Remember This Guy?

Yesterday I got a nice email from Ola, the guy behind one million giraffes, telling me he'd blogged about the giraffe I sent in. Yay! I did it as part of my hundred days project, on day 79, because (a) I have a thing for giraffes, and (b) I love the idea of someone collecting a million giraffes. He still has a ways to go...

(From the website)

My friend, Jørgen, doesn't believe I can collect one million giraffes by 2011. I'm gonna prove him wrong, but I need your help. You can create your giraffes in any way you like, but not on a computer and no store bought objects. You must create your giraffes yourself!

I've gotten 906 176 giraffes so far, so I only need 93 824 more and I have 172 days left to get. Please help me!

Go on, make a giraffe. Make two!

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On a non-giraffe related note, I have a new story up at How Men Make Love In The Twentieth Century. Thanks Ben!

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That is all.

Proxy in Print!!!

So today's the day Dzanc Best Of The Web 2010 is released. You know, the one edited by Matt Bell and Kathy Fish, with my story Proxy, from kill author in it, along with stories from so many amazing writers. You can have a read of the contents and intro pages here, and maybe even buy it, if it takes your fancy? No pressure.

I originally wrote the story for the second Word Soup, a live lit night up in Preston. The theme was 'Skin'. Most of my stories have the word 'skin' in them, it's definitely a recurring theme. I read somewhere once that skin was the largest organ, and it's stuck with me ever since. (It's helped me out in at least three quizzes, as well. Ahhh quizzes. Lovely lovely quizzes.) But I wanted to write something new to read there.

I'm tactile. I like to touch things, like the way things feel. I'm not sure I'd always rate sense of touch above vision, or hearing, but there are times when that sense takes precedence, and it's often those times that stand out, the ones that are remembered on your skin. The way a certain song imprints itself on your brain, takes hold of you and keeps adding more of your emotions with every listen; holding someone's hand in the dark, and all the electricity of that, all the thoughts firing and the noticing every single small movement, is just as powerful for me. (And the songs that I love, I really love.) I wanted to write about that (all I do is write about that!), but this time from the angle of there being a lack: of proximity, of being able to touch. So, yep, that's what I was trying to do with Proxy.

Which sense or senses do you most focus on in your writing?