A Year of Unexpected Things

I like to wait until the very last week in December before sharing review posts like this because, if you’re not at the absolute end of the year, who knows what still might happen? Prime example: two days after Christmas last year, my husband and I acquired a dog. This was completely unplanned, to the degree that if you had asked us thirty minutes prior to it happening if we were getting another pet we would have looked at you funny and wondered where you got such an idea.

Following on this theme of life throwing unexpected curve balls, at the end of 2017 I shared a post in which I said I had a new teaching job lined up for 2018 and had been put in charge of organising Women Aloud NI’s 2018 ‘in-train’ recital for International Women’s Day. Well, right off the bat, I was hit with the unforeseen circumstance of getting ill. I had to cancel my first class and the recital didn’t happen thanks to the train selling out all its tickets to eager rugby fans within a couple of hours of them going online.

January rolled into February, then on into March and I was still sick, facing minor surgery, but also on the verge of finishing my novel. Then, during CampNaNo in April, I took the final step and actually did finish it, which left me in the great position of having a writing mentor look over it in May. My husband and I travelled to Derry and I met with Felicity McCall who gave me really encouraging feedback.

I had applied to teach a second term at the Crescent Arts Centre and been given the go-ahead only for it to end up cancelled at the last minute due to not enough people signing up. I taught a one-off, day-long workshop and didn’t put in a proposal for a third term.

During this time, I also had my very first fertility appointment and began trying to lose weightContinue reading

Thanksgiving (not the North American Holiday)

Last month, I wrote about how difficult we were finding things and I signed off that post by saying, “I know good news will come along again soon.” Well, this is a good news post.

In sharing the aforementioned post with my wonderful writers’ community, Women Aloud NI, people reached out to me and my husband. The words of encouragement we got were heartening, and getting everything I needed to say off my chest helped a lot too.

About a week later, I got a private message to my author page from the lovely Liz Weir — a member of said writers’ community. “Come stay with us,” she said. “You, your husband and the dog. Get a break from it all!”

Well, how could we resist? Liz offered us the use of her loft apartment for free, wanted to feed us during our visit, and even was willing to pick us up and leave us home again. It sounded too good to be true, but we took a chance and arranged dates.

And guess what? It was wonderful! Continue reading

All That Glitters… (Flash Fiction)

This time last year, during a creative writing class run by R.B. Kelly at the Crescent Arts Centre, I was set the task of writing stories using only dialogue. Below is a little something I wrote back then, inspired by the season.

“All that glitters is half price. If the glitter has fallen off, consider it a feature and double the RRP. If the lights aren’t working, or batteries are missing, include them in a buy-one-get-one-free offer. Any questions?”

“Just one.”

“Yes, you in the back. Speak up. What is it?”

“I was just wondering… are you serious?”

“Serious? Why, of course. Perfectly serious.”

“Right. Follow up question…”

“Yes?”

“Are you mad?”

“I don’t appreciate your tone, Susan. What right do you have to question me?”

“Well, I am your manager, and you have only been working here a week.”

“As if that matters. Business genius should count for everything, you know? Ah, but of course you wouldn’t understand.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re excused. Don’t worry about it, I’m sure you’ll catch on.”

“Brian.”

“Yes, Susan? You want more business advice?”

“Oh, no, I think I’ve heard enough. I just wanted to tell you your P45 will be ready to be picked up in my office by the end of the shift. Have fun trying to sell yourself in another job opportunity. I’m not sure retail is for you.”

On Deleting the Internet

If you’ve been on social media the past day or so, you may well have seen people complaining about changes to a platform called Tumblr. I, myself, was a site user and I myself have been tweeting about it.

Before I get into my thoughts (and feelings) about what’s going on, though, I should probably explain what Tumblr is and what actually is going on with it. So. Tumblr is a social network alongside all the others — Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc..

As a site, it was very visual but was not just limited to photo sharing (as Instagram is). Tumblr has its own culture. It’s own inside jokes. And until yesterday, when they announced some pretty big changes to how they operate, they had a big, thriving community.

Now people are leaving in a mass exodus, myself included.

The changes sound mostly reasonable on the surface. They claim to be about making the site safer, which I’m all for, if that’s what the new policy actually achieved.

I could go into detail about the policy and the reasons for it, but there’s already a hundred news articles out there, stating the nitty-gritty of it; alongside thousands of posts by past and present users giving nuanced reasoning for how the changes will make things worse, not better. What I want to talk about instead is what the site meant to me, personally, and what implications deleting it has had on my life.  Continue reading