Feelgood Friday

Since this week is half term, I haven’t done any creative writing – or had time to get deep and meaningful for the blog. So instead here’s some gratuitous picture of the cute puppies we visited this week at granny’s house – and a few of the kids enjoying Nausicaa in Boulogne.

'A person who has never owned a dog has missed a wonderful part of life.'

~Bob Barker (taken from http://www.dogquotations.com).

While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.
~Angela Schwindt (taken from The Quote Garden).

Enjoy the weekend - back to school on Monday!!!

 

Polly, put the kettle on.

This week I have mostly been thinking about exhaustion. As we head towards half term it seems the kids are just about coping. But the dreaded V&D bugs are back again nipping at the heels of our nippers. And every mother is praying that she can make it to half term without catching the lurgy. A week away from school, while the germs die down, is what we all need – kids, mothers – and probably the teachers too.

Poor Polly needs to look after herself

As a parent it’s easy to run yourself into the ground. If you’ve given up a high flying career you might find yourself re-directing your overachiever angst at the ‘job’ of parenting. And there’s so much to work at – impeccably polite children with good grades, a whole range of extra-curricular activities and after school clubs to succeed at, nutritious meals to plan and cook, perfect play dates and seriously good birthday parties to arrange. Just typing that wears me out.

I’m just as guilty. I’m currently trying to plan the month of June. I have a kiddo birthday, a school reunion and a barn dance I want to cram in. I need to sort out babysitters, relatives coming and going and exactly where I am going to be when. Planning June? It’s only February – have I gone completely mad?

This week alone I’m trying not to forget about any of the following: French club, a Fair-trade coffee morning, Pancake Day, Chinese New Year celebrations, non-uniform day, a sleepover after a party, swimming, Valentine’s Day, ballet (including the return of the teacher’s hair clip) and a toy sale. Meanwhile our home looks like a tornado has blown through it, the dishwasher needs a colonic irrigation and I still can’t decide whether to keep my new ASICS.

It’s times like this when I realise if I don’t look after myself as much as I look after other people I’m going to end up in a straightjacket. I’m aware that I need an eye test, a scale and polish at the dentist and –whisper it – an intimate visit with the nurse so I don’t go the way of Jade Goody. My shoulders are screaming out for a massage too – I’m only a step away from asking total strangers to give me a bit of a rub.

Take a break Polly

But it’s such a taboo, to say out loud, you need to take some ‘me time’ (and probably asking strangers to massage you is also a bit beyond normal). I always think it makes me sound like a spoiled housewife who worries more about her manicure than her offspring. What is it about us mums that makes us think we should be last on the ‘things to do’ list? I blame, oh, myself…

Feeling a bit downtrodden as I am, my creative writing task this week was a response to a request for ‘gritty’ writing. I tapped into this need to perpetuate the myth of a perfect family life and added some unsavoury details. Within the story a mother of twins has to face the inconvenient truth that she’s will have to give up one child, because of what has happened to the other. But she doesn’t want to admit that, just yet. And sometimes, like the mother in my story, we all need to shut the rest of the world out (who cares if the house is a mess, and that there is so much dirty washing the basket won’t close).

So I’m recommending that instead of just reserving one day in March to celebrate Mothers, we make it a whole month of the Mum. Put the kettle on and your feet up; attend a yoga class like the one my lovely cousin Ali Masterman is running at Triyoga (23rd Feb, 2.30pm). It’s designed to relax, restore and rejuvenate worn out mums. Or get a date in the diary for the tempting G and Tea at the Hotel Du Vin (they put your alcohol in china cups – why didn’t I think of that?), which is exactly what my nearest and dearest mummies are currently working on sorting out a date for. In short, cut yourself some slack, and prioritise a few of your needs.

And let me know how you plan to treat yourself in the comment box below – if you have the time that is...

It's always the quiet ones...

My best mummy moment of this week has to be my youngest daughter’s first class assembly. It was such a gratuitous treat to watch all the itty bitty cuties from Foundation file into the hall, saucer-wide eyes searching for their grown-up – and then smiling (and maybe even waving) when they gleefully caught sight of them.

