And So It Began

It began with a queue, which was longer than expected, though she couldn't work out why she hadn't guessed.

Phase two, began with smokescreens, and An Entrance from The Man Himself.

And then the words came. It was inevitable. There were stories as yet untold to the world. There was the release of wisdom and secrets, which fizzed statically across the room. And she soaked it p; the words, their hidden meanings, and the vibe.

And there was doodling in books to be treasured forever, befor ethe secrets, the potential held within the air, was released unto the streets.

She left with a new sense of togetherness and purpose, a thousand old ideas bubbling to the surface to meet with the new.

The next day she would buy a new notebook, for this new beginning. For it was blessed.

And so began the new life of a writer.

Unfinished

Pirates By Day...

A while ago, Rachel sent me this:

Hey you guys - I though this was an interesting review: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n09/jone01_.html

Personally I *love* typewriters and I feel prone to the kind of fetishization of them that the reviewer characterises as masculine... when I grow up and get rich I'm going to have shelves of the beautiful things, just wait. And all the staying-up-late, rolled-up sleeves and bourbon strikes a chord with me too, but all of that has clearly been encoded as masculine in our general culture too. Don't people often claim there's no need for lots of books with girl characters, because both boys and girls will identify with the boy leaders, but boys would never identify with a girl? The guy clearly thought there was no point concentrating on the 95% of typewriter users in 1930 who were female, because what they were doing wasn't so interesting (to him!!) and everyone would love to hear about Hunter S. Thompson and William S. Burroughs. Well, yes, but I want to read about the women too... and the male secretaries and the hard-drinking women as well - there had to be some! (Hint: Sarah, that's you and me. And Mum - I can never forget your advice not to let on that I can type. I'm still not convinced it's irrelevant yet.) Hmph!

Thoughts?

--
And it's had me thinking, on and off. I started formulating a reply the weekend that Pirates of the Caribbean came out, and it's festered, but refused to grow into something complete. I suspect it's a lengthly short story, but thus far, besides the notion of where it's going (a strange tale of imagination/dream-pirates and outlawed story-keepers who keep the tales alive. Not as sad as it sounds, at least, I don't think it is), this is as far as I've got with my reply:

That’s almost as beautiful an image as Keira Knightly playing pirate, which is what I woke up to this morning J. I now have this image of the pair of us in smart, hard-worn office wear, in a spacious, large-desked office, several storeys up. It has low lighting, and a window-wall overlooking the sparkling cityscape. It’s more burgundy than sepia.

And as the lights dance below us, it plays out something like this:

“You nearly finished, babe?”

“Not even close,” Ginger exhaled forcefully as she pushed back a wayward strand of hair, still staring at the page before her, “you?”

Daisy scoffed. “No.”

The pair turned their attention back to their work, and for a while, all you could hear, besides the odd heavy sigh, was the clacking of key and the judder of moving ribbon.

*

Hearing the gentle clink of two glasses being lifted from the bottom drawer, Ginger pulled herself and a dusty, battered file, out from the deep filing cabinet. Daisy had already crossed the room when she turned.

“Here,” she passed Ginger one of the glasses.

“Thanks.”

Ginger leaned against the desk, flicking through the file absentmindedly as she swirled the heavy liquid in her other hand.

“Y’know,” she mused, “sometimes, I wonder why we do this.”

Daisy grimaced.

“I know. But who else is there?”

Ginger dismissed this hastily. “Nobody’d notice if we, sort of faded into the background.”

“Are you sure about that?”