BrainPick A Litopian's reality!

[AngryPI]

It is Friday night (UK Time) and the gloss of Xmas has long gone, the bright fireworks are but a distant memory that signalled another day in the week before us.

My question is this: it's a Friday night, what are you doing? Better yet, what do you wish you were doing?

Sincerely yours,
The Angry P. I.

 

[Emily]

I am where I want to be: writing beside the stove. The only thing I would change would be that I hadn't been so flaithulach (an Irish word for generous, but kind of stupid-generous, like, if someone asked you for a loan, you would throw your money at them and say: "There! take it all! In fact, take my shirt! And my new boots, and the deeds for my house! Delighted to help you out!" realizing after that you now have nothing yourself) with a box of Bengal Spice tea.

I love that tea. I made it every night in a little orange enamel teapot that I bought at an auction (I had to buy a box of random rubbish to get the teapot) It's quite ancient and has "Made in Yugoslavia" printed on the bottom. Now I am getting texts from friends saying "drinking your lovely tea!" and I am here, slapping my forehead, sipping an el cheapo berry one. But anyway. I'm awaiting two boys back from a youth club and the rest are asleep and it's the weekend so I can go for a nap if I'm tired tomorrow after writing until late, and I'm here for Pop-Up Submissions on Sunday, so all good chez moi!

(And now they are home and I can settle down to write in peace )

 

[AngryPI]

Wow, you make everything about your life so romantic! I can literally imagine it, and I love the Irish term, though I know not how it is pronounced and would be wary to attempt it aloud.

Good luck with the wonderfully manic world around you!

 

[Emily]

It's pronounced: flah-hool-ach, the 'ach' being soft (think of a Scottich accent saying it!) It's incredibly useful, you can use it in all manner of ways: "Ah, feckit, I was a bit flaithulach with the garlic" (though, can you ever be flaithulach with garlic?)
or
(think of an Irish Mammy with an apron stretched across a formidable bosom, holding the ubiquitous wooden spoon ready to give any passing naughty child a wallop) "Hm! Three pairs of boots, have ya? A bit flaithulach in the shoe department, I see".

Once you start using it, you can drop it into most conversations

 

[Amber]

It is Friday night (UK Time) and the gloss of Xmas has long gone, the bright fireworks are but a distant memory that signalled another day in the week before us.

My question is this: it's a Friday night, what are you doing? Better yet, what do you wish you were doing?

Sincerely yours,
The Angry P. I.

Funny you should ask. I'm listening to my neighbors fireworks. They never tire of it. It doesn't matter what time of the year... or what time at night.

 

[Marc Joan]

Bit late to the party, here. Mrs J and Son were away for the night, so Daughter and I watched a film. Just what I needed -- it was an exhausting week. Been a bit flathulach with my work schedule -- early start to write; then day job; then a few hours of painting and decorating. Every day. Huh.

 

[Webbwalker]

I've not been well lately so I just stayed in, resting, drinking a very good wine that my sister (who's still here, staying with us a few days more) brought with her, and watching telly, catching up to all the Christmas shows I missed. It's my birthday in a couple of days and we're off to see the new Will Ferrell Sherlock film that everyone says is pure mucky pants, but keeping an open mind. I refuse to believe WF is capable of a bad film. I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

In the last week, I've been asking myself just that question..."What am I doing?"—said with a groan and a weary heart. That's because I'm lost in what feels like an endless process of reformatting the 44 titles I uploaded to Smashwords and Amazon in 2013-2015.

They were OK, though I've learnt a lot about layout and formatting since then, and have altered spacing and font size to make the page look more attractive...fun, huh? To add to the tedium, many of the hyperlinks disappeared, the ones that allow Kindle users to click on a chapter number in the table of contents to jump to the right place in the book. To find if they work means clicking on each and every one, replacing those that are missing. I feel like a robot, not a writer.

This is the side of writing that's never mentioned or even thought about, when someone imagines themselves penning a book. I'm doing it as part of my 2019 campaign of self-promotion, making my existing self-published books look as good as possible.

What I'd rather be doing is writing new stories, which is joyful to me, like seeing freshly born lambs gambol around a field. Re-formatting eBooks feels more like cleaning up their droppings!

The only good thing about this onerous task is, that I'll turn to completing my income tax return online and query letters to cloth-eared literary agents with glee!

 

[Katie-Ellen]

My mam rang last night, voice faint as a ghost. She has been very sick and is just starting to get better. My father had brought the landline up to her in bed. Mobile phone? Forgeddit. She won't have it. Here she is at mine at Christmas, grudgingly sporting the obligatory silly headgear. Heheh.

'Hello my darling,' whispered this tiny little voice. She's sharp as a tack, my mother. I kid you not. This woman could have made a good general. But she couldn't remember a few things.

She's had a return trip to Hades.

My parents are an hour and a half up the road, and extremely independent minded. No rescue posses permitted and I must respect their wishes.

