Like thousands of other determined, diligent writers all over the world, I started my day by firing up my pc...and having a quick scout through the status updates of my Facebook buddies. I really am a serious writer. I have a trip to LA coming up to work with really serious people on my screenplay but, it's important to know how ones 130 pals spent the previous evening… isn't it? Hmm, so Debs has won a trip to London. Anthony Worrell-Thompson (adult spit of Katie Price and Peter Andre's daughter) will demonstrate to her two small boys how to make nouveau cuisine Yule-Logs. And a fifty year-old single rock-chick pal of mine, let's call her 'Blondie', was anticipating a male caller putting a smile on her face at around 9pm last night. In the nick of time, I feel - she wasn't even going to put a Christmas tree up last week.
Whilst feeling glad that Blondie may not now be eating cheese on toast alone on Christmas night, a thought occurred to me. If Facebook users were to cut and paste a few years of status updates in chronological order, what a little time capsule that would be. A life in sound-bites. Exclamation marks and smiley faces. Periods of silence and sad, down-turned mouths. Trust proven misplaced. Love proven unbreakable. Our own stories in our own words. This I might try.
Moving on, shortly after deciding it was time to get to work, my mobile rang. A friend. Heading down the motorway in blustering gales. Wanting to talk about...not sure quite what but leading into telling me that my partner is just the sexiest thing...gosh, when he walks into a room... (at this point she had to break hard and we momentarily lost reception). Needless to say, she had seen my partner for the first time in several years only days before. He hides from women who find him attractive. The children and I exhaust him, you see, and he just can't contemplate having to deal with heaving bosoms and mysterious looks. Still, I should appreciate his apparent animal raunchiness more. My friend ends the call insisting we must visit again soon...both of us, of course, just me wouldn't do. Right. We’ll think about that one.
Shortly afterwards, next-door calls. Our homes are literally joined at the hip yet we often talk with a wall between us. She hopes I didn't see her huddled out back in slippers, pjs and a waterproof mac braving a cigarette in seventy mile an hour gales...she fears I'd think this a little desperate. Well, yes I might, but we've all been there. We plan to take our small sons to the Remembrance Day service at our village church on Sunday while there are still some of our wonderful, old soldiers around to tell the tale. Every-time my son pins his poppy onto his little coat, I well up. Because he's my boy, so precious and so many boys just like him had to grow up so fast. Still do. Give peace a chance. I wish the world would. Would it really be so hard just to get on with our own things with a little respect for each other?
After agreeing to high-five each-other at Bums and Tums next week, my neighbour and I hung up...both promising to return to our very pressing work assignments. And then I thought; I'll make a blog! I'll use it as a warm-up every morning to get those writing muscles working. I'll make lots of intelligent observations about the art of creative writing...or maybe I'll just talk about life. The work stuff and the every-day stuff. And maybe one-day, I'll cut and paste it all together and think - that was quite a journey!
