Payment in kind

I’ve hired myself out freelance to a weekly magazine where my job is to pretty up other people’s sentences for a fee. All very well except that, as with all freelance work, there will be the inevitable wait to process a payment. I’m sure the magazine can afford it, though. Their West London office seems swanky enough, as does the parade of shops it’s set on. On lunch break, I feel instantly poor: at the organic deli next door they are selling gorgeous but unaffordable sandwiches and a face cream that costs £120 for a tiny tube. I try the sampler and my skin feels great. A quick calculation. That was about £5-worth of cream –  earnings for the day just went up.

Rejection U-turned

After literally getting a slap in the face from Holloway Road last week, here is some good news. I’ve had an offer of publication for a very short piece that I wrote, about – yes, Holloway Road. Not the sort of thing I normally write, it just came out on the bus one day. It didn’t seem to be flash fiction and I didn’t know what else to call it. The first story editor to read it pronounced it to be a “prose poem” (when rejecting it). Anyway, I dusted it off & sent it out again, and now the editor of a little magazine has asked if he can use it. Nice one.

Falling down and getting up again

I fell this week, on Holloway Road. Still not sure how exactly. Maybe a passing motorbike handle looped through the handle of my bag as I was crossing the road, I don’t know. I was tired and something jogged me off balance. Anyway, the thing is, even though the pavement rushed to meet me and whacked me on the chin – I can still see that close-up of pavement with some of my blood on it – even though I did go to pieces a bit and worry if I would permanently have an enormous lopsided jaw – I got up, went home and iced the cuts and bumps. And now I’m back getting on with things. How is this related to writing? Maybe it’s like getting rejection letters. (One or two of those this week too.) But you have to keep going, don’t you?

LitCamp – London, 12 September

I’ll be there. So will quite a few other writers, publishers, editors and so on. Not quite sure what I’ll be doing on the day but I’m currently working on building the programme and the Litcamp website for which we’re using PostCMS. Having a lot of fun with that. And working on another baby thing, too. All of which means fiction is on the back burner just at the mo.

Plastic food

I’ve been busy working on LitCamp, so dinner is a healthy ready meal, all green packaging and fine promises. Problem is, the small print says “for best results use a microwave” when what it means is: “use a bloody microwave or the plastic will melt all over your grill”. Yum!