volcanic's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- on writing and midwives... I slept for four hours in the middle of the day today. This was largely because I've been the victim of a particularly virulent bug which involved not just the usual aches and shivers, but also a sore throat, respiratory difficulties and a sole bout of extremely violent vomiting. It's over now, though, and I feel lots brighter. It was horrible while it was going on, though. I think I may had it for a while, and I was writing it off as being worse-than-usual hay fever, that not even the homeopathic remedy that I swear by could ease. I'm a bit detached and disoriented right now. I seem to be floating in the corner of a metaphysical delivery room, watching myself huff and pant and heave over the longest delivery known to mankind, waiting to see what kind of bizarre offspring my latest little forays into adventurousness will bring forth. (And just to complicate matters further, the line "Don't think of midwives" from The Invisibles is swirling around in my mind. Doubly bizarre, my best friend is a midwife, so I actually think about midwives, and indeed converse about them and their jobs, on a very regular basis. In fact, it gets better: I did a google search to find a link for this paragraph, and got the most spectacularly fascinating and diverse results that I've had in a long while. I started writing this thinking it was going to be dull, but I'm being taken in all kinds of directions, and right now I'm enjoying the ride...) So yes, it's all quite organic and free-form in my head right now. And just to keep on the theme of coincidences, as I typed "freeform", John Peel decided to play some kind of psychedelic jazz-funk extravaganza that's decidedly freeform in its nature. I give up, I really do (and in the most happy, calm and resigned way possible). I have no influence over this life of mine at all, I'm some kind of passenger on an interplanetary metaphysical rollercoaster, aren't I? I don't really think that, by the way. But it does feel like that at times. One minute you're bored, the next you're stuck in one of those tripped out cartoon sequences where there are exploding, expanding hearts and flowers blossoming around you (and if you're not sure what I mean here, you need to watch You're in Love, Charlie Brown). Coincidences are funny things, though. I'm self-aware enough to realise that they take on more significance when you're feeling needy, and that way madness lies if you take it to extremes, but nevertheless... ...take last week, for instance. Somewhere (and can I for the life of me remember where?) I read a recommendation of On Writing by Stephen King. Maybe I should say at this point that I'm not particularly a fan of the man. His books filled a short gap in my teenage years when sensation and shock factor were my prime literary movers. I don't think I've ever bought anything he's written, but rather found them on hotel bookshelves or borrowed them. Whatever. I decided I wanted this book, because it sounded interesting, and I like getting inside writers' heads. I love reading writers' autobiographies and interviews and anything that reveals a little bit more... It's one of the reasons I like Neil Gaiman's short story collections, because he writes introductions that are as good as the stories themselves. Anyway, I digress. I wanted the book, and the very next day whilst taking a short cut to the bus station through WH Smiths, there it was right in front of me. On the bargain table, for £3.99. And it's an excellent book. And Stephen King is officially very, very cool. I don't think killer doggies or nasty things in the woodshed will ever do it for me, but the man is little short of a genius. His analysis of his life, and himself, and his craft is pretty astute, and he pretty much confirms my suspicions about the curse that is literary snobbery. So yes, I found the book, by coincidence, and it wasn't a waste of money. And as for the midwives? I'm not quite sure where they fit in, really. In fact, I think they might have gone for their teabreak, because up here in the corner by the ceiling in the delivery suite, all I can see is myself looking red-faced and exhausted. Labour stops, sometimes, all by itself. Sometimes because the body's too knackered to carry on (in which case you're looking at the anaesthetist getting fast-bleeped as you speed, bed-bound down the corridor to the operating theatre for an emergency c-section) and sometimes because maybe that baby's not ready to be born yet. Maybe that's it. Maybe this great metaphorical baby of mine (which, incidentally, is metaphorically kicking lots and wriggling furiously) just isn't ready to come out and face the world. Bah. I need more gas and air... 11:57 a.m. - 19.06.02 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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