Hunger

‘Spare some change please?’

There’s a young bloke, maybe twenty-five or so, miserable as fuck, sitting on the pavement under the cash dispenser I want to use. He’s got a piece of cardboard propped up on his equally miserable looking dog-on-a-string proclaiming that he’s hungry. So what? So am I. I’m bloody starving and that’s why I’m at this cash dispenser trying to get some money out so I can take Lucy out to lunch. Spare change. Is he sure? As far as I’m aware, cash dispensers don’t dispense small change. And what does he mean by spare? How do I know if I’ve got any spare money before I’ve spent all that I’ve already got? And believe me, that’s going to be a long time. I ignore him and put my card in the slot.

‘Just a couple of quid for a cup of tea, mate?’

I put my hand in my pocket and jangle some change around, acting as if I’m going to give him something. He looks up at me; I can see the expectancy in his eyes. I pull out an empty hand and the expectancy turns to disappointment. Or contempt. Who cares? My iPhone vibrates. It’s Lucy,

sorry babe, cant make lunch xxx

I don’t want to sit in the restaurant on my own, so I ignore my rumbling stomach and decide to skip lunch and go back to the office. When I get back to my desk, Derek immediately buzzes me and calls me into his office.

‘I’m sorry, Clive, but times are tough these days. The department’s closing and I’m going to have to let you go. I’ll give you a reference, of course.’

Shit. I’ve got a £500,000 mortgage and no savings. Looks like I’ll be joining the young bloke under the cash dispenser.

I may not be very good at writing poems, but I can make them into pretty shapes. Well, I can make one poem into a shape, anyway. I haven’t tried any other shapes. Any requests?

This was one of my poems for TMA3. My tutor wasn’t very impressed. She said ‘blah blah blah’. Or something like that.

Fog

‘Are you Tom?’

Tom’s standing under the clock in Waterloo Station, a red carnation in his buttonhole and a copy of The Daily Telegraph under his arm. He’s hoping he looks tongue-in-cheek and not unoriginal.

‘Yes, yes, I am, hi!’ Standing in front of Tom is a short (despite wearing high heels; Tom doesn’t like high heels, he thinks they look tarty) girl with long auburn hair that’s tied up in a ponytail (Tom doesn’t approve of ponytails, he thinks women should wear their hair down). He goes to give her a kiss on the cheek, but changes his mind and shakes her hand instead. ‘You must be Rachel?’

‘Yes, that’s me. I’m not late am I? The train was a bit delayed because of the fog.’

‘No, no, not at all. I got here early. I didn’t want to keep a young lady waiting. What would you like to do? I thought maybe we could go on the London Eye.’

‘The London Eye? In the fog? Will we be able to see anything?’

‘Hmm, good point, well made. How about the zoo then? The elephants might be a bit of a waste of time, but we should be ok with the giraffes though, eh? Or maybe we should just go to the aquarium? They’re nice and brightly coloured and, as far as I know, you don’t get fog underwater.’

Rachel’s mobile rings. ‘Hello? Emma? Are you ok? What’s that? Your mum’s fallen down the stairs and you need help? No, no problem, that’s ok, I’ll be right there.’ She turns to Tom. ‘I’m really sorry but my best friend’s mum’s had an accident and I’ll have to go. Really sorry, another time maybe?’

Tom shrugs. That’s three dates in a row that have ended up abruptly with phone calls from best friends in distress. Funny that.

In my last post, I mentioned the weekly 300 word story exercise. Here’s last week’s. The subject/theme was ‘waiting’.

Waiting

A man in a grey suit with his tie loosened stands near the edge of the platform looking out onto the tracks. He is alone on the platform until a girl wearing a red polka dot dress with a matching scarf around her neck runs up the stairs. Panting, she stops and listens as an announcement comes over the speaker.

‘We apologise for the late arrival of the twenty-one thirty-seven to Brighton which should be arriving at platform one in approximately five minutes.’

She goes up to the edge of the platform and looks up the tracks. She turns to the man in the grey suit.

‘Thank God it’s running late, I thought I’d missed it,’ she says.

He says nothing.

She speaks again. ‘I hope it arrives soon though, I have to get to the hospital.’

The man looks up.

‘Are you a nurse?’ he says.

‘No, my mum’s in hospital. She’s got cancer.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. I hope she gets better soon.’

‘Not much chance of that, I’m afraid. They’re moving her into a hospice in a couple of days.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘She’s coping brilliantly. I think I would have given up by now.’