It goes without saying that my little darling’s role was pivotal to the entire performance. Pivotal in that it was a non-speaking part in which she held up a piece of paper in front of her face at the exact moment she had to. Timing is everything in these productions of course.

Move along, there's nothing to see...

As an added bonus, my elder daughter was sitting on the floor right in front of me too (I was in the front row of parents naturally, since I had camped outside the hall doors the night before to ensure a good seat).  

Our family has a long tradition of shunning the limelight. Since we are also blessed with lack of stature, it didn’t take my older daughter long to realise she could easily avoid detection in any school play by simply hiding behind someone – anyone – taller than her. I have some lovely photos of her arms and legs. She was beaten by the ballet teacher however, who chose her as one of those to be at the front of the Christmas line up. The thwarted look on her face was priceless.

I don’t blame her at all, since I’m just the same. Rather than simply labelling it as shyness however, I like to see it as a kind of internal self-confidence.  Some people just don’t need or enjoy external affirmation in the same way others do. In fact some of us aren’t convinced when we hear positive comments from others, because what matters more to us is how well we think we’ve done.

Well, that's awkward...

This is probably why I’m reading Quiet by Susan Cain. The book argues that despite accounting for at least a third of the population, introverts get a bad rap because our culture celebrates and rewards the exact opposite. However, Cain believes that the extrovert is lost without his self-contained counterpart and that society should value the reserved. Of course I agree!

Perhaps not surprisingly then, when I decided to craft a piece of crime fiction for this competition I chose the underdog as my protagonist. Unfortunately for the extrovert in the story, his days are numbered.

Not that I’m suggesting us ‘quiets’ should rise up and murder the noise makers. It’s just that sometimes the extroverts need to shut up and listen – and likewise sometimes the introverts need to step outside their comfort zone. It takes all sorts to make our jolly little world go round – some of us are destined to tap dance up to stage to collect our Oscar, while others will be holding up the cue cards for that acceptance speech (preferably in front of our faces).

But do bear in mind that no one plans a murder out loud…!

Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Animal Farm, Harry Potter, Charlie Brown, the theories of gravity and relativity, Chopin's piano concertos and The Cat in the Hat wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for introverts. Which would you miss the most? And what do you think makes someone an introvert or the exact opposite? Let me know in the comment box below…

Bitching Barbies

Last weekend I attended a school reunion. Not an official one, but one in a London restaurant largely organised through Facebook. The event was fantastic, with lots of laughter and reminiscing. And some wine. And what left the biggest impression was that we all got on – just as I’d remembered we all had.

Perhaps most people wouldn’t find that so shocking – but if I told you mine was a girls school would you change your mind? I’ve found that Kent’s single-sex selective system brings out quite a lot of negative comments. On hearing that my secondary peers were all female, plenty of people ask: ‘But wasn’t that so BITCHY?’.  Well no, it wasn’t. Women aren’t always incredibly jealous individuals competing for the best boyfriend – some of us are actually quite friendly…even to each other!

Barbies shouldn't be left unattended

 

It was with this in mind that I spent some time reading about a ‘hot’ new book by Steve Biddulph. The basic premise is that girls are facing a ‘crisis’ because of the pressure society puts upon them to grow up too quickly. They want to be beautiful and sexy – long before they can comprehend what sexy means. And when they do become sexually active it’s for the wrong reasons – with the insecurity they experience over their identity leading to mental illness.

As a mother of two girls, I’m horrified to think that this could be the case. But when I really think about it, I’m not convinced that the situation is quite as clear cut as the media furore would have us believe. The cynic inside me also thinks a few outrageous press articles never did book sales any harm…

In truth there has always been pressure on females to behave in – and look – a certain way. And much of the force behind this has come from the male-dominated worlds of industry, media and politics. I find it ironic that much of the critical commentary on the way girls dress, behave and consume often includes some remark about feminism and the sexual revolution. There’s an undercurrent that suggests since females have benefitted SO much from the 'equal' society we now live in (chortle) it’s kind of our own fault our girls are being treated like life-sized Barbie dolls.

