#Twiction12

What did I get up to last weekend?  Glad you asked.  In 48 hours I went to a wine tasting, mentored at a writing workshop, attended a book launch, cooked an AMAZING game casserole (if I do say so myself) spent Friday night watching  my friends get very drunk in a pub, blew up several hundred balloons, lost my phone, argued with my husband, worried incessantly about my friend’s 18 year old son, saw two personal training clients and ran a pilates class. 

I didn’t physically do all of those things.  You might have already worked this out, especially if you know me in real life and have been wondering where I’ve kept my husband hidden all this time.  But the other thing I did last week was take part in ‘Twiction 12’, a project set up by blogger and writer Virginia Moffatt, who wanted to find out whether Twitter could be used as a medium for story telling.  The second half of that list consists of things that my fictional alter-ego, Fitness Dee, got up to.  Reading them back, I think it’s safe to say I had a better weekend than she did.  

I first heard about Twiction12 a few weeks ago, when Virginia sent out (via Twitter - where else?) a call for participants.  The main story would take place, she explained, in real time, over the first weekend in December.  She’d be playing the part of The Derby Diva - a larger-than-life single mum, whose son Jack was about to turn 18 - and was looking for people to join in, either by interacting with the characters as themselves or by creating a new one. I replied, saying I thought it would be fun to give The Diva a friend - a fitness instructor called Dee -  and so my dual life began.

Although the story proper wouldn’t happen until December Virginia was keen to establish a back story so in mid-November, the Diva started tweeting about her son Jack, and his horrible girlfriend - only known as ‘The Slag’.  Soon, Dee began to tweet too.  Establishing her character was a lot of fun.  “Porridge and blueberries for breakfast and now I’m off to the gym! Busy day ahead!” I’d merrily tweet, still tucked up in bed with a cup of tea and a croissant.  Dee nagged the Diva to come along to her pilates class, and talked about her personal training clients, and her poor neglected husband Dave. 

After a week or so Jack began to tweet, played by Virginia’s twin sister, Julia, and before long, we were joined by what might be the best comedy pairing since Rodney and Del Boy: real life participants Rosie and BigBgnome.  This larger than life pair quickly befriended everyone - signing up for Dee’s keep-fit classes, availing themselves of The Diva's staff discount in the M+S lingerie department, and scaring poor old Jack with talk of cougars.  All the while they bantered with each other, providing a lively stream of chat about Rosie’s past drinking problems, and dalliances with Dee’s husband Dave, who they knowingly referred to as ‘Big Dave’.   I have to admit I felt a genuine sense of outrage when I first read about this. That was my husband they were leering over!  A completely fictional one, perhaps, but I was livid none the less - a good sign that the story was working.

This all went on for a few days and then last Friday at 8am - Jack’s 18th birthday - the story proper began.  What followed was a roller-coaster of emotions, conflict and drama as the Diva and Jack argued and made up, then argued again, to a backdrop of Friday night drinks, a nasty encounter with The Slag’s ex, hospital visits, interfering relatives and a whole lot more.    I had a lot of fun taking part, and I’ve been thinking a lot about the experience ever since.  Telling a story collaboratively via Twitter  was very different to anything I’ve done before; but in lots of ways, it was just like ‘real’ writing, and there are some basic principles of storytelling I was reminded about over the weekend:

1. Stories require a balance of character and plot

Virginia struck this balance with the Diva beautifully - each tweet simultaneously moving the action forward and reinforcing what we had learned about the Diva.  When it came to Dee, I realised after a while that although I had established her character fairly firmly I hadn’t really created a story for her - there was nothing driving her forward. I began to plant a few seeds -a new personal training client, and a few suggestions that Dave was starting to feel a bit neglected. I also made it known that The Slag sometimes came to the gym as well, vaguely thinking she might live up to her name and start flirting with Dave.  (Little did I know that Dave was about to find himself in a whole lot more trouble than I’d bargined for.....) but in the end I didn’t really do anything with them.  This didn’t really matter as there was plenty going on with The Diva, but it doesn’t surprise me in the least that plot was the part I found the hardest - it's what I struggle with the most in my normal writing too. 

2. Characters don’t always behave the way you want them to. 

I’d originally imagined Dee as the devil on the Diva’s shoulder; she didn’t have kids of her own, and wouldn’t understand the Diva’s attachment to her son.  Being married, I thought she’d also be trying to live a little vocariously through the Diva and encouraging her to make the most of being single.  But as time went on, Dee - as fictional characters are want to do - developed a mind of her own and turned into someone quite different.  She had plenty to say about Jack’s behaviour, not to mention his taste in girlfriends - but when he was in real trouble, she showed much more of a caring side than I’d ever imagined her to have.  

3. Writing is often about finding solutions

Using Twitter as a medium posed all sorts of problems I hadn’t begun to consider.  How can you let the audience know something which one of the characters isn’t meant to know, when everything is public?  Why would the characters be tweeting each other if they were all sitting around the same table in the pub? (My solution: Dee was tweeting from the toilets, so her husband wouldn’t hear her telling The Diva how good looking ‘Hot Guy‘ was....)  Then of course there was the ‘real-time’ aspect, which meant that at times the events in my own life got in the way.  On Friday night, while Dee was at the pub I was at a wine-tasting where a particularly nice Pinot Noir proved more than a little distracting.  “And whatever did happen to Dee, who was last seen tweeting from the toilets?”  Virginia pondered in her write up the next day.  Thankfully, just as sometimes happens in ‘real’ writing, it was possible for some of the Twiction12 action to take place off-stage.  “Sorry we disappeared so suddenly last night - will explain when I see you”  Dee tweeted early the next morning. 

I had a similar problem when the key events of Sunday afternoon coincided with my own book launch. It soon became clear that my original plan to keep up with tweets while at the launch was a little over-ambitious, which meant more retrospective explanations.  Harder this time because it was Jack’s birthday party - an event which the Diva had been planning for ages, and hardly something her good friend would duck out of without explanation.

Over the course of the weekend, I constantly found myself  asking “how can I .....” and “what if she......” - exactly the same questions I ask when I’m writing stories.  The art of problem solving - getting characters out of the situations you’ve written them into - is central to the process.  

4.  Sometimes all it takes is a bit of faith

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve written a tiny detail into the beginning of a story, only to find it there waiting for me when I need it pages later.  There were some wonderful moments of serendipity during Twiction12 too.  My explanation for Dee’s silence after she left Jack’s birthday party was a lost phone.  “Never mind, found it in the car” I (she) tweeted, just as the same time as the Diva was saying she’d found it behind the wine bottles in the kitchen. 

Oops. 

‘This must be someone else’s phone...wonder who it belongs to?’ improvised Virginia, as the Diva.  Curiosity got the better of The Diva and she read the text messages on it, which neatly set the the story on the path to its natural conclusion.  What would have happened if Dee hadn’t lost her phone?  Or if I’d sent my tweet to say I’d found it a few minutes earlier?  We’ll never know, I suppose.  Perhaps the ending would have been the same - we  just would have got there a different way.  Call it serendipity, or call it your subconscious knowing what was going to happen all along, and paving the way - coincidences like this happen all the time when I write.  I'm very glad that they do. 

