annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bookshop Hello darlings, I hope you're all well. I'm feeling a bit perky, having made it back to the blog three days in a row - yay - go me. I've been continuing to do a volunteer session in the pop-up bookshop, which has been good. Only four more Thursdays and it's done. Shame. The council let WS, the guy who set it up, have it rent free for six months as it was empty and is quite central and because they are a good council who support the arts. It's been about putting aspiring artists together with local, established, published authors who will mentor them in return for having their books prominently displayed in the shop. In the evenings there are author events and writing workshops, including some run by me. Three down and one to go. They've been very anxiety-provoking in the days leading up to each one, but OK and very quick when they actually arrive. I feel as if I'm doing a crap job, but WS is there at the same time, being the key-holder, and he says it's really good, that I provide great writing prompts and give very supportive, generous feedback, which I have to remember. Last time he actually joined in and wrote an amazing piece from the perspective of the bartender in Hopper's Nighthawks. That'll be why/because he's an ex-journalist with ten books published. He's a good guy though, very mellow and very grateful to have enough volunteers to keep the project running. It's been quiet in the shop so he's set up a table with a sign saying 'Writer at Work' and encourages us to sit there and write, which I do. And I have a writing mentor - he's OK too, and has got me rewriting my Mice and Men novel, the one that was about Polish cleaners till I read it through a month or so ago and didn't like how I'd presented the characters at all. Very lazy and relying on stereotypes as I basically know fuck all about Poland. I have quite a few second generation Polish friends, but they were all born here, my age, parents long dead, so no good for research purposes. I've started rewriting it with the two main characters coming from the South West of England, where there's a real affordable housing shortage, but now someone else has said, no, keep the Polish cleaners and do the research. So I'm umming and ahhing at the moment, but there's an author talk and discussion in the shop next week by a British Asian guy, about crime (fiction), cultural appropriation and diversity so I'm going to go to that and see how I feel at the end of it. And I'm still doing yin yoga twice a week and still walking, though I won't reach 1000 miles this year. I can't work out how and when I fell behind but I did and there's no way I can catch up. It's been really fucking hard to let that go, to stop putting pressure on myself, but I've just about managed it. Today I am grateful for having been on the beach as the sun went down in a blue sky, which I haven't managed for ages. Lush. Take care, y'all, and keep safe. xxx 11:05 p.m. - 23.11.21 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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