Category Archives: Life-type stuff

Mar 6 2012

New York, New York…

Sometime last year I began getting New York cravings, which is most unlike me. You know those people who love travelling, those starry-eyed-with-wanderlust types? That’s not me. The thought of backpacking anywhere fills me with horror. And as someone who uses and loves words, the frustrations of being somewhere where you don’t understand or speak the language overwhelm the charms of new-shiny-magical-experiences. (I am a pretty boring person, really. It’s what happens when you live inside your head a lot.)

But I’d been to New York a few years before, and loved it, or at least the pieces I’d seen (almost entirely Manhattan-ish). And the cravings hit. And then Laura mentioned she was planning on visiting there again soon…

(Her thoughts and indeed photos are up, for any of you that are interested!)

So, yes. Some high points:

–> William Shatner is currently doing a one-man show on Broadway (running for only three weeks – may be just finishing up now, actually). Did not know this ’til I arrived and passed by a theatre/theater with his face and ‘Shatner’s World’ on it. Was clearly fate. It. Was. Awesome.

–> Saw a wonderful cast including Alan Rickman in a marvellous play called Seminar, in which he plays a grumpy, snarky writing teacher. IT IS GENIUS. So many wonderful moments, and comments ranging from insightful to deranged on the matter of writing. And, y’know, Alan Rickman.

–> The New York Public Library is very very pretty altogether. I love the Lego lions inside the main entrance.

–> Know it’s a cliche, but, oh, the view from the Empire State Building observation deck at night… wow.

–> There is lots and lots of art in the Guggenheim, the Met, and MOMA. (How many water lilies did Monet paint, incidentally?! Sheesh.)

–> The Strand remains my favourite real-life bookshop.

Okay, apparently I have much more to say about the Broadway things than the sights. But I have scribbles about the sights, in a notebook, along with other thoughts and notes and plans. I left feeling slightly overwhelmed but also inspired – like what Julia Cameron calls ‘artist dates’, but turned up to eleven. Work has been slightly manic this past week or so, but I’m keeping that notebook nearby and will turn it into something a little more whole by the end of the year, hopefully.

Next up on the blog this week: book-review post! Including some things first read on – gasp! – Kindle.

Jan 23 2012

Defying Gravity (yes, this is about what you think it’s about)

Last weekend, over in London, I saw one of my very favouritest musicals on stage again. I may have mentioned my slight fondness for Wicked before, but what struck me this time was how much more there is to the musical than just the music. The songs are fabulous, and I love them, but there are so many moments and bits of dialogue and scenes that are just wonderful, and that provide a context for the songs to make them extra-shiveringly-wonderful when you see them on stage.

So, yes, obligatory YouTube video!

(I think ‘Defying Gravity’ is probably the most extraordinary one in terms of the set and special effects, but ‘For Good’ is just gorgeous.)

I also encountered The Tulip for the first time ever, which I was partly amazed and partly horrified by. It’s a wine glass shape, which is infinitely classier than normal plastic cups, and yes you can tell the difference, but it also has a yoghurt-style foil lid thing. Very odd experience, pulling such a thing off a surprisingly drinkable wine. The wonders of technology!

Jan 2 2012

Resolutions I have not made for 2012

  1. Be more profound on Twitter
  2. Join a gym
  3. Read more books
  4. Take up scuba diving
  5. Give up cheese, wine and chocolate
  6. Get up at 5am every day
  7. Learn a foreign language

You’ve got to know your limits.

Jan 8 2011

Hi there, 2011

If it hurts too much, step away, or do something to change it.

I’ve been trying to think of what I learned in 2010 (or re-learned, as so many of these things are really about – we usually know the wisest thing to do but need to keep learning what it is or that it’s okay to do it or that we’re brave/strong/whatever enough to do it). A few not-so-great things happened. A few fabulously-great things happened.

I like unifying themes, and it’s taken me ’til now to see what the one for 2010 was. Question what you’re doing, and why, and whether it needs to be that way. Question the people in your life, and what role you have in each other’s lives, and why. We don’t always have the power to cut people out of our lives entirely (or, conversely, to keep them in our lives if they’d rather not be), but we usually have a choice about some element of our interaction with them.

