I've just come across this, in a terrific book about the Short Story, and it seemed to me to encapsulate what we're all up to in writing fiction. Talking about how in many of the best short-story-writers' work - Borges, Poe, Maugham - specific subjects and techniques recur, Valerie Shaw says that

"Where originality comes over is in the skill with which a writer can simultaneously meet the demand for comforting sameness and divert it into new and often disturbing areas."

To traditional literary snobs only the new-and-disturbing is important in writing, and anything easy to apprehend is pap for the masses. To inverted literary snobs anything that's not one of the traditional pleasures of storytelling is so much high-falutin', deliberately obfuscatory nonsense. But what is a story but something we want to read? And why do we want to read it? Because we know that narrative - events and sensations that we at least partly recognise, arranged to have beginning, middle and end - gives us pleasure, and a familiar pleasure at that. And yet we also read stories to tell and show us new things, at least more exciting/funnier/more romantic versions of our own lives or, newer still to us, other worlds, other lives, other passions...

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Hey ho, I'm feeling surprisingly calm today. What an astonishment for us all indeed. It was great to be able to stop angsting for Britain (is it an Olympic sport, as I'm sure I'd be in with a chance ...?) and get out and play some really quite bad golf with Marian. The weather was great (yes, I know I sound like a postcard, but I'm getting into training for next week) and there was absolutely no-one else on the course but us. Weird. That has never happened before. We were so spooked by it that halfway round we began to wonder if aliens had landed and taken off all the other inhabitants of Godalming. And whether they planned to replace them with large, confident women with whicker (sp?) baskets. Bloody difficult to tell the difference then ...

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God, what a day. Another of those ones where I've felt extremely fragile and wondered why the hell when you interact with people face-to-face, they always have to come with knives. Is it just me or is everyone getting pricklier these days? Great title for my next book, eh ...

Anyway, I'd had way too much of people in all shapes and sizes last night so emailed the Counselling Centre to cancel my appointment with Kunu today - the phone being far too scary to contemplate and me feeling far too depressed to talk - which is probably like tidying up for your cleaner, but there you go ...

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I’d rather be a cleaner than a teacher; when people tramp all over your work they apologise, and sometimes ask your permission to continue. Students don’t usually say that they’re sorry for giggling in your class and disrupting the lesson plan you spent ages working out. Thank the stars I didn’t spend time in that area. I did quite enjoy popping in at Book-week and doing creative writing workshops, or reading something with the younger years. Teaching English to ten 10yr old Spanish kids just makes you paranoid. I couldn’t hack it – give me a mop every time.


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Ye gods, but it was all stress city at work this morning – several emails about the appalling inappropriateness (is that even a word??) of my poor little event flyers. Heck, and I was only trying to be helpful! Still, it managed to piss me off from the start of the day, so one hopes it can only get better. I sent back emails saying that at least I was moving from being “disappointing” to being “inappropriate”, which showed some kind of progress. Perhaps the next response to anything I did would be “shocking”. One lives in hope, eh …

Actually, I think people were surprised by the strength of my response, but heck, let them be surprised. Sometimes the university can be so nitpicking and bordering on anal, it might as well be an Olympic sport. Deep deep sigh. Still, since then, people have been nice - relatively - so here’s hoping that lasts too. In the meantime, I have rejigged the bloody flyers until I’m sick of the sight of them and will attempt to get them off my hands this afternoon. I’m also flicking through catalogues looking at free pens we could give to students, so that’s nice ...

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Yep, today is my 35th birthday. It feels like a landmark in many ways, not least because I released my debut novel at the weekend. I actually started writing Unrequited not long after my 30th birthday (after a horrible crisis of faith - wtf are you going to DO with your life???), so it feels like a good time to sit and assess just how far I've come.

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Naively I didn't think that anyone would actually read my attempt at a blog. Some dark and self-depreciating part of me wonders why anyone would care about what I have to say. Family and friends, maybe. But strangers? Nah! So, imagine my surprise at Irene's email from the ether, congratulating and praising on my first attempt! Oh, that every piece I write has an Irene waiting joyfully in the wings!

Why would anyone be interested in anything I have to say? Yet why, on learning that it was OK to delve in to the blogs of others, would I have spent many hours today pouring over stranger's muses if it weren't interesting? Perhaps it was an artful piece of procrastination (having bored quickly of the hoover and household duties), but I don't think so; more that the blogs which I did read were genuinely worthy of note. Really! It was thought-provoking to read that people have wildly differing opinions and experiences in life to me. And even more fascinating that there were uncanny similarities. I've diarised my life for years, but this is different. It's like the freedom of exhibitionism without the risk of arrest or humiliation. Well, of course there is the chance that I may be humiliated at some point, but the Internet holds a certain anonymity, so what harm does it do?

S**t, should have used a pseudonym.

But, oddly, (although not that odd at all really, because, of course, the Universe has a new and valuable lesson for me each and every day) that rumination ties in nicely with my deliberation for today.

I've been attending a short course at my local library enticingly entitled 'How to Get Published', run by a very nice chap who's completed a few bits and pieces of some acclaim. Homework from last week was to write an article for a chosen publication. I tried, I really tried. But I couldn't do it. I wrote half a short story, and 3 halves of three different articles, but turned up empty handed to class. As a PR/Publicity manager in a former life it felt OK to submit piece after piece as an employed member of staff for national, international and government organisations, but as me, 'lil' ol' me. That's different. Or so it seems.

What have I surmised today? That someone, somewhere may well get something out of what I write, be it a piece of information valuable to them, a word or phrase of inspiration at a time of need, or the simple joy of one well-constructed sentence, or a pleasant flow of words which sits nicely on the soul. Oh, and that I'm halfway to completing a short story and three articles.

Where I was frozen, the thaw begins.

And as to the missing 'e' key: a new keyboard is winging its way to me now.

Feeling a bit empty today – I am obviously having a blank week. Possibly the effect of too many calming pills, but I have to say it’s not unpleasant. Better than feeling angry all the time for sure. Or maybe it’s the weather – it’s very dull and damp out there.

Lots of bits and pieces at work today – fiddled around with the Dean’s website, a couple of new marketing leaflets, plus chased up the boss about outstanding minutes/agendas before I go on holiday and took a load of the never-ending paper cups to the Health Centre. Who are also in a drinking crisis. Ooh, and I remembered to give the boss my review form too. The annual nightmare! We actually have the review meeting the first day I get back – not great timing for sure! However, I’ve made myself feel better by booking an hour’s Aroma Stone Therapy treatment at the hotel we’re staying in next week. Hurrah!...

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It was the kind of thing that writers spend whole parties explaining doesn't happen to them. (Whole parties? As Margaret Atwood says, we talk too much because we spend too much time on our own). The water in the pool at my feet was cool and blue, the courtyard garden a shady oasis in the middle of Madrid. Tall windows stood open to reveal a spacious drawing room full of English-style sofas, beautiful objects and handsome, well-read books. The interpreter and I chatted while the makeup artist set to work. Everyone was friendly, and flattering in a way that meant I could more-or-less believe them. It was a photoshoot for Spanish Elle magazine, and the interview was arranged for the next day at my hotel, before I flew out. At least the sad sandwich which is all British Airways now feeds you on such a flight was a definite reality-check.

I haven't seen the photos yet...


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My short story, Drinking Vodka in the Afternoon, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow, Wednesday October 3rd, at 3.30pm UK time.It's very exciting - my third story on the radio in three years! And the first story that I wrote for radio...

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