Fickle, me

I'd quietly promised myself never do to a Meme. It's not that I don't like other people's meme's, it's that I'm frightened of questions that will shine a bright light on my inner-dullness and reveal my past to be the incident-free cushy ride it has been. Aren't writers supposed to struggle? Plus I like to change my mind about things so I'm a bit wary of the commitment. But here I am, about to commit.

I'm doing it because I've been trying to write a short story that came to me suddenly while I was taking The Boy for a naptime stroll, only it has taken me three nights to write exactly no words whatsoever while my legs reach boiling point under this laptop and I end up doing searches for people I hardly know on Facebook, just so I can say I've achieved something. The story came to me as a whole in the time it took to walk around the block. For the first time ever I know what it's about from start to finish, I know why I'm writing it, and I know what I want to say but I just don't know the actual precise individual words I want to use. I always thought it would be easier writing something if I knew where it was going (this is not my usual approach), but I think I've killed the story by making all the important decisions already.

So here I am. Fickle me. This is not the first time I've been fickle. I've quietly and not-so-quietly sworn myself off plenty of things only to change my mind later. 

Meat (10 years)

Men (10 minutes)

Telling my mother anything (10 seconds)

I think I'll just get on with it. (I think I'm supposed to say here that I was tagged by Charlotte.)

1) What were you doing 10 years ago?

Wearing smaller clothes. Drinking larger gins. Smoking. Working at Penguin. Spending most of my day worrying that someone was going to ask me to do something I didn't know how to (oh, that's no different to now actually). Inventing reasons not to be at my desk in case the phone rang. Having impure thoughts when I was supposed to be writing Peter Rabbit books. (Nb. no innocent rabbits were used in the making of these impure thoughts.) 

2) What 5 things are on your to-do list today?

I've already had my day. I did one of my to-do's: Post letter. I did not do the other 4: write brilliant short story, mop floor, take wet jacket off washing line (it has been out there for half a dozen heavy downpours; I think the dye is starting to run), avoid cake.

3) What snacks do you enjoy?

What snacks do I not enjoy would be faster. If I could think of any. I don't like porridge, which some people may use as a snack. I don't like Monster Munch either but I would probably eat them for old time's sake.

4) What would you do with a billion dollars?

I would have forty million pedicures. And some champagne.

5) List the places you have lived:

London

Brighton

Melbourne

6) List the jobs you have held:

Miniature train driver (only one child injured while I was on duty).

Felafel seller (left after I was asked to clean a perfectly clean table).

Ice cream seller (in November. Quite dull).

Waitress (dropped hot chicken in police woman's lap. Given caution).

Classroom assistant (shunned staffroom in favour of playground. Used to sneak off for crafty fags. Still have all the goodbye pictures they drew for me).

Runner (answered the phone once to a man with a very strange accent, couldn't understand him, asked him to repeat his name about 25 times. Turned out to be Loyd Grossman.)

Editor (far too many stories. Buy me a gin and I'll tell).

7) List the people you'd like to know more about.

I'd love to know more about the man I live with, but he doesn't have a blog.