All change

Today I'm waving goodbye (from a wee distance) to the lovely Shanna who's off back to the States. It's been such a joy to meet you, S, come back soon, and may you have many wonderful adventures back in the States!

Plus, as I get steadily bigger and the nesting gets steadily more frantic, I'm left with very little time and energy to blog, let alone write. So, I'll just give you all a little wave for the moment and declare myself off on maternity leave. Hm, yes, think of it like a 'happy ever after' post. ; )

Phew!

See yous all later!

The Glass Woman Prize

... I stumbled on a fascinating website. Beate Sigriddaughter is now reading for the Glass Woman Prize. It's a fiction competition, details here.

What I found wonderful and interesting were the FAQs about the prize (which, I should add, Sigriddaughter funds from her own income):

"I want to help along the cause of women expressing themselves authentically and fearlessly and passionately. It has something to do with a contribution to justice and soul growing in the world.

One of my ex-husbands once said that women don't support each other. I want to either change that or prove it wrong. This is my small gesture of changing the world."

More power to your elbow, lady.

How to get over the war

“She gave him the baby and he cut the baby’s head off.”



In some ways, the soldier cut off his own head. In some ways, he cut off mine.

Years after the attack, I want superpowers. In dreams I skew time, take the baby from the soldier, cut off the soldier’s head with my free hand, turn his face to let him watch his own death, stem the blood flow from his neck, let him rewind his own guilt endlessly over the story that never played, the baby that was saved, the life that was never taken, yet still lost.

Right. Bring on the dancing boys.

So, at last we practically have the keys to our new flat in our sweaty little paws. I'm practically finished the last edits on the last story I'm going to write before I bugger off and have this baby.

So.

Let's be having those dancing boys:




Who says this is not super-shiny promotional blog? And more:



Lastly, yes they may be wearing questionable leather trousers and be as camp as a row of tents but nevertheless I find their hips pretty hypnotic. So, here is the stompy stompy grand finale ...



Coming soon - a fabulously phallic finale of the tree porn series. Probably.

Cheer up

"Not too soon, but not too damn much after"

- Hemingway, I think

You know

It's probably best not to piss off a woman who is twenty nine weeks pregnant and has just given up her last remaining vice.*

Apologies for the lack of a substantive post today. I am having one last teeth-gritted determined effort to finish all the shite that needs to be finished before I give up even pretending to be part of the human race and go and dribble over some blue chintz curtains.

As I was just telling Shanna:

Yes, normally I am sweet and polite and patient but oh my god in heaven I need to motherfucking NEST.

Right. Am off to phone the tax office. Hoorah.


*caffeine, aka tea, drink of the fucking gods. Which I can't have anymore either for fucking sweet fucking Jesus's sake.

Somebody else's shorts, and also

I'm knackered and losing the power of speech today, so instead of one of yesterday's half-done flashes, here is a fabulous flash site. All the stories are written in six sentences, which maybe rather obvious given the title ...

There's a whole free online magazine that is beautifully presented, too.

***

Also, here's an interesting article on sex in fiction. The author is asking for a return to coyness. Could we not perhaps find an elegant balance somewhere between prurience and blushes and actually have sex in fiction at least somewhat as it usually is in real life - an important part of the whole? Oh maybe not even elegant, fair enough. Just acknowledged.


***

And Shanna Germain writes a storming post about genre here. I'm an ex genre snob. Luckily I'm curing myself of it - in part by reading fabulous writers who are considered 'genre' and in part by growing up and admitting to my crime habit.

I mean, crime novel habit.



Anyway. I have just burned the hot chocolate I was making. If you don't believe that it's possible to burn hot chocolate, likely you haven't ever been seven months pregnant. Am off to open the windows and think about word patterns. Back soon.