5.  Show, don't tell....

It’s an old maxim, but  one which kept springing to mind over the course of the weekend.  Especially on Saturday afternoon, when Virginia sent me an email. “Tonight Jack’s going to need his mum,but she’s ignoring his phone calls. Finally, in desperation, he’ll tweet her, but she won’t believe it’s him.  After the third time he tries, can you tell her?”

Although I’d been reading Jack’s tweets, Dee hadn’t noticed them, so this posed something of a challenge.  Why would she suddenly discover them now?  And how could I let the readers know she’d seen them, without telling the Diva too?  

Of course, Rosie and BigB had been chatting to Jack for ages so I gave Dee a reason to go and look at their timelines, then alluded to the fact that she’d discovered something she wish she hadn’t, and then had her frettting about it:  “It’s not a lie, if you just don’t tell someone something, is it?” she tweeted.  Show, don’t tell, I kept reminding myself.  Show, don’t tell.  Sometimes the old advice is the best.

6.  Good stories are all about emotions

On Saturday night I, just like Dee would have been, tensely sat and watched Jack’s timeline, wondering how much to tell the Diva.  Slowly his tweets began trickling in.  “Mum’s not answering her phone.”  “Come on Mum, PICK UP!”.  I felt my heart break a little, as this tough sweary 18 year old found himself having to beg his Mum to listen, and I wanted to shake her when she refused to believe him.  Waiting for my cue - the third tweet - I physically felt my heart starting to race.  

These emotions continued for the rest of the weekend.  I felt genuinely wounded when the Diva was cross with me the next morning ("but I'd only just found out!  And I thought about telling you..."said Dee)  and quite relieved when I heard Jack was OK. By the time the story reached its beautifully sweet epilogue on Sunday night - a three-way conversation between the Diva, Jack, and Granny May, who was a late addition to the cast (also written by Julia) I was a complete wreck. 

 This happens when I’m writing ‘real’ stories too.  I’ll get a flash of genuine emotion - sorrow, anger, happiness - and that’s when I know the story is right. If I haven’t cried at least a few tears while writing something, there’s a good chance it will be a bit rubbish. 

So, does Twitter work as a medium for telling stories?  Virginia is busy collating the tweets so you’ll be able to read them and decide for yourself.  My answer is a resounding ‘yes’.   Collaborative storytelling, in real time, certainly posed some challenges, but it was a fantastic experience and one I hope to be able to repeat one day (Twiction13, anyone?)  In the meantime, I had a ball.  I stretched myself, and I learned a lot about writing, and made some new friends.  And who knows?  One day I may even forgive them for stealing my husband.

Houston, we have lift-off.......

Actually, not Houston. You can't by Stations in Houston yet.  Or  in the rest of America.  (You can, however, buy it in Switzerland of all places.   Who knew the Swiss would be interested in our little East London railway line?)

Yes, today it's publication day:

I have to admit, I am not *entirely* sure what that means, except that some point I should probably eat some cake. 

But what I think it means is that you should be able to find copies in bookshops (PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me if you see one), and if your local bookshop doesn't have a copy you can ask them to find you one.  Or you can order directly from Arachne Press.

I have never played professional basketball (this might surprise you), but today I have a pretty good idea of how this guy feels:

Events!

According to Elanor Roosevelt, 'Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.'

I'm feeling distinctly average tonight, so here a few reminders:

Stations Launch(es): 

The official publication date is November 29th (that's this Thursday, people!) and there is an unofficial launch at Deptford Library that evening; it's free to attend but you have to book a ticket. From what I've been told, it's much easier to do this over the phone than online -the number to call is 0208 692 4446.

The official launch is on Sunday December 2nd, at the Brunel museum in Rotherhithe, from 12.30 - 2.30.  You can buy the book and get a pound off a train tour through the tunnels, OR you can pay for a train tour and get a pound off the book.  I'm not sure how much the train tour costs, so I can't tell you which option is financially more viable.  For you, I mean - I know which one is (marginally) more financially viable for me, but I wouldn't want that to influence your decision.

Brick Lane Reading:

I (along with quite a few of the other authors) will be reading a short extract of my story at the launch, but if you want to hear the whole thing, I'll be reading it at Brick Lane Books on Thursday 6th December, from 7pm.  Again, there will be a few other authors reading, again it is free and again again you will have to book.  You can tweet them your booking if you like (how modern!), on @BrickLaneBooks - make sure you include 'Stations' in your tweet.  Or you can find them online at www.bricklanebookshop.org, where, under the 'Events' tab, there are full details including an email address for bookings.

(Don't try bricklanebookshop.com like I did.  Unless you're looking for dating tips, in which case: knock yourself out.)



Sorry this is brief, but my NaNoWriMo clock is ticking........ If you can make it to the Brunel museum or Brick Lane, do come and say hello!

And while we're on the subject, let's all have a long hard think about Christmas and puppies, shall we?

Here is a very sad sight I saw the other day:

Oh. Ok, I can see that photo might need a bit of context.

1. It was taken looking upwards from a train platform somewhere on the Overground line.  At Shadwell,  I think, although I can't be 100% sure. It doesn't really matter.

2. What you can't see in the picture is that there's some wire netting stretched across the top of the platform, and because this particular part of the Overground is, in fact, Underground, the wire netting is a tiny bit below road level.

3.  On the right there's a footbridge, from which people have thrown various unwanted items - old shoes, random gloves, that sort of thing - which you can see as little splodges in the photo.   (The big splodge is a tree branch.  You can ignore that).

Here's a close-up:

Forlorn, isn't it?

 And look closely.   Doesn't that silhouette look strangely familiar?  Are you experiencing a moment of vague recognition, as if this particular abandoned object is something you've seen before - perhaps quite recently - but can't quite place?

I told you it was sad.



Poor old Wenlock. Yesterday he was the nation's sweetheart, the darling of the Olympics;  now he's been tossed aside like - oh, I don't know, that bloke Tom Daley was in the synchronised diving with.

This might be a good time to remember that an Olympic mascot is not just for summer. It's for life.

The Snowflake Man of Vermont

No two snowflakes are alike.  Everyone knows that, yes?  It's a fact I've known since I was at least 10 years old, maybe even younger.  And I grew up in Australia, where we didn't even *have* snow.  Which might, come to think of it, explain why I was so fascinated.

So it's something we all know.  But I bet you don't know why we know.  It's largely because of this man:

Wilson Alwyn Bentley was only 20 when he took the word's first ever photo of a snowflake.  He was just a farmer, from a tiny town in Vermont, but had developed a curiosity about snow after his mother bought him a microscope. Initially he made sketches, eventually moving on to photographs when his father bought him a camera.  You can read all about him, as I have been doing this morning, in this piece by Keith C. Heidorn.  It's a great article; I love the details in this description of his methods for collecting and transporting his specimens:


What he found worked best was to capture the crystals on a cool velvet-covered tray. Taking care not to melt the crystal with his breathe, he identified a suitable subject and lifted it onto a pre-cooled slide with a thin wood splint from his mother’s broom and nudged it into place with a turkey feather. The slide was then carried into his photographic shed and placed under the microscope. The back-lit image was focused using a system of strings and pulleys he devised to accommodate his mittened hands. 


