Squishy Pages

A smushing of short stories is now a complete collection. Break out the glitter and Jaffa Cakes.

Yeah, an unpublished collection, but it's mine, it's gross and it's dark. And funny in a way that a really noxious fart makes you laugh and retch at the same time. I've spent a long time hunched over this laptop or scribbling in B&M notebooks and then carving it up with red ink until it's taken a nice twisted shape, like a cherry blossom tree subjected to bindweed. 

Side note: 

I've long-since discovered that chain coffee shops are not the place for writing and plotting. For a start, who has a spare £4 for a bitter creamy frappemoccaccinolatte when fun writing takes hours and a bitter creamy frappemoccaccinolatte takes about fifteen minutes to drink? 

And, also, these shops are choked with office workers, hipster students and yummy mummies so it's not the best place to slam your fist down on the table and shout:

'Of course! Eric and Lauren didn't know they were brother and sister until after their first child was born!'




I mean, you could. But who has the time to explain?

And if you did, most people don't like discussing incest plot twists over blueberry muffins.

Glad I'm not most people.




So, a preview of story gunge to come:

• A small South Bank pawn shop that focuses their business on human organs

• A woman getting over a particularly sickening break-up bumps into one of her students at the GUM Clinic

• A palliative care nurse is spending the last hour of her shift concentrating more on her patient's earrings than her patient

• A man frozen in a coma from catching snowflakes on his tongue

• A psychiatric registrar doing a rotation with a maverick consultant in behavioural therapy

• A man addicted to A&E

• A couple who find that their newborn gives them a new taste for life

• An artistic mother intent on fashioning a famous life for her perfect daughter

• A teenage boy at his girlfriend's wake who is more distracted by his erection than by mourning relatives

And more!

Now, time to edit, edit, edit. And drag a worthy synopsis together. And find an agent or publisher. And maybe have a blueberry muffin, because now I'm sort of hungry. 

Barista! Fetch cake! And a maroon gel pen!

People Are Strange

Am pleased to report that a short story rattled off a couple of weeks ago ('Apron Strings') was accepted for its target publication, Morpheus Tales.

They'll be publishing a special Taboo Issue in July/August so more links and such will follow, but I'm pretty pleased about this one, mostly because the story flowed easily to the page and I seemed to hit the mark of what the editors were looking for.

A re-read does spy sentences that I wouldn't mind tightening, but I'm still pleased.

It's horror, it's sort of disgusting (depending on your threshold) and I personally find it funny. But, then, I am a bit strange...

Hungry for a story, anyone?

The Calorie Ballet

If you start measuring what is essentially rainbow sugar into 'thoughtful portions' you've missed the whole damn point of this candy.

Nerdy, Dirty, Inked and Curvy

As part of my post-diagnostic care following my autism diagnosis, I have been working very hard to see the differences and not the disabilities. So, for example, instead of being continually frustrated that I cannot see 'the big picture' of a situation, I am now relishing that I can spot small details and how they connect that others may not. 

'Different not less.' Blah blah blah. 

For example, I asked a client if they would like a Hep C test in case their tattoos had been kitchen scratch jobs. The person looked suspicious. 'How do you know I have tattoos?' I glanced at him again. 'I can see them under your shirt,' I said. 

This person was wearing a long-sleeve shirt and I could see just a flash of black line work before their hand started, but it told me enough that they probably have at least one large tattoo, which are expensive and not many people I come across in any walk of life have the money for sleeve tattoos. So. Has it been done by a mate in a dirty kitchen with a machine bought from Amazon and so would they therefore like to be tested for BBV?

I digress. As part of embracing the differences, I have been pushing myself to go beyond my circumvented world (on the proviso I can return as suddenly as I choose). 

I wrote a horror/taboo story for an open submission call that had The Fiancé squirming when he asked to read it and looked at me with disgust. Showing someone my work is a big step because even fifteen minutes away from the laptop and I began to see syntax I could correct, plot that could be better juggled and imagery that could have more bite. Editing never stops. But I did submit it.

I began to get the blank spaces filled in on my arms with small tattoos that are not deep/meaningful/dark/worthy of commentary. They're cute, colourful and silly. And the artist was also crazy about The Offspring, too.

I won a Gift of Confidence boudoir (read: underwear) photography shoot with a local studio. I have never ever neverevernever been the kind of person to strip down to Batman knickers, raise my arms and cock a hip. But after finding solace with a make-up girl who geeked out with me about Xbox One (note: must finish Limbo) and a photographer who had orange hair, I was doing just that.

I'm getting older and I have to start taking more chances before I am unable to. 

Of course, there is inevitable fallout from being bolder. Submitting work risks rejection, getting 'cute' tattoos risks looking stupid and having photos that show my body risks feeling odd when I go to the Viewing Session.

 

But all people experience these risks of chances. 

There was one more significant instance of embracing the difference rather than the disability that may have triggered my weekend of doing Social Things. I was on a break with a co-worker, the same age as my mother, and in a roundabout way I explained I had Asperger's Syndrome. Directly, she asked exactly what that was (staff have recently had autism training). I explained it was a high-functioning form of autism, more hidden, not always as obvious. She asked what the symptoms were. Surprisingly, I talked openly about my sensory issues, my problem with socialising and making new friends, eye contact and how even when happy I may appear to act around 14. I explained meltdowns and what stimming is. She said it sounded very debilitating. I stated that yes, sometimes things get worse and I explained my rituals with leaving the house and multiple checkings, especially when stressed. What my own stimming and meltdowns looked like.

She clapped me on the shoulder when we walked back into work and said I handled it all very well. I made sure I didn't wriggle where she'd touched me and smiled.

So, I have that member of staff to thank for my busy albeit risk-fraught weekend. And it's a fucking shame because it's taken me 8 whole months before I could properly talk to my co-workers and back and forth freely and have them laugh even if I misinterpreted things. It's a fucking shame because I'm moving to a new job in a couple of weeks and no team will be this noisy, foul-mouthed and tender-hearted. They've done more for me than they know. Not just in learning very, very fast about managing substance misuse clients. But with integrating with a completely different career path and types of people. People who use the phrase 'You utter thundercunt' as freely as 'Is it raining outside?'

To my team: