Communication - Fifty word story

He’s not addicted. He could give up tomorrow. Just because he checked his emails during his children’s carol concert doesn’t mean he's not a good father. Or husband. Yes, he keeps the phone under his pillow, smiles in his sleep when it vibrates. But divorce. She’s got to be kidding.

Poison - fifty word story

She walks past it again and again, promising that next time, she’s going to ring up his number and leave a message. From a number they can’t trace. Where were you last night, he’ll say. At home, she’ll lie, hoping for your call. She circles round again. Anonymous. Shadowed. Waiting.

Autobiography is not important. Authenticity is important. The writer must fire herself through the text, be the molten stuff that welds together disparate elements. I believe there is always exposure, vulnerability, in the writing process, which is not to say it is either confessional or memoir. Simply, it is real.
Jeanette Winterson

Shadow - Fifty word story

She’s not afraid of her own shadow. It’s the other one she can’t get rid of, however much she cuts the links. The doctors tie her hands down, not realising that when they’ve gone, the other shadow will raise its arms and she has to break free again. And again.

Me and Nelson....

This summer, sculptor Antony Gormley invites you to help create an astonishing living monument. He is asking the people of the UK to occupy the empty Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, a space normally reserved for statues of Kings and Generals, in an image of themselves, and a representation of the whole of humanity.

I really, really, really do not go out of my way to look for things that will embarrass my kids, but oh my, I so want to be picked to go on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. I've applied, so there's nothing more I can do now except wait. But I woke up this morning thinking about it. I was so sure that this was a sign I rushed to my emails. Nothing. So I'm sending positive thoughts out there.

I'm even being nice to pigeons. And that hurts.



You can apply yourself here, but let me tell you this - if you get in and I don't, I will find a way to climb up there to join you....

Eclipsed - Fifty Word Story

When they first met, James wrote her name everywhere. She and he were forever. He said that, when they were old, they would walk through the park and catch sight of their younger shadows. Now, as he scribbles her out, it’s only her shadow he sees. Sees her everywhere. Forever.

New writers are often told, "Write what you know." I would broaden that by saying, "Write what you know emotionally. "
Marjorie Franco

Gordon's House ... 50 word story

She didn’t want to move into the new house, but it took until December for her parents to realise why. She’d run to her mother, struggling to explain through the tears. Father Christmas, how… which one…? Her mother laughed. Told her more chimneys meant more presents. That greed was good.

Exposure - 50 word story

On the day they said no women could be seen in public, they covered the statues. Watching with her mother, Miranda draped herself in the curtain as a joke. Although her mother blamed the sound of the key turning for her tears, Miranda knew it had all been her fault.

A perfect Sunday ...

... consists of ....



Seeing the oldest bench in England at Ham House - a receipt records it was made by one Henry Harlow in 1674. Those who know me will realise just what this meant to me. I only just restrained myself from texting my kids, feeling rather like I did when I went to Coldplay and rang them so they could hear 'Fix Me' play live. Yep, folks, this is a bench with rock star glory (and about ten times the glamour of Chris Martin, let's be honest)



BUT... I'm whispering so the bench doesn't hear, the possible tinglings of a new obsession - stone pineapples. The traditional sign of friendship, a lovely thing for any house.



Exploring the Privy Gardens at Hampton Court Palace with my garden history class, no one asking if it was time to go yet, where was the cafe or complaining about just how many photographs I needed to take. But more than that, seeing something I've only just seen in books or slides actually laid out in front of me, and being able to put into context just what the river meant in relation to the house, how the designs would have looked from the main windows and the surprising restfulness of it all.



In comparison at least to this part of the garden which looks peaceful now but would have housed a collection of heraldic beasts on poles designed to show Henry VIII's power. I had thought of the impact as just being visual before, but Brian Dix (who was showing us round) talked about the creaking noises the metal beasts would have made as they swung round in the wind, and the formidable impression this noise, mixed with the smells of meat roasting from the kitchens, would have had on visitors arriving to the palace by boat ... even before they saw anything. The garden as a deliberate sign of strength and status ... I'm excited how this keeps coming up in my reading. I had thought about them just being places of tranquility and escape mostly.