He developed his own post-production techniques (which included manually scraping layers of black emulsion from the negatives with a pen-knife) and had a 7-year dalliance with raindrops, too; capturing their imprints in a shallow pan of flour and keeping meticulous records in his journal about the size and nature of the drops themselves, as well as the rainstorms they came from  and the  surrounding conditions which produced them.

He didn't just record these observations, he also analysed them in painstakingly enormous detail, forming what were eventually proven to be robust scientific theories about cloud physics and meteorology; concluding, for instance, that the basic shape of a snowflake (hexagonal, star, etc) was determined by temperature at which is was formed.

Despite acquiring what Hiedorn wonderfully describes as "a considerable understanding of snow", Bentley wasn't taken seriously by the scientific community until long after his death.  He was, after all, just a self-educated farmer from Vermont; even his own father told him that his experiments were a waste of time.

It was the beauty of his photographs which captured public interest while he was still alive, leading him to become widely known as The Snowflake Man of Vermont.  The best ones were sought after by artists and jewelery makers, and it's not hard to see why:

Bentley died a few days before Christmas in 1931, of pneumonia contracted while walking home in bad weather.  At his funeral, just as his coffin was laid in the ground, a blanket of snow gently began to fall.  

Autumn

I had a strange thought yesterday afternoon.  It must have been about 5 o'clock; it was already dark, and the weather was grim.  I walked past a mound of golden leaves, all shiny from the rain - and that's when it happened.  Autumn, I realised, was really here.

For some reason I've been in a slight state of denial about autumn this year. I have been paying it lip service; for weeks I've been saying all the right things like "aren't the nights drawing in", and "can you believe they're selling Christmas decorations already",  and I'm wearing all the right clothes.  Even so, part of me has still been clinging to some crazy hope that there might be a tiny whisp of Indian summer still out there somewhere, just hanging around waiting for its moment.

And then yesterday I saw these leaves, and realised it was absolutely, definitely Autumn. Well of course it's Autumn! was the very next thing I thought.  It's the middle of November.  Which is practically  December,  and that's Winter.  You can't go around thinking it's still Summer when it's virtually Winter already.  

I was right, of course.  But the end of Autumn has just kind of snuck up on me this year.

It's not the only thing to do that lately; tomorrow is  my 39th birthday. Suddenly, I'm not going to be in my early-ish, mid-ish, late-ish 30s any more; I will have reached almost-40.  If feels like a significant age, and although I've had plenty of advance notice - 39 years, in fact - it still seems a bit out of the blue.

Getting here has been a slightly backward journey.   I spent the middle part of my twenties - those years when you're meant to experiment and be care-free and figure out who you are - in a very settled (I thought), very serious relationship, with someone ten years older than me.  So when I moved to London, aged 28, I told myself that it would be OK to spend the first few years of my thirties being a 20-something.  And that's exactly what I did. In my late-late-twenties I made new friends, and tried new things, and fell in love, and had my heart broken, and hopped back and forth between  houses, and jobs and entire careers - did all those thing I'd missed out on the first time around.  It felt like I'd been given a second chance and that this time I had finally managed to grab hold of life, and really live it on my own terms.  Not that I had any idea what those terms were, most of the time, but that's sort of my point - I got to work them out.   I really cherish those years.  There were some truly terrible lows - but also some very amazing highs (metaphoric, not chemical ones, I mean.  I didn't go completely crazy) and I learned all sorts of things. I realised the real value of friendship, and  discovered aspects of myself that I never knew existed.  And I had fun. SO much fun.

And as the years tip-toed by, and whispered new ages at me - 33, 34, 35, 36....... I slowly started to settle down again, and do some of those things that you're supposed to in your 30s. I bought a flat. I started to manage my finances (sort of).  I learned about wine.  It happened very gradually, this process of turning into an adult, and I didn't really notice it happening.  And of course it's not over yet.  There are still some fairly big milestones left to tick off; whether I'll ever reach them or not is still up in the air, and it's not as if they can't happen after  I'm 40.  But still, that age feels like a marker of sorts.

And I can't help thinking that somewhere in all of that, there's been a glorious autumn that I've missed. I was so busy enjoying that crazy Indian summer of my late twenties and my extra-late twenties that I didn't even notice the season had finally changed.  Until now, when it's nearly over.  Being nearly 39 feels a lot like suddenly catching sight of that pile of leaves yesterday.  I really am in my 30s.  Well of course you are.  I mean, you're very nearly 40.  You can hardly go around pretending to be a late-20-something still, can you?

I've got the day off work tomorrow, but I haven't quite decided how to spend it yet.  I don't really mind that it's  going to be one of those birthdays which slips by without fanfare -  last year I celebrated with lunch at the Fat Duck, which was always going to be a tough act to follow.  But  I think what I will do, at some point, is find a park.  Preferably one which is full of leaves which are good for stomping through.  I plan to make the most of these last few weeks of autumn.

Phew!

Busy day.  I have a new favourite carpark:

And a new favourite movie tagline:

And a new favourite unconfirmed quote, from the youngest Titanic survivor, who apparently when offered a drink said:

"I can't bear iced drinks..... the iceberg, you know.  Perhaps some champagne though."

I really hope she did say it.

The car-park is attached to Kansas City public library, and came from someone on Twitter (the really cool part of the story is that the residents got to vote for which books were featured).  The movie, which  really is about sharks being caught in a tornado comes from the always entertaining, and often aquatic Plenty More Fish where there's a much better explanation than I've just given, and I can't remember who told me about the Futility Closet website which provided the Titanic quote (sorry if it was you) but I have barely looked at any other part of the internet since.

Also, after watching last night's Children in Need special episode of Only Connect I have a new admiration for Richard Osman's ability to recall the lyrics of "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover".  It's on the iPlayer for the next week, so if you're quick you can click here to see why.  The man's a genius.

I even have a title, too. They could call it: "Stations". And maybe put a picture of some train-tracks on the cover.

The London Overground turns five years old today.  I hope somebody made a cake.

Since it also happens to be National Short Story Week, you know what would be great, in an isn't-serendipity-marvellous sort of a way?  If someone, or maybe a whole bunch of people, were to write write a collection of short stories (you know, because it's National SHORT STORY week)  which had been inspired by the various stations on the Overground line.

 I mean, pre-ordering a book like that would be a brilliant way to mark today's illustrious occasion, don't you think?

Just saying.

Her name, currently, is Kate. But perhaps I should change it to Kiki Dee.......

