morning’s boredom.
And the World has the cheek to slag off the British sense of Humour – ha! I say to The World - Suck my biscuit and buy my Granny!

*Ok then, more a large room in which I am surrounded by bits of coloured paper, pritt sticks, staple guns and a myriad of wildly fascinating people.
** Not precisely mine, but the opinion of the main character in the Teenage thing I’ve just written. Gah – teenagers, eh?!