The Pensive Paws

I came up with a great name for if someone was making a film about some dogs that were in a band. The band of dogs could be called The Pensive Paws. One would need to wear glasses and be all thoughtful. Maybe the thoughtful one would be a Border Collie - they’re pretty smart. If anyone wants to make this film, you can have that for free. Also, email me, I have lots more ideas about films starring dogs, more than you’d even believe.

I held Even More Tonto Short Stories in my hand yesterday. I haven’t had my author copy yet, so when it came into the library with the other new books it made me completely giddy for the rest of the day. I went to get my phone to take a photo but when I came back it had already been checked out! I don’t know how writers keep it together when they have a whole book out. I wanted to do cartwheels and everything. And not even sweary “I live in a shed”-lady could dampen my spirits.

No News, Just Ramblings

Last night I woke after sleeping all afternoon to find the house full of light. I cooked some rice and listened to a record. Upstairs, friends laughed. I went into the room and lay on the couch. They were being funny with words, swapping words. They were trying to think of new good words to swap. I pushed my feet against the arm of the couch. I felt straight, rectangular. I felt happy to be in the room with them. One of them tried to teach me a game but the rules were impossible. I played my hand anyway, hoping to somehow understand eventually. I still don’t understand. And then I did writing but I kept mixing the letters up. My fingers typed some things faster than others, swapping things around by accident while everyone else was asleep.

Today was lazy and spectacular. Today was a story pulled out of a hat at the last second. I have eaten a lot of hazelnuts. I still think I’m half-nocturnal. I am obsessed with Wuthering Heights right now. This week. Today. Not the song. I have a friend that I really miss being around. Today the friend seemed sad, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t even let them know I knew they felt sad. People wear masks and live in their own small worlds. Where I live, there is nothing wild. I miss the hills and ponds and tall grasses of my childhood. I miss climbing trees. I would give this friend a forest to lose themselves in. I think being lost might make everything all right.

I think I’m different to how I was. I still don’t know for certain if that’s a good thing, but I think maybe it is, that soon I will settle into this new skin and there will be stillness in my life again. Everything I write down feels like a story, or that it could be a story. I’m completely blurring the edges between fact and fiction. I always have done. I’m always thinking: can I use this?

I met two deadlines this week, one admittedly by the skin of my teeth, after realising my original piece was well over the wordcount. It’s been a good week. Not so strange as some of the weeks I’ve had lately. But interesting all the same. More of this please.

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!

*

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

*

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?

I promise that I will do my best to do my duty to Bugged

Tomorrow is not only the first day of July, it is also a day to do eavesdropping, and do eavesdropping good. It’s all part of Bugged, a project for UK writers. They call it ‘creative eavesdropping’. I guess as writers we do this anyway, but this is like having permission to do it.


From the website:

1 On July 1st 2010, go forth and…. eavesdrop! Wherever you are – in the British Museum or Bradford bus station, in your office, the pub, on the train – listen in to conversations and fragments of speech around you. Be discreet. Try not to get punched.

2 Write a new piece of work based on what you hear. We want poems of up to 60 lines, stories up to 1000 words, flash fiction up to 150 words, scripts up to 5 minutes long. Our favourite recent overhearing is ‘I think it was the turtles that did for her eventually.’ Yours may be tragical, farcical, touching or mundane. You don’t have to quote your overhearing directly – it might just be a starting point for your piece.

3 Submit it to us by email after July 1st, and before August 15th. The sooner the better.

(Further details can be found here.)

I wish it had been B-Day on Tuesday, because there was a crazy lady in the library who could’ve set me off on a hundred stories. My favourite quote from her has to be: “I LIVE IN A SHED!!!” The rest is pretty unrepeatable. But I will be eavesdropping in the library again tomorrow, notebook in pocket, when I’m supposed to be tidying the Biographies. I’m sure I’ll overhear something good, something that will inspire a story. Bring it on!

I'm A Festival. I'm A Parade.

We’re lying on the bed with the window open. The breeze sucks the curtain out of the room, billows it like a sail into the world outside.

His arm is wooden beneath my neck, but when he speaks he moves his hand, twitches his fingers, and I feel his muscles contract and slacken underneath me.

Our clothes are from another decade. We laughed at first, trying on outfits of the dead, their garish colours at odds with our complexions. But it soon exhausted us, the being other people, the being ironic. And so we lay down on top of the sheets. But we’re still not ourselves.

His eyes are hidden behind dark glasses, huge. Reflected in them I am a mass of gold and green. I’m a festival. I’m a parade.

We breathe soft under the weight of the clothes. He is layers of red and blue and brown. He is three shirts deep, strangled by a tie that’s bigger than all our dreams put together.

His body is unrecognisable. I press my hands against where his chest should be. All I can feel are buttons, shiny and smooth beneath my fingers.

I undo them one by one.


***

(I'm writing tiny stories/snapshots inspired by songs, either taking the title or a line or two. The stories don't really have anything to do with the songs, but maybe they'll evoke the same feelings, or maybe they won't. I'm making a tiny book of each story. Just one book per story. If you would like this one, leave a Yes in the comments or email me at ejlannie [at] gmail [dot] com with your address.)

Lucky Owl Writing Necklace

It feels like it's been ages since I last wrote anything on here. Forgive me interweb, for I have been busy doing non-interweb things. Mostly writing, with a spot of gardening, some sitting in the kitchen with my housemates (avec tealights) during a power-cut, reading, making hassleback potatoes, counting words, oh, and making an owl necklace. (And half-pretending to imbue it with magical properties i.e. it is now my 'lucky owl writing necklace'.)

I think it's working, because I recently found out that my story from >kill author, Proxy, has been nominated for the storySouth Million Writers Award Notable Stories of 2009. It’s a long list of brilliant stories, and I feel honoured to have made it onto it. Big congratulations also go out to kill author, who won the Million Writers Award for best new online magazine or journal. Yeah! I think I’m a little bit in love with >kill author.

And Dzanc Books have just officially announced the line-up for Best of the Web 2010, which Proxy made it into. I think you can actually pre-order it now, and it’s out in June! Eeek! I’m very excited about that, especially after seeing who else is in it.

Other people who’ve had good news recently:

Jenn Ashworth. Her blog full of fibs has been shortlisted for the Author Blog Awards. Woop! You can sign up and vote here. Do it. Do it now.

Nathan Good and Aimee Wilkinson (who I do TTO/Hello Hub things with) both have stories in the new Tomlit.

And this is good news for people with ears: Biff (TTO/HH) has finished his record and you can listen to some of the songs here.

And...Word Soup is One! There is a Word Soup Birthday Party happening on Tuesday 20th April at the New Continental, in Preston. I'm not 100% sure I can go yet, but I'll be there in spirit if I can't. I think it's going to be ace.