 I'm working on a novel at the moment, and I'm stuck on one particular scene, which  I'm struggling to write.  It's a scene which really shouldn't be so difficult.  There are only two characters involved, and I already know exactly what's going to happen to them and it doesn't involve any laser beams, or weird monsters or exotic locations;  there are no complicated plot twists or subtle undercurrents to communicate and it's night time, so it's not even as if there's a lot to see.  I can picture the whole scenario in my head, and I've written the scenes leading up to this one, and there's no tricky research or fact-checking I need to do before I start.    On top of all that, this is just a first draft so I'm not even too bothered, at this stage, about getting the scene exactly right, or making sure it's polished.  I just need to get it on the page.

And yet, I'm struggling.  I don't want to start.  I can't start.  I did everything under the sun last weekend to avoid writing that scene.

The problem is one of the characters. She's in her first year at university, and she's just met Simon, who is in the year above and developed a huge crush on him, in that way that you sometimes do at that age, especially when you meet someone a little bit older than you who seems about a billion years more sophisticated.  They're going to go for a nice romantic walk, and he's brought along a bottle of champagne..... and then he's going to give her the brush-off.   Which will, of course, break her heart.

The ridiculous thing is, I already know she's going to be absolutely fine.   Simon's being a bit of a bastard now, but she'll win him over, and they'll end up going out for a couple of years.  It won't last forever (he'll go off to America in his final year of university, and they'll break up before he goes) but that's something she'll survive too.  They'll stay friends, and even when he marries someone else that friendship will remain intact. And she'll look back on their relationship, and this night in particular, and laugh about how naive she was, and how it was so obvious that he wasn't "the one" and how lucky it is that they didn't end up together.

So it's all going to be fine, really.

Nevertheless,  the idea of sending her out on that walk, full of hope and expectations and nervous excitement when I know full well what's going to happen..........well, I just can't do it to her.  Every time I sit down to write that scene, I feel a bit ill, and flooded with guilt, and I find something less horrible to go and do instead, like cleaning my fridge or putting yet another load of washing on.  I've been trying for about three days now.  And I know I need to get it written.  But I just can't.

It's silly, I know. And I suppose, in a way, it's a good sign.  Isn't it?

Eggs. It was eggs.

Right.  I've  had time to check my Famous Five references (see previous post for context) and it was on QI (this episode here, about 28 minutes in), and it was eggs they once had lashings of, as part of the world's most horrible sounding salad.  So now you know.

This is really just an excuse to link to a lovely article I read in the Guardian earlier this year, which made me feel quite nostalgic (and hungry) when I read it and where journalist Josh Sutton presents an in-depth analysis of the Famous Five's eating habits.  They were really quite healthy, it turns out, and he notes that their meals were quite social occasions as well as being a fairly accurate reflection of the austerity measures of the time.

There's a data file, too.  Yes, that's right; as part of his research Sutton  systematically searched for and categorised every single mention of food in every single one of the Famous Five books, which is quite a job when you stop and think about it.

 I must say, I quite like the sound of Josh Sutton.

And I washed it all down with lashings of ginger beer*

I went to a tiny village in Kent the other day, for work.  I really wish I had taken my camera so I could show you some photos, but for now you'll just have to believe me when I say there is a village in Kent where the streets are called 'Bog Hole Lane',  "Heart in Hand Road" and "Old Tree Lane".

Going there felt just like stepping into an Enid Blyton story.


*Except, of course, I didn't really.  I washed it all down with the cold remains of a cup of Costa coffee bought from the M2 motorway services.   Besides, I'm sure I heard somewhere recently (maybe on QI, because it seems like one of their klaxon-inducing answers, but I don't really have time to check) that 'lashings of ginger beer' were never actually mentioned in any of the Famous Five stories.  Lashings of something else, certainly, but only once - and it definitely wasn't ginger beer.

On a map. Also, a train. And inside a book. Basically, I've been everywhere this weekend. Except to the gym.

Wow.  LOTS of writerly things going on this weekend.  All very exciting. The main thing is, I now have a couple of copies of Stations.  Yes, it's actually a real book now!  Look!

and, even more excitingly, for me at least, look!

There it is!  My story, in AN ACTUAL BOOK.  I am so excited about this that I literally have not stopped smiling all weekend.

More about all that later (come on, you really didn't think this was the last time I was going to mention it, did you?) but in the meantime, here's a map*:

And here's a little video we made on the train.  Basically, what you will see in my part of this video is me trying very hard not to explode with excitement and joy while reading the first few lines of my story FROM AN ACTUAL BOOK.**  You can decide for yourself whether or not I succeed. (Spoiler alert:  I don't entirely succeed.)   How I am going to cope with reading the whole thing in front of an audience,  while maintaining my cool, I have no idea.  I might have to resort to reading a print out; looking at the book is just TOO MIND-BLOWINGLY EXCITING***.

Oh yes, readings.  We are doing some.  There is going to be an official launch on December 2nd, which I'm going to and where some people will be reading, but I don't know if I'm one of them yet; there's an event at Brick Lane Books on December  6th and another one at the Ideas Store in Whitechapel in January, and I'm reading at both of those, and there are various other events going on in between, which should all be listed here. 

Helpfully, just as I'm starting to think about maybe practising for those readings, I received a fantastic audio recording of the first two thirds of Bloody Marys today - read by  a very nice sounding man (with a wonderful voice) who did a superb job of bringing my characters to life.  The recording was made by some radio production students, as part of their course-work and I absolutely love it - fingers crossed they'll give me permission to post that here, too.

So lots of Stations excitement this weekend.  But that's not all I've been doing.  I've also managed to squeeze out 5000 words of my NaNoWriMo project so far, most of which are completely ghastly but it's NaNoWriMo, so you know, that's sort of the point; and I've joined in with  a twitter-based storytelling experiment, via my new alter-ego, @FitnessDee

I managed to send one of her tweets from my personal account by mistake this morning, causing a certain amount of confusion for those twitter friends who know me in real life:

Luckily, I noticed and managed to put the record straight:

I'm already having a lot of fun being @FitnessDee;  if you want to get involved in the story, you can  -  details can be found here.

So it's been a busy weekend.  And it's going to be an even busier November.  Lots going on, but all of it good, and somehow in between it all I've got another 45 000 words to write for NaNoWriMo.  Don't suppose any one has an extra November they can lend me?



* I've been meaning to post this map for a while, and was even going to say something like "if you look at the map really closely, and you know your train stations, you should be able to work out the title of my Hoxton story".  Which is  still true, of course, but since the title of my Hoxton story is right there in the photo above, it's a slightly moot point.

**Actually, that's not all you'll see.  You'll also see my new coat.  So now you know.

***I don't mean this to sound as glib as I fear it probably does.  I am genuinely, properly excited and pleased and proud of the book.  And I do plan to write a longer blog post which explains why.

On the Clock

Curated by the London Literary Project, The London Clock is an online collection of poetry and flash fiction, all set at a particular time of day in a particular part of London.  

London is such an easy city to write about, and is perfect for a project like this;  full of hidden nooks and crannies, each vastly different from each other, and with so much going on at different times of day.  There's something magical about walking through Soho early on a weekday morning as the city is slowly waking up, and about being by the river late at night, seeing the lights sparkling on the water while everyone else is asleep.  Rush hour at Victoria station is a little less magical, perhaps, but no less memorable, and there are a thousand other tiny moments which make London unique.