Amazon is the work of the devil, and I thank it very, very much, and give the devil a leeetle keees for letting me send stuff pronto to help my father manage , the only way that was acceptable to them.

 

[Emily]

This is my "writing space" during the day, complete with my talkative helper and her fluffy menagerie (daytime production rate is basically nil)

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Well, it's no longer Friday night here. Late Sunday afternoon. I've taken a break from endless weekend household chores to work on the pea coat I'm making for my son and check my e-mail and whatnot. Really looking forward to a glass of wine later (wine and precise sewing don't mix, so it will have to wait until this collar is sewn, trimmed, turned and pressed). This is his second bespoke pea coat. He wore the first one almost every day, but outgrew it in a year (!). When he asked for another, I couldn't say no. I love working with wool, and what mother can resist a son who insists Mum's handmade clothes are better than store-bought?

 

[Emily]

@Robinne Weiss , oh, photos please! I bought my son a pea coat and he has hardly taken it off, they are such beautifully shaped garments. It's probably Sunday evening where you are now: Sunday morning here

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I don't have any particularly good photos of pea coat #1on the boy, but here it is on the hangar (I don't know why it insists on coming in sideways). I know what you mean about not taking it off! My son wears it on days the rest of us are in t-shirts. It's become his look. I've made coat #2 in a size larger than he currently wears, in the hopes it will last him more than a year.

 

[Emily]

That is an extraordinarily beautiful coat @Robinne Weiss ! So beautifully made, you are a very talented seamstress (My pea-coat son just walked behind me and saw the photo and said, "Wow, that's a beautiful coat"!!!!)

 

[Webbwalker]

Oh wow! What a fabulous coat. Very inspiring. I used to make all my own clothes but haven't done any dressmaking for years. You're making me want to take it up again.

 

[Eva Ulian]

It is Friday night (UK Time) and the gloss of Xmas has long gone, the bright fireworks are but a distant memory that signalled another day in the week before us.

My question is this: it's a Friday night, what are you doing? Better yet, what do you wish you were doing?

Sincerely yours,
The Angry P. I.

Ah... I missed this last Friday @AngryPI and I can't remember for the life of me what I was doing, but it's easy to guess- I was either flat out on the settee with exhaustion or working on "The Devil's Whore", I don't have other alternatives these days.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Oh wow! What a fabulous coat. Very inspiring. I used to make all my own clothes but haven't done any dressmaking for years. You're making me want to take it up again.

Yeah, I make all my own clothes (Except for socks. I manage some, but can't knit fast enough and don't enjoy knitting). I create my own patterns, too. I reckon it's genetic--my dad was a pattern maker for women's lingerie for 30 years. It's always a bit nerve wracking to visit him--he peers closely at all my seams and examines my collars, asks what interfacing I used ...

 

[Emily]

That's the basis for a story right there @Robinne Weiss ! Or a self-sufficiency book that blows all the other out of the water (please write this, it could be the most incredible cornucopia. I'm getting giddy even thinking about it!!!)

 

[Robinne Weiss]

That's the basis for a story right there @Robinne Weiss ! Or a self-sufficiency book that blows all the other out of the water (please write this, it could be the most incredible cornucopia. I'm getting giddy even thinking about it!!!)

Yeah ... I kind of wanted to write that self-sufficiency book (though more on the gardening, not the rest), but a couple of months after I quit my job to do just that, Barbara Kingsolver published Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. That was the book I wanted to write. And she did it so much better than I could have. *sigh* Such a wonderful book ... such a wonderful writer ...

 

[Emily]

I *KNOW*, but! there is always a ready market for such books. We probably have them all, and love every new one that comes our way!! There is something so (frequently unachievably!) inspiring and dream worthy. They are like practical coffee-table books for imagining all sorts of lovely stuff. You could make it so beautiful with illustrations and photography... recipes and stories and practical stuff and handcraft-y stuff and all your goat stuff... add in some insect eating... (Give me about ten minutes and I'll have your blurb written complete with diagrams and drawings lol)

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I *KNOW*, but! there is always a ready market for such books. We probably have them all, and love every new one that comes our way!! There is something so (frequently unachievably!) inspiring and dream worthy. They are like practical coffee-table books for imagining all sorts of lovely stuff. You could make it so beautiful with illustrations and photography... recipes and stories and practical stuff and handcraft-y stuff and all your goat stuff... add in some insect eating... (Give me about ten minutes and I'll have your blurb written complete with diagrams and drawings lol)

LOL! I have huge files stuffed with blurbs, diagrams, drawings, etc on this very topic! It really was my goal when I started writing seriously. I guess I got distracted by fiction (and discouraged by all the other wonderful books out there like what I wanted to write.) My current desire is to do one called 365 Days at Crazy Corner Farm (or something...)--a page for each day of the year, with seasonal recipes, crafts, inspiration, etc. I even have a photographer I want to work with and everything. But every time I sit down to get serious about it, I think 'who needs another book like this?' and 'how am I going to sell this book--I'm not a famous chef or anything'. It's the business side of the equation that stops me every time.