#54 The Offcuts
My scootin' baby brings the boys to the yard
Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent much more time dedicated to writing fiction and stand-alone pieces of work. I’ve submitted writing to competitions, the deadline working well as encouragement to complete a draft and finish something without the never-ending fear of tweaking and editing until it’s perfect. It feels great to be here. To have pieces of work and writing that exist not only as wisps of ideas. My goal for this week is for more fiction to pour out of me in all its imperfect, original glory.
I finished A Room With A View by E. M. Forster and I loved it. At times a more challenging read, because of the formality of the language, I enjoyed most of all seeing an author’s views and opinions pour through the pages of their work. I rarely, if at all, read fiction written by men less so when the main character of a novel is a woman. It irks me to think of yet another woman’s voice being puppeteered and controlled by a man, even if she isn’t real. But Forster writes the character of Lucy with such tenderness and describes women's roles in society with subtle subversion, in a way that would have been highly unusual in 1908 when the book was first published. He pushes the boundaries by mocking the Edwardian period's rigidity, particularly for its classism and snobbery.
Other reads:
Trying out the health scan with a 100,000 person waitlist
Oh, to be a literary it girl
The bloomer rebellion
Pro-pube positivity is infiltrating pop culture and the fashion industry
Meta pirated millions of books to train its AI
The too many trends of Gen Z - their coming-of-age years have been defined by overconsumerism and little else.
I was wrong about EM Forster (I share similar views and experiences with Julian Barnes of having re-picked up A Room With A View years after my initial reading attempt).
A teddy modelling clothes boosted one woman’s Vinted sales
I want to read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story Chuka. I’ve tried to start it a few times already but I haven’t allocated myself enough time to read it all in one go. I want to get sucked into a new fictional world and ride out a story from start to finish. Perhaps I can set aside an hour for myself this week because now that I’ve mentioned it I’ll hold myself more accountable (here’s hoping).
This week I’ve spent most mornings dancing like a fool in my bedroom. I usually have a little stretch from head to toe when I first get up, moving my body ready for the day ahead and I have now merged this with a little boogie. Headphones on I queue one or two absolute classics that I simply can’t sit still. I think I’ve peaked with Kelis - Milkshake.
On Wednesday, I finished a jar of Marmite. I had always assumed Marmite was similar to Vaseline in that it would never be entirely emptied. It is a seemingly never-ending vessel. You always buy more before finishing the last - there are 3 floating around in this kitchen that I know of. Given it’s essentially good to eat for eternity (the best before date only relates to vitamin nutritional value as opposed to safety risk) jars of marmite older than me might still be in circulation in some households.
I never subscribed to the love/hate of Marmite, or of anything really. I am an ever-indecisive libra. It was not until more recently I began to have marmite on my morning bagel. A much welcomed and now craved-after addition. Perhaps I am a converted lover?
Rarely do I suffer from second-hand embarrassment and for the most part, I am ambivalent towards the strange ways of others if they’re causing no harm. Enjoy yourself, babe! But on Friday morning I watched a woman scoot her way through the park with exhaustive effort. She was dressed smartly, presumably on her way to work. I just gawked at her. It’s worth noting this all happened before my first coffee so maybe I would have found it endearing if I had seen it after. Who knows.
I love finding out how other writers structure their time and their days around their craft. This is probably because I am pacified by the differences. I can’t be doing it wrong if everyone does it their own way too! I read an old interview with Susan Sontag this week and she shared her approach to writing.
”I wish I did [write just for practice]. It would make writing much easier. I have an enormous problem getting started. I’m very undisciplined. When I work on something I work on it day and night and toward the end I’m in a state of, I don’t want to say hysteria, but of total absorption. I drive myself to my physical limits. I can work twenty-four hours at a stretch. And when I finish I stop cold. I take a trip or do something entirely different for a couple of weeks. Writing is such an un-natural activity that one has to keep in practice, like sport, or playing a musical instrument. I don’t do it. But if I did it would make it a lot easier.”