It's a brilliant idea for a project - so simple, yet so perfect, and I've really enjoyed reading some of the entries.  You can submit here, and read my contribution here.  

Brushes with fame

If you live in a city like London, occasionally you might find yourself at an event involving someone a little bit famous.  If that person has written a book, there's a good chance they'll be selling copies at the event. So  you might think about buying a copy of it and asking them to sign it for you.

If you go to buy the book, and then the famous person sees you getting out your purse and says "No, no, put that away, tonight I'm giving them away for free", you might think to yourself "Gosh, that's really very generous of him.  How nice!"

 And when he looks down at the table in front of him and realise that he doesn't actually have any books left to give you, and says, "Oh no!  Wait right there, let me see if I can find some more" and then goes off to find his publisher or agent or whoever , who is right over on the other side of  the room, and she gives him a rucksack he has to lug back over to the table past a very crowded bar, and then rummage through in order to find the book he is going to give you,  for FREE, you might find yourself thinking "wow!  That was an AMAZINGLY generous thing to do, going to all that trouble."  

And so, you might say to the famous person who has just gone out of their way to do something very nice for you exactly the same thing you say to anyone who does something extra nice for you, which, if you are me, is "Oh!  You're a star!  Thank you so much!"  

But  the famous person might not hear you properly, and say something like "sorry, I missed that - er.....what did you say?"  So you might say again, "you're a st....."

And then you will realise that in this particular context, the phrase " you're a star" probably sounds less "you've done something I really appreciate"  and more "OH MY GOD! YOU ARE AN ACTUAL CELEBRITY WHO IS ON TELLY AND EVERYTHING AND OH WOW I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M TALKING TO A REAL LIVE PROPER FAMOUS PERSON!"

But you'll probably realise it a split-second too late, by which time you've already called him a 'star' and he probably thinks you're some sort of crazy fan-girl, and you can hardly explain that's not quite what you meant and anyway, now he's waiting for you to tell him your name so he can sign the book he's gone to all that trouble to find for you.  

If all that happens, you'll probably feel a little bit horrendously embarrassed. 

But then,  if the famous person is not only very  generous but also quite kind and incredibly gracious, he might do something very  cool, like this:

And you'll suddenly feel a whole lot better.  

 Even more so when you remember  that the guy in front of you wanted his book signed "from Darth Maul".  

Absurd Inventions

I had a whole pile of things to get done at work today.  While doing one of them, I stumbled across this list of totally absurd inventions, and guess what? Now I have a whole pile of things to get done later in the week.

At first glance, it looked like a pretty unassuming list, with a few mildly odd sounding entries.   But then I started clicking on links, and oh, my word.  They all come with (at times, quite  Professor Branestawm-esque) diagrams, and the ideas are just, well, nothing short of extraordinary, especially when you remember that they've all, apparently, been patented.

Of course, it helps that they're all accompanied by lighthearted, slightly-sarcastic-but-its-sometimes-hard-to-tell explanations which I can't help but hear in my head as if they're being read by George Lamb from Come Dine With Me.

Here's Jacques Fido, which just made me laugh out loud:

And a fashion accessory which never quite caught on, called Angel Ears

" Maybe Albert (the inventor) had big ears and was teased incessantly as a child so he wanted to cover them up. " guesses the commentator.  "Or, maybe Albert was an obsessed Ornithologist with a desire to spread his love of birds through the ultimate fashion ear ornament."

Sports fans might be interested in the Skin Stencil

"Finally, a hat designed for the ultimate fan. Now you can burn your favourite team logo right into your forehead!  That's right, the logo portion your hat's adjustable headband has cutouts allowing the sun to sizzle your skin.   We suggest that you don’t apply any sun block to the part of your forehead that's under the headband and stay in the hot sun all day so tomorrow will truly be a red letter day!" 

(This suggestion is not endorsed by the National Cancer Institute.)

And after a hard day of having your face burned to a crisp in the name of sport, what you'll probably feel like doing is taking a nice long, relaxing fish bath.

Yep, those are actual fish.  Not in the tub with you (I mean, that would be silly!) but swimming around in a transparent walls of your bathtub, so you can see them. 


And so it goes on.  There are literally hundreds of these things, including: a gerbil shirt, a toilet snorkel (for when your high-rise building catches fire... what else?), a cheese-filtered cigarette, various dieting devices including a mouth cage, an alarmed fork and a contraption which won't let your hand get too close to your mouth and a hijacker injector, for aeroplanes.

I moan about my (day) job sometimes, but every now and then it throws up something like this, and suddenly it doesn't seem nearly so bad.

You've Got Mail.....

No, wait.  I mean, I've got mail:

A little parcel of these publicity postcards for Stations - the short story anthology I've contributed to - arrived today.

Here's what they look like on the back:

We have a publication date!  And and ISBN number!  THIS REALLY TRULY IS GOING TO BE AN ACTUAL BOOK!

As you can probably tell, I'm starting to get a bit excited by these postcards.

But not as excited as I was by THIS:

A BADGE!  With my NAME on it!  Which says I am an AUTHOR!

I am way more excited about the badge than I ought to be.  In fact, I'm way more excited about the badge than I thought I was going to be.  Because I knew it was coming; my publisher (my PUBLISHER.  Yes, I KNOW....) sent an email last week, saying she'd had them made up.  To be honest, I was a little dubious.  But now that I've seen mine, I love it.  I'm not saying I'll wear it out in public, necessarily, but I might wear it under my other clothes sometimes.  Kind of like a Superman cape.

STATIONS is, as by now you may have surmised, a collection of short stories inspired by the East London overground line and will be available online and in bookshops from November 29th.  My story was inspired by Hoxton, and more specifically by the wonderful Hoxton Street Monster Supplies.  It's a place very close to my heart for reasons I have been meaning to blog about for ages, and will endeavour to do so very soon.

Speaking of which, I'm very aware that this blog has become one big plug-fest for my own writing lately.  Sorry and etcetera.  It's just that it's all been a bit exciting lately.  I'll try and redress the balance in the next few posts.

Free stories! For free!

I mean, what's not to love?

Open Pen is a literature magazine, distributed via London's independent bookshops for free (did I mention that?) every couple of months.

The most recent edition which looks like this

contains a story written by me.  It's one I had a lot of fun writing, so if you pick up a copy I hope you enjoy it.  Also, I hope you're not a Geography professor.  You'll soon see why.

It can be found, at the time of writing, in these bookshops:  LXV Books, in Bethnal Green; Brick Lane Books;  Broadway Books (on Broadway Market) and Skoob Books* in Bloomsbury, as well as at Departure in Limehouse.  And in more places soon, I'm told.  Completely free.


*If, like I was, you're curious about why Skoob Books are called Skoob Books you might want to have a look at their website.  It doesn't take too long to figure out.

But......wait! There's more!

One Upon a Time is a flash fiction collection of unexpected, one-page fairytales, including one which was written by me.