But who can save future females generations from self-harm, shattered self-esteem and self-medication by binge drinking? Why ‘parents’ of course – and by that we mean mothers!!! The onus is on us to build up confidence, explain sex and emotions and help guide our girls in life. Excuse me, but I pretty much plan to do that anyway…

Why not speak to your children?

 

Which neatly leads me onto what I’ve been writing this week (it’s like I plan this stuff!!). A local business mummy (see us women work as a team!) tipped me off about a call for submissions. The topic was women, and specifically stage scripts that focus on their stories and situations not presently represented on stage (women form 68% of theatre audiences but typically there is a 2:1 male-to-female ratio of roles for actors appearing on stage).

I think it’s true to say that the multi-tasking mummy isn’t often represented on stage, as there’s more mileage in a beautiful, young, singleton (playing opposite a male lead apparently!). So I wrote a monologue set at a school nativity play with the ensuing humour only various social gaffes  and gaining a decent camera shot can bring. During this exercise I even learnt how to mark up scripts!

Since I had some extra time I also submitted a 100-word entry into a competition judged by Jeffrey Archer. The ultimate prize is a place on a novel-writing course. Well, everyone has a book inside them.

What would your novel be about? (answers please in the comments box below!!)

 

 

Janet gets drunk

The other evening my husband was away in Milton Keynes with work (well someone has to pay the mortgage). After passing a lifetime or two on my Facebook accounts, Pinterest and Twitter, I decided to get ready for bed.

At that point I begun to feel very sure I could hear movement and footsteps. Becoming increasingly uneasy, I switched on all the external lights and peered out of the back windows apprehensively. ‘Aha!’ I thought, ’if there’s an intruder I will be able to see his footprints in the freshly fallen snow’ (I'm a big fan of ‘Silent Witness’).

However, I couldn’t see anything, so I moved on to patrol the area to the front of the house, stealthily twitching the curtains by the front door.  Nothing. It seemed it was all in my over-active imagination. I turned, making ready to climb the stairs to bed. And that is when I completely freaked out to find a small person and a demonic charity shop teddy staring at me. My youngest child had apparently been ‘wondering where I was’ and had been following me about the house. Needless to say, despite apprehending the villain, it took me some time to get to sleep that night.
 

My 'villian' does not look particularly frightening in the daylight...

 

On the upside however, it did remind me that this week’s challenge is a bit of ‘Flash Fiction’ crime writing. In just 250 words I was to follow this brief: ‘Thirty-five year old Janet comes home to find a burglar in her flat’.  I just needed to harness the horror I had felt as I crept around the house attempting to out-smart the psychopathic axe-wielding maniac I had felt sure existed. It couldn’t be that hard…could it?

Anywho, when I finally got down to writing the piece, Janet proved herself to be a shameless hussy of a singleton, who comes back worse for wear from after work drinkies. Despite disturbing the thief, come the morning she can’t quite remember why her flat is a mess and presumes she has had it off with a colleague. Silly Janet! And at this point I cannot stress enough that Janet’s story is not autobiographical. I have never apprehended a burglar.

Janet may have drunk all this

So last week extended erotic zombie tales and this week short and snappy crime writing. What next on my whirlwind tour of writing styles I hear you cry? Well, much like that dirty birdie Janet, I’m open to suggestions…

Zombie sex

Ah, the joy of the initial spend-up that accompanies a new ‘project’! A new project such as, well, embarking on a creative writing career perhaps…

So far I’ve bought a few novels so that I may master the art of appreciating successful writers, the obligatory Writers & Artists 2013 yearbook to ponder which lucky publication/s I could send off completed pieces to and a book on e-publishing, in case I go down that route. I haven’t sold a single piece to offset the expenditure of course. My project is not at that stage yet.

I also bought a copy of Writers Magazine . Deep within its pages is a section full of competitions and markets for short stories. And, as I flicked though, I came across a rather arresting photo – the subject was a bespectacled, petite, woman of my age or more in a black vest top.  Perhaps unusually she was also wearing scarlet red leather gloves and clutching a teddy. She had an over eager smile – and looked rather naughty. I liked her.

