It's rather important to get out of the house.

  

Yes, I know you knew that already, but you may not know that it's really, really important if you've just started working from home and the paaardner works around the corner. It can all get a bit homey, and not in the fresh laundry on the line, feet up on the sofa, here'syourmartinidear, hilloveIboughtyouaMagnum sort of way, but in the killmeit'sChristmasandIhaven'tseenanyoneI'mnotrelatedtoinfivedays way.

So, now that I'm down a daily six-mile return cycle and the camaraderie of Curly and my fellow workers, I've been cycling everywhere that needs going to, taking meetings for work and meeting friends for pints and cake after hours. But lunches have been spent power-walking around the neighb wearing some spectacularly ugly shoes. I can't run, because I have a kneecap that doesn't like where God chose to put it in His infinite wisdom, and so takes every opportunity to go visiting around the inside of my shin. So power-walking it is.

More to the point, as this is all achingly bougy, the neighbourhood is fantastic. Ours is a beautiful street covered in flowerboxes and a nice mix of Dubs, Nice Young Couples, immigrants and foreign students. Somehow, you know you're in a good part of town when there are lots of French women around. They have standards, you know? We're also near the mental asylum, so there are a good few middle-aged transvestite drug users, edgy-looking young men and the odd young woman chatting to herself who come and go as day patients. Helps to keep you on your toes.

There's all sorts of good things to do and see, arthouse cinema, foodie shops, nice little restaurants and the biggest park in Europe right up the road. All this a few blocks from the river and with views of the mountains to boot. The mountains are a new thing for me, as Dublin was always all about the sea for me.

We may not have seals, but we do have a great fish joint, and cheap!

All in all, I'll take it, this neighbourhood.

Prophesize with your pen

Today was a big day. After two and a half years at a very lovely London publisher, I handed in my notice.

It's an odd thing, quitting; many in the office acted as if they'd all written down their own predictable reactions, pitched them into a hat and passed it around the office. One, usually peculiarly perceptive to changes of mood in the office was shocked. Another, usually too quietly overwhelmed by doing three jobs at once to muster much enthusiasm burst into the biggest honest display of sadness, elation and genuine interest I've seen in an English workplace (sorry). Finally, the one who said 'YOU B*TCH!' when I left my last job in the company gave really helpful advice on the website demo. The big wigs were supportive, but likely thought my plans a small enterprise.

The enterprise, you ask? Yes, you did.

I'm going back to Dublin, back to college and back to languages. Then, I'll be setting up an agency of freelancers: editorial for English-language publishers and translators for foreign-language publishers/agents. I'll be writing about that elsewhere and this here blog will remain fairly personal and fairly anonymous.

Meanwhile, will be finding good respectable freelance staff and lining up some, urm, work.

It’s a hard knocks life: the longest short piece ever published

Me, I’ll write just about anything, on any schedule for anyone willing to pay me and print it, preferably with a by-line, but shit, let’s be honest… I don’t even care about that.

So far, this tactic has served me well.

The problem with this, and with being junior in these things in general, is that it is extremely difficult to know when exactly to say ‘no’, and when to say ‘wait, wait. You want that when??’. Or alternately, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about Futurist German fiction / physics / the state of Vanuatu today’.

This was my situation when given Foolish Mortals by Jennifer Johnston. You see, I’ve only read one of her other sixteen novels, and that was insufficient for the task at hand. So I did some research, read some lit crit, read past reviews (bad form, I know, but I wanted the critic’s perspective), I hit up the family expert on these things for information, the lot. As you would. As you would, particularly when stuck for time. I then squeezed it into the original 800-word limit – big mistake. This is not the kind of review I usually write (it’s relatively more important than my standard tiny thing that no-one reads), so why I thought that this was going to work, I don’t know.

It didn’t.

Rewrite number one: with the suggestions of Bogglingly Kind Editor, worked in all manner of detail on characters, places, specifics, and as full a critique as I could manage of how this novel sits within her oeuvre to date. Can I do this? Can I, Hell. I can’t remember the last time I wrote 1,000 words on anything, except here of course, but that hardly has to be coherent. It was an ungodly mess.

Rewrite number two: also probably a mistake. Sent Rewrite 1 off to the family expert, presently situated on the east coast of the U.S. That, folks, means a time difference, and resulting lateness to submit on my end. I have never, ever, ever been late to submit any written work to anyone. It also entailed her having to edit extremely quickly, which is unfair, which created a contagious panic. What’s more, the family expert is (obviously) much more able for this than I am, and could do this standing on her head.



Submitted, now at 1,200 words…






…aaaaannd returned.

Rewrite number three: now cut back down to close on the original 800 words. Picture added, Herself in the glasses, no doubt, though just a grey rectangle in my pdf at the moment. Also, text is now ‘lopsided’ as the Bogglingly Kind Editor kindly put it, from the cut. I’ll be rewriting it this weekend, which is not what I wanted to do atall, though I am now more terrified than ever to get it wrong.

More to the point, despite kindness, I am quite sure that the BKE will now never give me anything of this length / placement ever again, which is extremely depressing.

Bespectacled Chinaphile, are you reading? Brace yourself for your début!