Or at least, most of one which was written by me.  If you buy the collection  you might notice that my unexpected fairy story has a slightly unexpected ending.  That’s because the last line is missing.  I’m not quite sure whether it was a mistake or an editorial decision, and that's not really relevant now anyway.  I just thought I’d mention it for anyone who has found their way here after buying the book (there's a list of author blogs in the back) and thought the ending sounded a bit odd.

The final line should be: 

“I do have a question.”.  His faced brightened.  “What’s the Chinese for ‘genie’?”

So now you know. 

To be very clear - and this is something I can't emphasise enough - I'm not complaining. The whole project started life as a fun on-line competition, and like most entrants I was thrilled to bits when the organisers announced their plans to publish.  We all gave our work to the collection free of charge, and any profits (which are likely to be minimal) will be going to charity, so I’d feel like a Grinch if I made a fuss. 

In my own copy of the book, a carefuly placed post-it note has solved the problem.  If you buy a copy, tell me and I'll happily send you one too - can't get fairer than that.

Help! My Stories are Escaping!

OK, so this isn't really a cry for help. In fact, it's more of a humblebrag if I'm going to be completely honest.  But I quite like that title, so I'm sticking with it.

The thing is, various exciting things have happened this year which I meant to write about at the time and for various reasons I didn't. Now I'm going to have to write about them all at once which I'm not sure I can do  without it sounding like I'm bragging - at worst, quite a lot, and at best, at least a little bit.  Bear with me.

It started towards the end of last year, when I made a quiet resolution to start doing more with my writing.  I wasn't sure what, exactly, but I knew I had to bite the bullet and start sharing my stories with other people.  I think I've mentioned  before, the Dave Eggers quote I keep pinned above my desk.  He says:

 "No-one can read the thoughts in your head. They can only read the words you put down with great love and care on the page."

 Well, the same can be said for the words you put down with great love and care on the page, and then keep locked away inside your computer. ( Or, which you put down with love and sometimes a bit less care on a blog which you conveniently forget to tell anyone about, I suppose, but let's not go there.)

So in December I submitted a few stories to a few places, and then waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  Slowly, things began to happen.

First, the lovely Gabriella, who runs a monthly story telling afternoon called Storytails, emailed to say she liked the story I'd sent her and invited me to take part in her January event.   A few weeks later I found myself sitting on a stage in a pub reading a story to a room full of strangers (and half of it to the friend who I dragged along, but who arrived late and missed the first bit).

If you think that sounds nerve-wracking and terrifying you're absolutely right. It was. I've been a member of the London Writers Cafe, a critique group come support network for writers of all types, for a while now and have read things out there - a chapter of my novel-in-progress and a couple of short stories.  That was terrifying, too, the first time I did it, but it's become easier ever since.  Still, there's a big difference between reading to a group of writers who have specifically gathered to discuss each others' work, and reading to an audience who are simply there to be entertained.  I worried that they wouldn't like the story, or that I'd mess up the reading of it, or that people would get bored and leave half way through or (worse) heckle, or throw things, or laugh at my shoes.

 But you know what?  People were lovely.  They listened, and they smiled, and they laughed at the right bits (and sometimes at bits I didn't think they'd laugh at), and said nice things afterwards.   And then I posted a link to the  podcast, and people I know listened to it and they said nice things too.  It was such a fun experience that I've been back nearly every month since as an audience member, and even did a second reading at the end of March.  I survived that one too.

A few months later I had another email, this time  from Josh at Open Pen, a free bi-monthly(ish) fiction magazine which is distributed via independent bookshops.  He said some really kind things about both of the stories I had sent in and, while neither of them ended up being chosen for publication  it was incredible to think that someone had taken time to read them and offer feedback. It gave me enough faith to keep on trying, and so I made a list of competitions and submission deadlines which I steadily worked through, sometimes writing new pieces and sometimes tweaking existing ones.

Since then, some pretty amazing things have happened.  The flash fiction piece I entered in an  'unexpected fairytales' competition didn't win, but the organisers decided to publish all of the entries.  So yesterday, I placed an order on Amazon for a copy of the book.  An actual book - with words and ink and paper and everything -  which includes a story written by me.  Later this year another book is due to be published which will, again, contain another story written by me.  A full length short story this time, not a flash-fiction piece, and I'm actually being paid for it.  Every time someone buys a copy of the book, a teeny, tiny portion of the money they pay will eventually be paid to me in royalty fees. Just like a real author.  Just thinking about that blows my mind.

So, my stories are finding homes.  It's something I have mixed feelings about. Mostly  I am excited, pleased, thrilled, and bubbling over with  pinch-yourself-to-make-sure-it's-really-true excitement.  But a tiny part of me is terrified.  All of a sudden my ideas are out there in the world, being seen and heard in ways I have very little control over.  My stories will be read by complete strangers whose opinions I will never know.  I won't get to watch their faces as they turn the page, or be on hand to answer any questions they have about the characters.  I can't explain why things turned out the way they did or describe how long I spent debating the ending.  It's a frightening thought.

And at the start of this post, when I said  'I submitted a few stories to a few places'.......well, that makes it sound incredibly easy.  It wasn't.  Each of those stories took hours - spread over weeks, sometimes months - to write. They really were put down on the page exactly as Dave Eggers describes - with great love and care. Not the first time they were put down, necessarily - usually that first attempt was just a muddle of thoughts and words which felt laboured and clumsy, but would 'do for now', and which, when I was lucky, circled vaguely around some sort of meaning.  But the act of  sifting through all of those words and ideas to find the ones which tell a story, and then crafting and refining them until that story has been told in the very best way you can - that requires a lot of love and care.   An awful lot, in fact.

Presenting people with something you've worked that hard on - something you've gone back to time and time and again until you are absolutely sure it's the best you can make it - is difficult.  Because it raises questions:  What if it's still not good enough?  What if they hate it?  What if it makes no sense?  Who am I to think these words are worth sharing?  

And it's not just concerns about technique or ability.  You end up writing about the things you really care about. The experiences I've had, which in turn have shaped the way I see the world, are inextricably linked to the stories I tell.  It's no accident that I've written about unrequited love, or being far away from the people you care about, or - for that matter - having big feet. They're all things I've experienced.  And when I've gently poked fun at a characters' snobbishness, or given an underdog his day, or infused some humanity into a difficult situation, it's because I think it's needed.  Being able to do this - making the world work in exactly the way you think it should, rather than in the way it sometimes does, is one of the great joys of writing.  But it does means that those stories, and the way I've told them, contain pieces of me.  None of them are true, but they all hold a degree of truth - abut me, and the values I hold, and the way I see the world.

So 'submitting  a few stories to a few places' is more than just clicking 'send' on an email.  It's saying to someone 'here's what is fundamentally important to me, told in the very best way I know how, and  because I think what I have to say is valuable and important enough for them to be interested, now I'd like you to help me share it with some complete strangers."   And in some cases,  "Oh, and if you could pay me some money for it, that would be great as well."

It doesn't seem quite so easy now, does it?