It turns out her name is Mitzi Szereto and she is both an author of erotic titles and an anthologist (to be honest at first I thought it said anthropologist which confused me a bit). It transpires that the teddy is also a writer, has a loyal fan base and had chilli for dinner last night. I now follow them on Twitter.

But it gets better. She is compiling erotic zombie stories and is looking for submissions. Well, what’s a girl to do? I’ve had sex at least twice (sorry mum) and at least twice pretty much wished at least one of us was dead before, during or afterwards. I’ll give it a go I said to myself.

But as it turns out I know very little about zombies – unless you count what I learnt from Shaun of the Dead (and mostly I was watching Simon Pegg during that, on nom nom). I had to go to Wikipedia and do a little bit of film studies, where I learnt that zombies are rather rich and complex literary characters.

Full of new-found zombie wisdom I put fingertips to keys determined to do for zombies what Twilight has done for vampires. I even found a way to make light of the drooling.  But I fear I came up terribly short (insert obligatory joke about me being 5ft 2).

I truly struggled to get anywhere near the 3,000 word count. Until I remembered the novel I had just finished (Wonder by R.J. Palacio). In this book the writing cuts back and forth between characters – giving them each as turn as narrator. And it’s a great technique for adding depth to the events within the story. So I did that, and pretty soon, we have a zombie, his lover and her mother to play with.

I made the word count and submitted my story (once I managed to spell Mitzi’s email address correctly that is). While, it’s highly unlikely to get accepted, it was fantastic practice – and I got to justify some of my recent expenditure.  And it has led me to Mitzi and that bear.

I feel my horizons have been broadened, not least because I’ve had to think about zombie sex, red leather gloves and Teddy Tedaloo. Maybe next week I’ll have another new topic to titillate us?

Come back and find out!

Why now?

Recently my husband and I met up with some friends. At different points during the day, both the friends asked me what was new. And that's when it hit me. Nothing was new. Everything was well, but nothing was new. And for the first time since having my children I wondered if I didn't need something more.

As every stay-at-home-mum will tell you, the minute your youngest starts school, so do the questions. 'So, what will you do now?', 'Won't you find the house quiet?' and the ultimate kick-in-the-teeth 'Back to work then?'. I always want to say 'Shut your pie-hole' but since I know that's not allowed, I usually tell everyone I'm considering my options. But inside I'm thinking about the pie-hole thing.

I have never regretted my decision to be a full-time mum. I think it's the singularly most important challenge I ever undertook. Maybe it's because I side-stepped corporate cubicles a while ago anyway, swapping high-level meetings and office politics for the life of the freelancer. Maybe it's because I achieved the career goals I set myself sometime in my 20's. I certainly didn't feel it was a sacrifice and I don't - or I didn't - miss work.

But now I'm faced with some time to myself - which is great. I go to the gym and I can get to the farm shop without a soft toy peeping out of my handbag. But with free time comes head space. For the first time in seven years I can think about myself. The old me, the current me and any future me.

And current me thinks that I still want to be there at drop-off and pick-up, when there is an assembly or show to attend, an event that parents need to pitch in with and if the winter (summer, spring or autumn) vomiting bug comes calling. Current me knows there are packed lunches to be made, reading books to be listened to, number bonds and number lines to navigate and lots of play dates and pick-ups to organise.

But current me also remembers I once enjoyed real writing - and wonders what happened to the schoolgirl me penning pages and pages of stories in a frenzied whirl. Long before I needed to think about a career, cash and commercial writing.

So after a seven-year hitch, I'm going back to basics. I'm blogging and I'm tap, tap, tapping short stories on my laptop. I think I'll have to write pieces that are slightly tongue-in-cheek, because that's mostly the way I think. And I'll be blogging bits along the way that I hope will keep us all entertained. No one wants too much space in their head.

And one day, maybe I'll be able to pick up the girls from school and say 'Mummy sold a story today'. Although they'll probably just ask if I have any biscuits...