Greek antiquity ft Beyonce

‘Then he thrust his spear into the soil… ‘

My current crush is on Richard Miles who presents the Ancient History documentary on BBC Two. He rides horses and uses words like quixotic. Apparently he teaches Classics in Australia… the modern day Indiana Jones, although he does have a propensity to popping his pink rugger shirt, the fact he wields a copy of Homer would forgive any sin he could care to commit.

Considering that the English language is my greatest turn on, working in a bookshop is beginning to fuel fantasies rather nicely. I can extrapolate wildly from choice of book to type of man. Just last week I managed to get my flirt on with a customer with marvelously full lips as we discussed astrology, all terribly tongue in cheek but making minimum wage retail more than worth it.

Not only is my job affording me flirtations with cute men who can read but a whole new social life! Waterstones is filled with the most eccentric peoples I have met in some time. There is a Kali devotee with druid beard who is sourcing me some mead, a self-confessed fruit-machine addict, a gay Mohawk stage hand and a young girl who thinks gammon is a fish, because it’s like a sting ray, innit… a gamma ray? With this merry bunch of men, I get to go to pubs warmed by log fire and drink wine, while my new friends have their peculiar concoctions of stout, cider or port and lemonade.

From there it would appear that the C21 club, a 5 minute walk from my house, holds a gay night on a Monday. Shawbury is the RAF base nearby. This Monday the gay bar and RAF came together in a beautiful celebration of 24 year old boy men all fashioning moustaches for Movember. I romanced with a Lieutenant Jim and talked books with Lieutenant Bob. Lieutenant Josh bought the Jaeger Bombs. All most charming. I would have spent more time with young Jim, but his friend took me to one side and told me how he was a top bloke and I had to be good to him as he’d been messed around before. All hail the school disco. The Mohawk and I proceeded to the podium to insist that if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it.

Amongst all this working and merriment, I managed to complete my 50,000 words? I am rather surprised by this, especially as I had to write the last 20,000 in 3 days, heavily punctuated by hangovers. Pride won out over procrastination and all this socialising has been putting me in a jolly good mood so was all very encouraging.

I plan to keep the 50,000 a month job up, just to keep me busy, and make sure I have a vast wealth of information to write me a book. It amuses me to write it so should amuse others to read. Not entirely sure what the style will be quite yet so playing with a few. Travelogue? Erotica? Comedy? Chicklit? Coming of age story? There’s certainly a lot of high camp but one cannot fight the moonlight.

Oooh Richard is scuba diving now. Mother has just commented that he’s a rather rounded young man… Yes indeed. I can only assume he would be joining me on the podium if I were to bump into him at C21… We could discuss beautiful youths together.

Catullus LXXXV

Odi et amo.
quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio,
sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

I hate and I love.
How can I do that, you might ask me perhaps?
I do not know.
But that's what I feel and this is torture.

OK. Shall commit to the last few moments of Dr Richard now... and dream of exploring antiquities together.

Sweet dreams

xxx

Fishfingers and benevolent universes

Hello folks

It's just gone 8 o'clock on a rainy Wednesday evening in Shrewsbury and I've now written 29,438 words into a Microsoft word document entitled A Novel by A.L.Dyer.

The more I write, the crazier the dreams become. It may be something to do with sleeping in a narrow single bed that I affectionately dub, the fishfinger. My dreams are often epic adventures which involve me on exciting missions to achieve lofty goals. There is often double crossing, love and loss, hiding under something and finally having the visuals dramatically wrenched from me as I wake up. I then lie there thinking, yes, that's a story alright, that could be a film, that's amazing and by the time I plod to my laptop I can't see it anymore. I just hear the echoes of the protagonist whispering 'help' as the new consciousness of my waking life kicks in. Thank goodness for my journals, having those memory bites right now are invaluable.

Life continues in its cozy way here. The only drama is in my head, which is where it tends to reside any way, but I haven't met any men to fantasise about or women who may become nemeses, hence my word count increases. A small turn of fortune occured in Waterstones for my writing career. Luke, the Senior Bookseller for Fiction approached me on Wednesday when I was doing my 4 to 8 shift, stacking shelves, stacking shelves, and said, 'You're interested in writing aren't you?' I smiled and averted my eyes saying 'yes, well trying to'. I am endeavouring to be less bombastic while in the Shire, the shop is too small for hyperbole at any rate. He continues with 'Well there has been some water damage of a small selection of books so you can take them home if you like, they're in the box over there.' Over I wander, to discover that the only section of books that had been damaged were the 'How to write a novel' section. Turns out there are about ten of these books, ranging from how to write for children, to how to stroke readers' thighs with your words of erotic novella. I have gladly asked to take them all home with me at the earliest of conveniences.