So a whole other dimension to my thoughts about gardens.



And last but not least, meeting and spending some time with one of my aboslute blog idols, gardenhistorygirl. She is just as lovely as her blog and of course, I got my picture taken with her - but I didn't ask for her autograph. Oh yes, I still retain a little bit of coolness.

Admittedly, not much, but some...

The Artists Way

Just to say that this group is now full.

Hopefully other groups will spin off from it, so if anyone sets one up and wants me to put it up here then I'm happy to do so because there is obviously a demand!

Thanks!

Vogue Tips for Fabulous Frugality

I don't think I've laughed so much recently as I did over British Vogue's spoof article on how to keep fabulous in the credit crunch - until a friend pointed out that it wasn't actually a joke.

So we read it again, and now neither of us is sure whether it is or not. Or whether to laugh or cry. Here are some of the 40 'tips' on offer ...

No. 13 Hot-wash a faded pashmina to create a shrunken baby blanket, then monogram with initials in silk thread. (I know! My favourite too until I read...)

No 17 Commission a good seamstress to alter your mother's vintage Chanel jacket to spring's new cropped length - just remember to ask her first (what do you mean your mother doesn't have vintage Chanel hanging around? Or that you might sew yourself?)

No 18 Slice the bottom off last summer's maxidress and use the off-cuts as a beach turban. Alternatively, turn them into a sun shelter using willow canes (either way, no one, repeat no one, will laugh at you as much as they did last year when you were wearing a maxidress)

No 30. Hunt down a vintage Hermes lizard-skin Thermos flask and take fresh coffee to the office (see, this was when I became really sure it was a joke.)

No 31. Up the glamour stakes at home: wear the boyfriend's Prada silk pyjamas, put on some heels, and prepare a baked potato supper topped with taleggio and truffle shavings. (You can actually do the same thing with his old t-shirt and baked beans, it's just that neither Marks & Sparks or Heinz advertise in Vogue so they can't label drop)

No 33 Skip lunch at Cipriani and adopt a glamorous cause instead. Or, better still, adopt a cause then talk about it over lunch at Cipriani. (And this was where I gave up. Which is a pity because I missed just how stocking up on enormous bottles of expensive toiletries was actually frugal)

Ho hum. It's a bit like the time a friend of mine, who had been talking interestingly about politics, suddenly launched into an equally lucid explanation as to how half the cabinet were actually aliens sent to spy on us. I was sent spinning off into a parallel universe when I wasn't quite sure myself what was true and what wasn't. Or what the point was anyway.

Still, hands up. I was the one buying the glossy magazine. And I'm glad I did, because I was mean in this blog some time ago about an article Christa D'Souza wrote for Observer Woman about not wanting to look old, and here she is in Vogue writing possibly one of the best things I've read this year about getting in touch with her inner adventurer. Who cares what she looks like, or whether she's wearing her boyfriend's Prada silk pyjamas or not - she's funny and clever and makes me think I haven't completely lost my sense of humour. Plus she inspired me to want to go on an adventure myself so I'm doubly cheered up, and now off to hunt down a vintage Hermes flask. Do you think they sell them at Lakeland plastics? And will people mock if I can only find one in crocodile-skin?

The Story Prize

My interview with Story Prize director, Larry Dark, is now up on The Short Review.

Word by word

The Academy of American Poets have been experimenting with ways of reading poems on line. This is what they say:

Poets.org has partnered with TextTelevision to offer TextFlows, an alternative approach to reading and experiencing poetry. By converting text dynamically into Flash animation, poems are revealed phrase by phrase through motion and light, and at a pace controlled by the reader. The simplified words and crisp motion fixes one's attention on the subtleties of language, increasing involvement, engagement, and understanding.