And I've mentioned the good things which have happened this year.  What I haven't told you about are the other parts.  The stories which were rejected, or, even worse, completely ignored.  The three months I spent writing almost nothing at all because I got scared, and lost confidence.  The way I seriously questioned whether this whirlwind love-affair with writing I've been having for the last couple of years was just a fling.  I don't want to labour the point - mainly because I would much rather forget all of those things, which were all horrible -  but you get the idea.  Writing isn't easy.  Sharing what you've written isn't easy.  The long waits, the rejections, the worries about what people will think - that's not easy either. But sometimes, just sometimes, things happen which make you realise it's all worth it.

And quite a few of those things have happened lately.  My stories - some of them, at least - are finding homes. It's an amazing, exciting, nerve-wracking and in some ways quite sobering feeling.  On the 'Writing' tab at the top of the page are some links, and I'll keep adding to this list as and when there is more news.

In the meantime, I've got some more writing to do.










.

Puts a whole new spin on travelling first class

My 'today in history' widget tells me that on this day in 1920, the US Postal service ruled that children could not be sent by parcel post.  This tickled me for some reason so I tweeted about it, and someone replied who had been similarly tickled, which prompted me to dig a bit further.

As it turns out, the rule isn't as bonkers as it sounds.  For a short period of time in the early twentieth century  parents did, in fact, occasionally attempt to post their children.  Although not by stuffing them them into envelopes, as per the "Flat Stanley"-esque image which I bet is now floating around in your head.

The US Postal service came into being in January 1913, and just over a year later the parents of 4 year old May Pierstorff worked out that rather than pay for a train ticket so May could visit her grandparents, it would be cheaper to post her.  She wore the  stamps (53 cents worth) on her jacket, and travelled in the mail compartment of the train.

A few years later, cousins Josephine McCall and Iris Carter, 7 and 8 years old respectively, were posted to their aunt.  Iris cost 70 cents to post, while Josephine was somewhat lighter and cost 51cents.  The driver of the delivery truck they travelled in was a Mr W.E. Fawcett.  From one of the local newspapers at the time:

"Mr. Fawcett believes that a kid or two at a time to deliver is all right but he is glad the idea does not occur to many parents at present when moving their children and he is dreading the time when he will find children all along the way and persons in parcels at every post office."

"Once Upon a Time" Flash Fiction entry

As Jamie strolled down the beach the waves lapped at his feet, caressing his bare toes like a girlfriend would.  His right arm ached, the raised fleshy edges of his tattoo still pink and raw.  It would heal by next week, the guy said.   

Sticking out of the sand ahead of him was a wooden post.  A handle, Jamie realised as he got closer. He pulled it several times but nothing happened;  he dropped to his knees and began to dig around its base until his fingers brushed cold metal.

He stood up and gave a final pull, freeing the object.  For a moment he held it aloft then dropped his arms again in shock.  Jamie glanced around and tried to look inconspicuous; no easy feat given he’d just been waving a four foot sword around.

A nearby rock caught his attention. He peered suspiciously into his cocktail glass and then checked again. There was no question about it; sitting on the rock was a genie.  A freaking genie.

“Best put that back” said the genie, examining his fingernails.

 “No way” said Jamie, holding the sword tighter. “I know how this works. I’m not stupid you know.”

The genie looked at the new tattoo on Jamie’s arm; a Chinese character which meant “arm”, and sighed.

 “You’re a genie, right? You owe me three wishes.”

 “Technically, yes. But there are conditions.  No wishing for endless supplies of wishes.”

“How about a wishing tree?” 

The genie rolled his eyes. “No wishing trees. No wishing wells, or magic potions.  Those loopholes were closed down years ago.”

“Fine.  For my first wish....”

 “Something else. Once you let go of that sword, you lose your wishes.  You’re stuck with the thing forever.”

“Wait, I get three wishes and I can keep this sword forever?”

“Yes.  You’ll be forced to.  Good luck getting it through customs.”

“Ah” said Jamie.  “Hadn’t thought of that.”

“Exactly.  Now, if you have no more questions, I’m off.  Once you put the sword back, obviously.”

Jamie sighed.

“OK.”  But I do have one question. What’s the Chinese symbol for ‘genie’?”

Happy birthday, Luka

My niece, who lives in Australia (which can feel a blinking long way away sometimes) turns one next month.  I still haven't met her, but can't wait until I do.  In the mean time I have written her a story.  Happy birthday, Luka.

The Invisible Thing

 Deep in the jungles of South America, where the waterfalls dance and the warm air smells like coconuts a little girl called Sophie lived with her Dad in a tree-house high above the rainforest.  The house was just big enough for the two of them, and it sat on the widest branch of the tallest tree in the whole jungle.  When Sophie looked out of the window at night she felt like she was right among the stars.  By day when she looked out she could see the rest of the jungle below her, stretching out in every direction like a thick, green blanket.

Sophie’s Dad was a scientist.  It was his job to travel around the world and observe rare and endangered animals.  He would quietly watch them in their natural environments and record what he saw. Then he sent his observations to zoos and museums for other scientists to study.

Even though she lived in the jungle Sophie still had to do her school work.  So every morning she stayed in the tree-house and used a computer to keep up with the rest of her class.  There was a special camera set up in her old classroom, which was over a thousand miles away, and she could watch the lessons and answer questions just like everyone else.  In the afternoons, when her class were doing PE and art and other things she couldn’t join in with, she turned the computer off and helped her Dad with his work.

One bright sunny afternoon she finished her homework and climbed down the rope ladder which hung from a hole in the floor of the tree-house.  She climbed down, down, down through the branches until finally her feet hit the jungle floor.   It was much darker down here, because the tree branches above were so thick and tangled together that hardly any light got through.

She finally found her Dad near a tall banana tree she sometimes liked to climb.  He looked even busier than usual, and was arranging and rearranging a pile of equipment laid out on a big flat rock in front of him.

“What are you hoping to catch today?” she asked.

“Something special” her Dad replied. 

“What sort of something special?”

“I’m not sure yet.  I’ll know it when it comes.”

She looked at the pile of equipment next to him.   Sophie’s Dad had to be very careful not to hurt the animals and so he had all sorts of clever ways of catching them safely. He had different equipment for animals of all shapes and sizes: small nets made from the softest silk to catch things which flew and special sticky paper for catching tiny insects and bigger nets made from jungle vines to throw over elephants and cages made of bamboo for whatever animals might fit in them.

Usually Sophie could tell what he was trying to catch from the equipment he used.  But today he had taken out one of everything, and she couldn’t work out what he was trying to catch.  Sophie was an inquisitive sort of person, and when she wanted to know something it was a bit like having an itch which wouldn’t go away. As she plaited some vines together, she kept on thinking.

“What does your special something look like?” she finally asked.

“No one knows” said Sophie’s Dad. “It’s invisible, you see. But I’ll know when it has arrived.”

Sophie’s eyes grew wide.  The word “invisible” had just been on her spelling list at school so she knew what it meant.

 “If you can’t see it, how will you know it’s here?”