‘You don’t seem to be coping too badly yourself.’

‘Well, what’s the point in dwelling on things? There’s always someone worse off than you, isn’t there? Oh, here’s the train, at last.’

The man moves closer to the platform.

The train rumbles down the track and stops. The man steps away from the platform and turns towards the exit.

‘You not getting on?’ she says.

He shakes his head, crumples up the note in his pocket addressed to his wife and throws it onto the tracks.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the idea of a weekly 300 word story exercise for the group of six ex-A215-ers I’m in (I think they asked me to join them by mistake) who share and critique work. Last week’s theme/subject was ‘Waiting’ and this week’s is ‘Fog’. I had forgotten all about it and it’s due in tomorrow and I haven’t a clue what to write. So I thought I’d do a freewrite but it didn’t come up with much.

Here’s my freewrite.

Fog. Foggy. Grey. Swirls of fog like clouds, like spiders’ legs. Foggy brain. Can’t remember anything. Red mist. I think I have a foggy brain today as I can’t think of anything to write. Maybe write a story about someone who can’t remember anything. They call balsamic vinegar masonic vinegar. Like what I misheard on the telly last night. Oh no, the screen’s gone red. Must keep typing. Once upon a time there was some fog. In the fog lived a monster. The monster was called foggy. Foggy the monster. What a load of bollocks. Screen gone red again. Keep typing. Just 300 little words. or 300 long words, who cares. Write about fog. I was late for school once and said it was because it was so foggy I couldn’t see the school and went past it. I’m not sure they believed me. Probably because I was talking crap. 150 words. Just another 150 left to go. Dum de dum. Nope, nothing coming. What’s on telly tonight? Eastenders? What’s happening in Eastenders? Not a lot. I don’t think there’s been any fog in it either. Maybe they should have a fog story. And someone could get murdered and no one saw who did it because the fog was too thick. They don’t very often, if ever, have fog in soaps. Or any weather at all really. Considering how the British love to talk about the weather, why don’t they ever talk about it in soaps? Even when it’s snowing and they’re covered in snow, no one says ‘cold, innit?’ or anything. 262 words. Not many left. Fog and snow and rain and drizzle and sleet and sunshine and umbrellas and snowshoes and flip flops and tennis rackets and tennis balls and eight words left. Make that four. Bye bye.

Yay.

I haven’t written anything except a shopping list since finishing A215 and so today on Twitter I made a plea for someone to give me a writing exercise. No one responded except Jenny (@jennykline) who said she hadn’t written anything since the course either (she didn’t even mention a shopping list so she must be getting hungry by now) and so I said how about we do an exercise together and she said ok, what about? And I said how about 500 words on a pair of old trainers and she said ok, and she started writing and I thought oh shit, I don’t know what to write, and so I decided to do a freewrite and here’s my 500 words of stream of consciousness.

Has it worked to motivate me to write something? Not really. But, it’s a start.

*****

A Pair of Old Trainers

A pair of old trainers. Kept in the back of the cupboard along with the dead mice. Usually under the stairs with other shoes, bags, and whatever else people keep under the stairs. At the moment, our under the stairs consists of records, tapes and books. All mine. And an ironing board. Shaun’s. I don’t do ironing. Ever. I can’t stand it. I iron more creases in than I iron out. Anyway, back to the old trainers. What colour are they? Orange, perhaps. Actually I don’t own any orange trainers. Yes I do. My old Ascis which are the comfiest running shoes in the entire world ever. Like walking on clouds. Which is probably why they’re called Nimbus or Cumulus or whichever ones they are.  Shaun bought me a cloud book for the Christmas before last. I wasn’t very appreciative. I asked him if he’d read a web design book if I got him one. He, unsurprisingly, said no. So I said, or along the lines, anyway, so why would I want a cloud book? Apparently there’s a cloud book on amazon for about a hundred pounds or something. I need to have a look and see if it’s still there and buy it for him. Anyway, back to trainers. Dusty, dirty, smelly old trainers. Covered in mud and dust and handbags. Down the gym the pensioners don’t wear trainers. Not the old lady pensioners anyway. They wear comfy shoes. Why do old ladies wear comfy shoes all the time? The old lady at the writing group on Thursday doesn’t even need comfy shoes as she has her mobility scooter to get her around. So she could wear bright red high heels and not have to worry about tottering down the road like a transvestite, like I do on the rare occasion I wear high heels. Not that I’d wear bright red ones. And not that I’ve worn heels since meeting Shaun, as then I would be taller than him. Still, that’s a good excuse not to wear heels. I hate wearing heels. I used to hate wearing trainers and only bought my first pair when I started running. I thought trainers were for chavs. Actually, I still think that and wouldn’t wear trainers anywhere except for out running or to the gym. Is this freewrite generating anything? Not really. But I am writing for the first time since the course finished but maybe I could squeeze a story out of the old lady in her mobility scooter wearing bright high heels. I suppose trainers are ok for doing gardening in too but I haven’t done any gardening since moving here as it’s not my garden. I didn’t actually do much gardening in my garden in London though. Oh look, my 500 words is nearly up. Just another 30 to go. Thirty words about trainers. An old pair of orange trainers were living under the stairs where they had been for many years until being unearthed by a psychic octopus.

