I’m rather ill-at-ease talking about myself. Being a born gossip (as all writers are) I’d much rather talk about others and what drives them, what intricacies make them the person they are and what effect others have on them — the good yes, but especially the bad. I want to know all these things, so will happily sit, hand cupped around chin, listening to all and sundry for hours on end, only emerging from a kind of writerly stupor when my subje…er…friend turns the tables and asks about me. Erg. I go stiff then, my mind churning tactics as I try to think of something that might be the tiniest bit as interesting as the info they’ve been feeding me. And I can never do it. My palms sweat, my head empties. What to do? What to do? Aha! Take a leaf from the book of good politicking of course! That is, answer questions with questions.

Yeah, that’s it, turn those tables.

Can’t do that here though, and this poses problems.

So, to satiate your brimming curiosity, here are some little-known facts about me. You may, or may not, think them interesting. They are all I want to reveal for now though.

I have a partner, and yes, I have children. Age and type is neither here nor there.

I have two chickens.

I have one dog, three cats.

I listen to Linkin Park while writing.

I am a fast touch-typist.

I make loads of mistakes while writing.

I adore chocolate cake.

I daydream a LOT.

There. If you have anything in common with any of these, then please leave a comment. I can then ask you questions. Heh.

~Womblin~

I feel just like Elizabeth from The Pirates of the Caribbean — I have a sense of what being a writer entails, much as she thinks she knows what being a pirate involves. And, just as she knows that self-sacrifice shouldn’t play any part at all in the great scheme of things when dealing with scabbious and thieving pirate dogs, (that one should never throw oneself willy-nilly onto one’s cutlass in too much of a hurry, for example), I indeed know what is expected of me as a writer, that is lively prose, a unique voice, professionalism in manuscript preparation, great synopses, dedication and a great deal more time than the twenty-four hour day will allow, etc.

I know all this.

But, like her, I simply cannot shake the feeling that I’m playing at it, somehow. This is despite my publishing credits, despite having written and completed four novels, despite holding an editing position with an excellent online publication. Yes, despite all this, guilt and the need to find a “proper job”, plague me and tell me to stop messing around. This is, afer all, the “real world”.

I am a writer though, and so don’t wholly live in the real world. My mind occupies a place that is one step aside this reality, one step away from the drone of everyday life. It’s a place that has me smiling whenever I walk into a place where I’ve set one of my stories. I wander along grinning to myself, thinking: Ah yes, this is where suchansuch chased thingy, and thingy got stuck on a chain-link fence leading into the town centre car park… I smile and get strange looks, but don’t care. You see, everything seems much brighter/duller/happier/sadder/etc., in my mind, in my writer’s mind. Emotion is doubled, intensified. Detail, from the tiniest drop of dew, to the grit in a sandstone wall, is noticed. Yes, noticed. Because it’s all there in this reality, the stuff I write about, it’s just that I notice it and bring it to others. Anyway, I bring all these things a single step to the side and so into my mind, I collect them ready for use in my fictional worlds. I inhabit a strange dimension, as a writer, one in which I bring life, and of course spend it. One in which I can create anything, and just as easily destroy. I truly am a god in my imagination, in my stories.

No wonder I can’t shake the feeling that I’m playing. Just as Elizabeth found herself pitched deep into a world of treachery, back-stabbing, strangely-edged swords and rotten teeth…I, too, am having a game of it, right here and now.

I really should go out and find a “proper job”, eh?

~Womblin~