 Sophie’s Dad looked up from his clipboard, with a smile in his eyes. 

“Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there” he said.  “I’ll know when it has come.  You’ll know too.”

Sophie scratched her nose.  “But......how will we know it’s here?” she asked.

“We’ll know” said her Dad, in a voice which told Sophie there was no point in asking any more questions.  “Just wait and see.”

The next day, once Sophie had finished her school work she climbed down the rope ladder, down, down, down through the branches, and when her feet finally reached the jungle floor she went to find her Dad.  He was counting the spots on a thick python which had curled itself around a tree branch.  Once the python had slithered away, waving its tail at Sophie to say goodbye as it went, she asked the question she’d been wondering about all morning.

“Has it come yet?  The invisible thing?” Her shoulders shrunk when her Dad shook his head.

“It will come when it’s ready” he said. I promise.  Just wait and see.”

Three days went by, and still the invisible thing didn’t arrive.  On the fourth morning, Sophie woke up early and decided to pick some fresh bananas for breakfast.  She climbed down the rope ladder, and  instead of climbing all the way to the ground she stopped when she reached the rainforest canopy. Here, the treetops made a bridge, and she leapt from one branch to the next  When she reached the top of the banana tree she picked the two ripest bananas she could find, and put them into her backpack. As she turned around to go back, she noticed something.

She peered through the branches to get a better view.  Below her, sitting on the floor of the rainforest, was a kind of creature she had never seen before. He wasn’t anything special to look at. His fur was a dull, muddy brown colour, and looked a bit like the washing up water did just before Sophie’s dad threw it away.  He didn’t have any stripes, or spots to count.  He wasn’t quite big enough to ride, but he was too big to carry, and he didn't have wings so he couldn’t fly.  In fact, thought Sophie, it didn’t look like he would be able to do much at all.

"Hello" she called. The creature looked up at her with a pair of bright shiny eyes that warmed her like the sunshine did.  Sophie smiled.  She picked another banana, peeled it carefully and threw it down to the creature.  The creature sniffed at it, ate it in one gulp, and then danced around in a circle.  He waved his tail at  Sophie, who laughed and fed him another banana.  This time, after he ate the banana the creature stood on his front paws, as if he were doing a handstand.  Sophie clapped her hands with delight, and picked some more bananas. 

The creature ate four bananas, and did a different trick each time, always waving his tail at the end, and Sophie began to think that the creature was something rather special after all.

When she began to peel a fifth banana the creature gently shook his head, as if to say he’d had enough.  She put the banana into her backpack with the others, and made her way back to the rope ladder.  As she began to climb, the creature waved his tail at her as if to say goodbye.  “I’ll be back soon” Sophie called to him, and then giggled as he did a back flip.

She  climbed back up the ladder to the treehouse, where her Dad was snoring quietly in his hammock.  Just as she was about to wake him up, a flock of parrots flew past the window and did the job for her. 

“Good morning early-bird” he said, as he rubbed his eyes.  “You’re looking very chirpy.  Has the invisible thing arrived?”

Sophie shook her head.  “I don’t think so” she said then added “But I’m still not quite sure how I’d know.” Her Dad laughed.

  “Just because you can’t see something.....”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not there” Sophie finished for him.  “I know.”  She took the bananas out of her backpack.

“I did meet a new creature though” she said, smiling as she remembered.  “He’s very friendly.  And he can do lots of tricks.”

“Hmmm.”  Sophie’s Dad scratched his beard as he ate his banana.  “Perhaps I’ll take a look.  You should come too. It’s still early enough; there’s plenty of time before you need to log on to school.”

They both climbed down the rope-ladder, down down down through the branches and as soon as they appeared through the canopy, the creature, who had been waiting, leapt up into air.   Sophie was glad to see him there and scrambled down the ladder as fast as she could to greet him.

Her Dad joined them a few minutes later.  “Is this the creature you were talking about?” he asked, and Sophie nodded. 

“Isn’t he lovely?” she replied.

Sophie and the creature played together while Sophie’s Dad watched, smiling all the while.  Finally he stopped them.  “Time to go and do your schoolwork” he said to Sophie, whose heart immediately began to sink.  “You two can play together later” he added. “I think I’ll be able to manage without your help for one afternoon.”

“Maybe we could help you look for the invisible thing” Sophie said.

Her Dad smiled.  “Maybe”, her said, as he watched the creature cuddle up to Sophie. “But somehow I think the invisible thing might just be here already.”

Sophie turned to him.  “Really?  It’s here?” her Dad nodded.

“I think so.”

 “Well aren’t you going to put it in a cage? Or cover it with a net?”

Her Dad shook his head.  “Not for now” he said. “Now off you go.  See you this afternoon.”

Sophie gave the creature one last cuddle, and then had a terrible thought.

“What if he’s not here when I come back?”

“I have a feeling he will be” said Sophie’s Dad. “But I’ll keep an eye on him for you.”

"What about the invisible thing?" asked Sophie.  “Will that still be here too?”

"Yes, I think it probably will" said Sophie's dad, scratching the creature's head.

Sophie found it hard to concentrate on her school work that morning.  She got all sorts of sums wrong which she normally knew the answers to and her teacher, Miss Nelson, had to ask the same question three times before Sophie heard her.  When it was finally time to turn her computer off she scrambled down the rope ladder and found the creature waiting for her.  They played together all afternoon, running through the trees and laughing together and eating bananas, and Sophie felt as happy as she could ever remember feeling. 

Evening came, and as the sun went down and the air grew cool, the fireflies came out and danced above their heads like tiny shooting stars.  Sophie’s Dad came to find her.

“It’s time to go home” he said, and Sophie gave a sigh.

 “Goodbye” she whispered to the creature, as she buried her face in its fur. “I’ll come and see you again tomorrow.”

Later that night, Sophie sat in the tree-house, surrounded by stars, and thought about the creature.  She wondered how he was, and what he was doing, and whether he was even there any more.  Then she remembered about the invisible thing, and wondered if that was still there too.  She tried to peer down through the trees to see but they lived up so high it was impossible to see anything at all, not even the tree-tops. The only thing below her was a giant sea of darkness, and Sophie sighed. 

“I wish our house wasn’t quite so high” she said as she climbed onto her Dad's lap, where she liked to sit and listen to stories before it was time for bed. 

“I thought you liked it here” he said.  “Living up among the stars.”

“I do” replied Sophie. But I wish the ground wasn’t quite so far away.  I can’t see my creature from up here.  Do you think he’s still there?” 

"Just because you can't see something, doesn't mean it’s not there”, Sophie’s Dad said quietly. “Or that they're not thinking about you” he added, almost to himself.

Sophie snuggled deeper into her Dad’s lap, and finally understood.

As she slowly began to fall asleep, curled up in her Dad’s lap and surrounded by stars, the invisible thing curled itself around them both too, and gave them an enormous hug.  Even though she couldn’t see it, Sophie knew it was there.  And down in the jungle far, far below, where he’d be waiting for Sophie the very next day, the creature knew it too.