I've never forgot reading some research that showed how people reading too long a text on line ended up with the same queasy sensation as sea-sickness, so I suppose this makes sense. When I tried it with one of my favourite poems, W. B. Yeats's Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven though, I found I was going back to the whole poem printed above the animated version, keen to read on quickly rather than just take what was in front of me. Increasing the animation to full window size and just having that on screen made all the difference, forcing me to slow down. And yes, I did relish it more.

But better still, here is a recording of Yeats reading another of his poems, The Isle of Innesfree, at exactly the right speed ... here. Magic. Absolutely magic.

How to keep going...

The poet, Robert Lee Brewer asked a number of other poets for ideas on keeping on writing when they just didn't feel like it, and has collated the answers into an interesting blog post.

I like this answer from Todd Dillard particularly because it's true - sometimes you just need to go and do something different, although I am still growing out a really really bad haircut from last year so I might skip that one. I'm interested in the anthology of favourite poets though, a mixed tape of words:

I'm much more conscientious about my writing when I'm NOT writing than when I am, so I usually try to shift my focus away from that internal, absent impetus into something different, enjoyable, or productive. This usually means a new haircut, delightfully awful genre fiction, and editing. If that doesn't work, I create projects for myself, like painting, developing a mix tape, or creating a little Great(ness) anthology of my favorite poems from my favorite poets. When you're stuck in a writing slump, it's easy to focus on that missing creativity energy within you without realizing it's an entirely false paradigm. It's more likely that energy’s still in you, it's just moved somewhere else in you. Find it again and reign it in, or just go with it for a while, it might be leading you somewhere unexpected.

Feet - Fifty Word Story

She loves summer because she loves showing off her perfect feet. When winter comes, she refuses to cram her beautiful toes back into tight, unnatural leather. However, the shoemaker won’t consider a cast until she lets him touch her sole. She doesn’t say he’s not the first. Or the last.

Reasons to write

"I think you write to make contact with people, or to extend yourself farther out in the world than you could possibly travel on your own. In some way, it's like a shy person trying to get a date. But there's not a specific person."
A.M. Homes

I'm reading in Canterbury tonight

Oops, another thing I forgot to mention ...

It's at the University of Kent - in the wonderfully named Missing Link at Darwin College...

17 March SARAH SALWAY
6.00 pm Peter Brown Room, Missing Link, Darwin
£2 entry, £1 for students/concessions

You can find out more here. I will not be attempting an Irish accent although I might have a Guinness after. Or two.

Artists Way

OK, so this is what I've done.

There are a good few of us now who want to do this together. And I'm stressing the together bit, I don't want to lead it or be in charge or anything. Honestly, trust me. Nothing would get done and we'd be off photographing benches or eating chocolate or something.

So fun as that would be, I've set up a new special blog for us and when I hear from you, I'll make you a co-author and give you passwords etc so you can post as much or as little as you want as you work your way through the book. And then we can all share what we think, how we are doing, any good tips, shouts, moans, artists date, revelations etc etc.

Does that sound good?

Right. First thing to do is for you to email me if you want to be in. Even if you've emailed me before. I did say I shouldn't be in charge. Ooops, no. The first thing to do is to get the book, of course. And have a look at the website first - here. I love it, and take the spirituality she talks about as whatever I want it to mean, but it's not for everyone. All I can say is that it works. And it's fun. And it would be especially fun to do it with you guys.

OK. Anything else?

Yep, start date. It might be a good idea if we all start more or less together. So how about Saturday 28th March for the big lift-off?

I'm sure there's lots else, but I'm equally sure you'll tell me. Anyone who wants to join before 28th March will be very welcome.

50 word story - Anima

Of course, she likes the fact that men are embracing their feminine side. She’s just surprised at the corporate sponsors pumping money into the new national Dancing round Handbags challenges. Sometimes she’ll listen to the crowd’s roars, see their ornate hairstyles and she’ll wonder if it’s really been worth it.