I may never leave the house again
Jan. 23rd, 2011 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceIt's Sunday morning, so I went to the supermarket. It's practically a tradition. Can't go to the Lit & Phil, have to go somewhere, y'know? Walking is a part of my process. So is running away from the computer.
So I walk across the moor to the supermarket, and I mosey around the aisle and stack up a basketful of stuff that will be nice if not strictly necessary, and browse a recipe or two in the Sundays (belly pork roasted with pomegranate molasses - I nearly went back to the meat counter for some belly pork, except that it'll be much nicer in the market tomorrow), go through the till thing, drift over to the other newspaper display to scan the headlines - and a hollow voice says, "Hullo."
I'm getting used to this, there was a whole slew of unexpected people saying hullo to me in the restaurant last night (and I got a free Vietnamese coffee, 'cos I think the restaurateur thought I'd encouraged them all to come), so I looked up and said hullo back. To hollow eyes beneath a woolly hat, and I didn't recognise him at all until he said, "Did you take my advice?"
And yup, he was indeed the curious stranger from last week who thinks I should go on the radio. Also Radio Newcastle, he confided this morning. Which is all very well, but aaargh. If he can ambush me on my way to the Lit & Phil and also at the supermarket, I shall never feel safe again. I shall never be safe again. Whatever happened to the anonymity of the big city? I avoid small communities precisely because of this, because strangers will know me and know what I'm at and assume some degree of investment in my life and I hate that. Except where I love it, obviously, at gigs'n'cons'n'such. Otherwise, I wanna be an island. With a drawbridge. Up.
Still. If I never dare to leave the house, I'll probably write more. Unless I just read more. (Read Jason Goodwin's The Janissary Tree, you who like histories and mysteries and deep-drawn cities. Istanbul, the Ottoman empire in its eternal decline, and a eunuch detective. It's very good.) Soon there will be devilled kidneys and mushrooms for lunch, on sourdough toast; and afterwards I may possibly watch The Battle of Britain while I read about SOE and Station 43, for both of these are research of a sort, two sorts; but first I shall finish this chapter in a writerly manner. It's an odd thing, for I love chapters generally and the shorter the better, but I have written this book so far almost entirely without them. I just keep forgetting to give my heroine a break; her life is just one damn thing after another.
So I walk across the moor to the supermarket, and I mosey around the aisle and stack up a basketful of stuff that will be nice if not strictly necessary, and browse a recipe or two in the Sundays (belly pork roasted with pomegranate molasses - I nearly went back to the meat counter for some belly pork, except that it'll be much nicer in the market tomorrow), go through the till thing, drift over to the other newspaper display to scan the headlines - and a hollow voice says, "Hullo."
I'm getting used to this, there was a whole slew of unexpected people saying hullo to me in the restaurant last night (and I got a free Vietnamese coffee, 'cos I think the restaurateur thought I'd encouraged them all to come), so I looked up and said hullo back. To hollow eyes beneath a woolly hat, and I didn't recognise him at all until he said, "Did you take my advice?"
And yup, he was indeed the curious stranger from last week who thinks I should go on the radio. Also Radio Newcastle, he confided this morning. Which is all very well, but aaargh. If he can ambush me on my way to the Lit & Phil and also at the supermarket, I shall never feel safe again. I shall never be safe again. Whatever happened to the anonymity of the big city? I avoid small communities precisely because of this, because strangers will know me and know what I'm at and assume some degree of investment in my life and I hate that. Except where I love it, obviously, at gigs'n'cons'n'such. Otherwise, I wanna be an island. With a drawbridge. Up.
Still. If I never dare to leave the house, I'll probably write more. Unless I just read more. (Read Jason Goodwin's The Janissary Tree, you who like histories and mysteries and deep-drawn cities. Istanbul, the Ottoman empire in its eternal decline, and a eunuch detective. It's very good.) Soon there will be devilled kidneys and mushrooms for lunch, on sourdough toast; and afterwards I may possibly watch The Battle of Britain while I read about SOE and Station 43, for both of these are research of a sort, two sorts; but first I shall finish this chapter in a writerly manner. It's an odd thing, for I love chapters generally and the shorter the better, but I have written this book so far almost entirely without them. I just keep forgetting to give my heroine a break; her life is just one damn thing after another.