true love

No news is good news, perhaps. I have slowed down, been distracted, the flutter in my head has stopped. I am not thinking but skiing. My translations are mechanical, thrifty. I just have to untangle the Italian and clip around the edges. Easy stuff. A sociology piece that beckons will be more challenging.

But I have lost the pace. I am working on promotion of my novel on the other side, and this takes up hours of productive time, grinding me into the desk, layers of cardigans, an escape to the piano with frosty hands.

I have no stories today. Nothing creative.

Just plumbers, a lunch, my love hit in my heart keeping me awake at night, and the promise of more skiing. And more.

I want my words back. I want my head to stagger.

acceptance

February used to be my most depressed month. The month when my hands would stick to the icy gate and fog glue up my throat with cotton wool.

But today some steamy news flew over from Australia. I have had another short story accepted, in The Australian Reader, which will be appearing around February 20th.

Everything after I read that news fell into place, or if it didn't, who cared?

Like the awful peas they decided to throw into the salads my friend and I ordered. My empty bank account. My grotty kitchen a victim of my uninspired overgrown boys. The empty fridge and my driver's license left in a pair of trousers up in the mountains so I am freewheeling, hoping some nitpicking carabinieri won't catch me out along the brittle country roads.

I am so very glad. It's a great hit and a good omen. Of the seventeen stories in my collection only five are still homeless. With these I am aiming high, and responses will be as long as the summer is from now. But now that I know that 'Janet and the Angry Trees' will soon be appearing, I'm ready for another round of the rest.

swiftness

Another request for a full manuscript! I am quietly thrilled, though beaten up with a head cold and I had wild skiing dreams all night. The woman who ventures out with wet hair into the fog has been punished! I would like a grappa or two to ease this head.

So the manuscript is now wending its way to the fiction editor of a small, reputable company, continents away. Send good wishes, cross fingers.

Plus I had another near miss with Granta dammit. The narrator was admired, oh yes she was quirky, and I've been invited to send more work. It feels like a soft bummer, not so bad. I reread one of the stories this morning and was entranced.

The thing is I must finish a hefty book revision before I return to story writing. I've promised it to myself, before this novel dissolves again as it has done before. My laptop is lying on the bed waiting for me, the winter sun is even poised at the window so kindly.

The stories in my head will just have to wait.