And Mika - you don't have to be isolated - we're all here!

Nell......with remarks as profound as like that.... Sorry, you are already our resident therapist! And a grand job you are doing too!!!

Best wishes
Carole/Shads

ps...if you don't want the job you're going to have to practise being shallow!!! LOL

Thanks everyone, although I feel I may have misinterpreted and this is my fault. My humour is dry verging on non existent. I forget. I was poking fun at myself . My family don't mention my writing as if it is an embarassing smell and I'm sure they're waiting for me to grow out of it as if I'm going thru adolescence or a mid life crisis. I suppose I need to be exonerated that's all, I need to prove to everyone (and myself) that all this time has not been wasted and then I might enjoy it more, especially if I get that nice stuff money as well. I'm sick of people saying, 'oh' when they ask me what I do. Unpublished writer ranks lower than toilet cleaner it seems.
You seem like a very nice bunch. It's hard though innit? Thanks.

Mika - a published writer is just an unpublished writer that didn't quit!!!

Don't give up the dream!!!

Good luck

Shads/Carols

If I didn't write, then I'd be stuck with those oddities in my head. I have no idea where my ideas come from, for stories and the like, but they just don't go away until I write them down.

So when you're mind is currently being shared with talking heaters, possessed feet and Minataurs claiming money from the Government as asylum seekers, you need to clear them out to stop yourself from going mad.

Sharing the stories started on a forum, people said they liked them, I realised how much I enjoyed writing, and here we are today, with me wanting to spread them far and wide...

Eek! Just writing that has made me remember 'The Adventures of Colin the Spankaholic' and 'Spider-nan'.

Mika - Shads is right - if you write you're a writer, published or unpublished. Another reason why I write occurred to me this morning while walking the dog. Escapism. An alternative reality where I can set the scene and call the shots - unlike this life where I sometimes feel that I'm the plaything of chance and the Furies. And Shads - I still think Hilary would be better than I would at the therapy - and by the way, where is Hilary?

Hi, just popped in, in my usual random way. I am the wrong kind of psychologist (there are infinitely more than 57 varieties) plus I think everybody is doing better at the talking therapy than I could hope to achieve from a theoretical viewpoint.

Doing something -as Insane - IB has so clearly shown - feels infinitely better than ruminating. Knowing this, I still ruminate like hell, but, when I'm writing I can't because the grey cells get too busy elsewhere. I suspect writing uses up the very same bits of the brain as are involved in depressogenic thinking processes, but I could be wrong.

Why do we do it? I just go for any kind of project work, something with a beginning, middle and end. Like Becca, I came to it late (though there is some stuff way back). I love that you can put layers together, feelings, visuals, past/now/future. I love that you get permission to walk into someone else's brain - your words fizzing away in their synapses. I love making people feel things, but very quietly - if that makes sense

Don't pin too much on publishing, though, it is not all or none. I was unpublished last year, and sort of published now. It's like a birthday, doesn't change you as much as you expected, but a lot of other stuff seems to come with it. Good - people enjoying your stuff, bad - trying to get publicity. One thing you don't get though, is money. Which is good in a way because writing remains a treat that you have to find time for, not a chore that you do to get the bread.

Must stop rambling and earn the bread. Cheers, Hilary

I do it for a few reasons. I think the main reason is escapism. I really don't enjoy my 9-5 life, so at weekends I like to lose myself in the novel (my first) which I'm trying to write. I find it really relaxing to just sit in Starbucks and fill sheet after shhet of A4 with ideas, scenes and plot diagrams. There are times when I have so many thoughts in my head that I can barely get them down on paper, yet even after eight months I haven't got the plot nailed down yet. I just like the idea of writing something where on every page there is something intriguing and the reader just can't wait to read more. But I think I'm a fair way off until I can produce anything like that. Ultimately, it is the dream of producing a piece like that which drives me on and makes me do it.

Escapism is a funny idea really, I've thought about it, do I make stories to escape from the normality of my life? Then I think, well my life probably isn't very normal, but I know writing fills something, some restlessness, some inquiry that I don't even have a name for. I heard the most extraordinary thing today that excited me. A housing department phoned me up and asked if I could ask my elderly client to stop putting her colostomy bags, (made of plastic), down the toilet because they were 'backing up the drains' and causing, literally, a stink in the neighbourhood. And, the woman ended by saying this could hurt dolphins who might mistake the colostomy bags for jellyfish and eat them. I laughed like a drain, excuse the pun, and then I thought could I write this story? I'd love to, but I think there are people on this site that could write it better than me. Who is up for the challenge?

Becca

I am sure if I play around with that image I can produce something in the next day or so

how many dolphins do you get in the sewers were you live then? I have heard of alligators in the NY sewers but dolphins you must have high quality effluent

take care

david

David, the dolphins get the bags when they've floated out to sea in the housing officer's mind. I didn't know sewage still went into the sea, I thought it was recycled by Macdonalds. I didn't question her further, I was to busy laughing. Might be true though.

Becca


you present a tremendous image of sewage being pumped straight into a moulding tank at the back of macdonalds.


Oh dear what can the matter be
dont throw your colostomy bags
straight down your lavatory.
They float out to sea,
well they may do laterly
and the dolphins will eat them for tea.

A colostomy bag looks like a tasy dish
to a dolphin it looks like a
Big Mac jelly fish
with fries on the side
it will get fat and die

Best laugh for days - thanks all. Hilary ...I think we should go on now to the film of the autopsy of the dolphin found dying in the Aegean (sp?) and the tracking down of the plastic found in the heartvalve (er probably not. Stomach?) to the tiny factory in Scunthorpe, where the owner... Bags I be casting director - though I don't know many Dolphins.

darryl hannah can play the dolphin lead after all she has had practice and Patrick Duffy the underwater bad guy for the same reason.

nice thoughts Hilary

take care david

Brilliant little poem, David, can I quote it to the housing officer, district nurse and social worker on Monday? They're all involved now and the phones have been ringing in my office with people asking me to tell them the bag and jellyfish story. District nurse has been allotted the chore of telling the client to stop doing it, because she has more clout in the area of correct procedures and normal uses and disposal of the colostomy bag. We're supposed to be on a thread called 'Why do we do it?'.. and we're doing it now. I guess we can't help it.