Yes Universe, you may well be minus 3 of late, but you are most benevolent.

Hoping you are all experiencing wee gifts of late,

Alison

xxx

Prose practice

Homebase. How to describe such a place? Homebase was a slum. A hot slum. A dirty late night, early morning slum. It was always very dark. There were giant day beds lain out where you could get jiggy. The toilets which were usually flooded were for furtive explorations. Anything went. There were poles to writhe around. Axxxxx and Jxxxx were already royalty. Each weekend someone’s credit card would be left behind. Usually Axxxxs’ as he was the most capable when high. The rest of us would just roll around on the beds in messy crocodiles of limbs. Gurning. Kissing. Dancing. Talking. Squeezing hands when you’d tried the E pill. Falling over when you’d eaten the K pill. Writhing in the toilets with the right coke. The dance floor was so small that it didn’t matter if you couldn’t stand up, the hoardes of sweating bodies kept you upstanding. And then it was but a 5 minute walk up the steps, beside the escalator to return to Escapades. Home. From Homebase.

Sowing a book tree.

18,424 words!

It's hard to start up the engine but once it begins it does make a lovely sound. Trawling through old diaries is such a treat. Brings back the madness of my first few months in Hong Kong. This juxtapositions in a marvellous way to the sweetness of living in windy Shrewsbury with my mum. Remembering how mayhemic everything was with how calm everything is now.

Today, I journeyed down to Shrewsbury Abbey and lit at candle at 11am for the lost soliders of the first world war, and all previous and future wars. Seeing the riots in London last night reminiscent of this. Mobs. Rage. Hatred. Fury. How it appears in different forms under different names.

Yesterday, was my first day at Waterstones. My dream job. Surrounded in books. Talking about writers. This fits in rather well with the Buddhist concept of sowing seeds. As I sell books, so I help sell my own, yet unformed book. Whatever you wish to have in your life, sow the seeds for it. Thank you Waterstones.

Thank you book tree.

x

Mills & Boon meets Hustler

Hello lovely people out there on the interwebs,

Hope you are all fairing most well.

Quote of the day, courtesy of the lovely Ms Kan is 'Thou shalt not know exactly what thou dost, but thou shalt do it' which sounds like a mash up of the Bard and Gandhi so I approve mightily. It also cleverly encapsulates my life at the moment. I'm not in some high powered job, in my fancy flat, with my snazzy car and designer shoes but I really couldn't be happier.

Tomorrow, if you were to peak in at Waterstones in Shrewsbury you would see me there, as the newest bookseller, asking folks to 'Key in your pin number love' which wasn't a possibility when I left for Asian shores in 2002. The technology! And I have Mills & Boon meets Hustler fantasies of meeting a man who reads books in the Shire and possibly plays an instrument who may come seeking a book, and our eyes shall meet over a graphic novel... and well... you can imagine the rest. There'll be coffee and grimy bedsits and vast quantities of mulled wine to cope with the 4 degree temperatures we are blessed with in this green and pleasant land.

Writing a book while working in Waterstones just seemed to fit, especially a ye olde Waterstones with a tudor exterior and wiggly shaped rooms. I'm approaching the 15.000 word mark and smug as a bug in a rug. This must show as I was just carded in ASDA. Les, the check out man, deliciously asked for ID, I played along with the joke and laughed, he poker faced me and I gleefully presented my HK ID. He was befuddled. In my dream world, I shall befuddle at least one person a day.

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

I'll let you know about the world of the bookseller soon.

Sleep well. Dream of things that make you curl and stretch.

xxx

Remember, remember the fifth of november

Words written now in the 5 figures.
Phew.
Debbie's birthday now - so serving cake in Altrincham.
Juggling a 7 year old terrorist who wants cake before sandwich and a technophile 9 year old who wants to know how to change her mum's wallpaper on the new birthday smartphone...
Ready for gunpowder, treason and plot...
Bang bang!
xx

Guilt 1 - Procrastination 0

Today did not want to begin. It was super cold outside. I had a sore tummy. I have recently discovered the joys of bbc i player so can watch old episodes of Merlin. There was much on the side of procrastination. But I had guilt hanging over my head. Now as any good Roman Catholic I am rather good at ignoring and forging through regardless, but I knew I had pinky sworn to write something on this blog EVERY day. And I don't want to lie. So I HAD to write more of the novel. Ug.


Then HURRAH! Having rearranged the tardis that is my back bedroom, I had found a diary from 2001 and that fed me with quite enough to tippy tap into my hp laptop.

Word count today - 7,846 - over 15% done already of 50,000 target achieved already!


So now I am off to curl up like a squirrel under several duvets and read Mr Pip.


Good night


x