TMA5 was sent off yesterday. As usual, I left it until a week before the deadline to even start it. Then panicked and asked for an extension.

So, it’s ‘just’ the ECA left now then. Eek. Double-eek as I haven’t even started it yet but I have an idea that it’ll be either life-writing or fiction based on a day out to Brighton.

Anyway, after the disappointment of my scores for TMAs 2 and 3 (although why I was disappointed with 79% for TMA2, I don’t know, as that’s not a bad score), I was absolutely fucking delighted to get 88% for TMA4. So at least I’ll finish the course with two marks I’m pleased with.

And in the same week I got my 88%, I also won a copy of the 2010 Writer’s Market by writing this month’s Star Letter in Writing Magazine.

That is me, honest. I’m not really called Isabella Black, although I should have used that name when I wrote my letter. Cathy White doesn’t sound as good.

This makes me a published writer. Cool or what?

The results for TMA3 are in.

Oh dear.

Ok, so it was poetry.  And I’ve never really read any poetry, let alone try to write any.  But I liked my poems.  My tutor obviously didn’t, even if she did say they contained ‘energy’, ‘humour’ and a ‘unique perspective’.

My marks are going down and down.  After being delighted with the score for TMA1, ever since, I’ve been disappointed.  Is it because I’ve got worse or because I need to work harder to even maintain a consistent score?  Or is it because I had a different tutor mark the first one who rated my work too highly and has therefore given me a distorted sense of my abilities or because my new tutor marks too harshly and is now destroying my confidence?

I don’t think I write stuff the OU want to read.  I write stuff I want to read.

Even if that means submitting work in the shape of a bagel and writing stories about girls getting killed on the way to their wedding and cats being decapitated.

I don’t want to write endless descriptions and have my work crammed full of metaphors no one’s going to notice unless I mention it in the commentary.

I just want to write trash.

To avoid being disappointed, maybe I should take a clichéd leaf out of Sophie Ellis Bextor’s book and become a pessimist.  I bet she hasn’t even written a book.  And if she did, it’d just get published anyway, what with her being famous and that.

Ok, plan B.  Get famous and get published and forget about stupid tutors and their ‘blah blah blah, you’re crap’ rubbish.

At least I can’t get a worse score for the next one.  Oops,  nearly forgot.

Must. Remain. Pessimistic.

TMA 02 is looming.  I have an extension until 11 January due to reasons of moving house and going on holiday but I’ve only just now picked up the BRB for the first time in about two weeks.  I’ve caught up insofar as I’ve done all the reading.  I haven’t done any of the activities though but I thought reading up on the coursework might motivate me to start on my TMA2 as the damn thing obviously won’t write itself (it won’t, will it?)

I had an inkling of an idea a few weeks ago but decided to trash that idea as I didn’t think it would fit into a short story as it was too convoluted.  I kept scribbling down a few ideas about a character I had.  I think I mentioned here that I wanted a character with a pink Vespa.  Now, today I’ve sat down and gone through my notebook and headed up some pages at the back of it with headings such as CHARACTER, SETTING, POSSIBLE INCLUSIONS, CONFLICTS/OBSTACLES, FLASHBACKS, etc. and under these headings I’ve started jotting down notes and ideas.  I’ve also got a heading called METHODS (for commentary).  I’ve started thinking about POV, the amount of time elapsed, to who the story is being told, where does it start and I’ve reminded myself to use all the senses.

So, a good start don’t you think?  I think it’s a good start, albeit one that should have been started about a month ago.  And then what do I do after making my late good start?  I sit down and write my flipping blog instead of making a start on the TMA.

Can someone tell me to just sit down and write the god damn bloody thing please? 

p.s.  Is god damn one word or two?