It feels a little vague and amorphous to have this as a New Year’s Resolution, to remember this, but that’s what most resolutions come down to, I guess – identifying what we have control over, and what we want to do with that power. Or as the Serenity Prayer has it…

Grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

(Why, yes, I am a Serenity Prayer junkie. I do make a point of omitting any deities though. More like imploring the universe. I used to believe in the Exam Gods but only in the sense that you could anger them with comments like “Yeah, that paper was dead easy” or “I think I did really well on that exam”, they were never benevolent.)

Jan 2 2011

The writing life; the reading life

Two links:

I really like this post by YA writer Lara M Zeises (aka Lola Douglas) on the ‘working writer’ life. So much of what’s out there on the interwebs about writing is about ‘how to make it a career’ rather than ‘how to love doing it’, and it’s refreshing to see an honest take about one can sometimes mean giving up the other.

And also: YA author Barry Lyga on his year of not reading kids’ books. Reading within your field when it’s kidlit is slightly different from reading within a genre field, I think – it’s a different set of parameters (there’s such a wide range of genres in children’s fiction, but then a narrow range of ages for the protagonists) but it’s always worth looking at your own default settings and trying to push beyond the boundaries of what you’d normally read.

I’m keeping writing- and reading-related things in mind when developing New Year’s resolutions (as far as I’m concerned, 2011 properly begins January 4th, after the weekend and bank holiday – who in their right mind can start all that energetic self-improvement jazz on the 1st?) – how to benefit most from what you’re writing and reading, while still keeping the love.

Dec 31 2009

Looking towards 2010

2009: the round-up.

Personal etc:
Transition from ‘student/writer/teacher’ to ‘writer/teacher/company director’. The year lurched from ‘crazy intense finishing-of-degree’ to ‘crazy intense starting-up Big Smoke’, and it’s been crazy and intense and wonderful. And pretty much what everyone says about self-employment/small-business-ownership, re: the difficulty of genuinely having ‘time off’, but, y’know.

More importantly…

TV shows I have loved in 2009
– The West Wing, which I watched for the very first time, in its entirety, over the summer. Oh, idealistic liberalism! Oh, Josh and Sam and Leo and Jed and Abby and CJ and Donna and Charlie and Will… finally I understand the love.
– The Big Bang Theory, because it is nerdily delightful. Oh, Sheldon. Rock paper scissors lizard Spock!
– the old favourites of How I Met Your Mother, Desperate Housewives, and Grey’s Anatomy.

Musical delights of 2009
– TAYLOR SWIFT.
– Jedward (okay, not so much for the music, and more so for the hair.)
– I can’t think of any others. *shame*

Favourite books read in 2009

For kids
Cathy Cassidy – Driftwood
Ann M Martin – Belle Teal

For teens
Kristin Cashore – Graceling
Jane Eagland – Wildthorn
Abby McDonald – Sophomore Switch (Life Swap)
Susan Vaught – Big Fat Manifesto
Deb Caletti – The Secret Life of Prince Charming
Madeleine George – Looks
Adele Geras – Watching The Roses

For adults
Sarah Waters – Affinity
Claire Kilroy – All Names Have Been Changed
Sandra Gulland – Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe
Marilyn French – The Women’s Room

Non-fiction
Rachel Simmons – The Curse of the Good Girl
Catherine Orenstein – Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked
Louise Doughty – A Novel In A Year

Short stories
David Levithan – ‘A Word from the Nearly Distant Past (in Michael Cart, ed., How Beautiful the Ordinary)
Bruce Coville – ‘Saying No to Nick’ (in Twice Told: Original Stories Inspired by Original Art)

2010: the goals/aspirations/hopes/dreams.
Honestly? I still feel like I’m recovering from 2009. 2010 goals can wait for another few weeks, at least.

Happy New Year, folks. Here’s hoping it’s a good one.