Sarah Pinborough

My alter ego hasn’t got her site set up yet, so I’m happy to announce on this one that Polish Publisher, AMBER have purchased the translation rights for The Double-Edged Sword. Given that the book isn’t out over here for three months yet, I’m very pleased. AMBER are the Polish home for Anne Fine and John Le Carre amongst many others so I’m happy to be in such good company.

Before I start can I just point out it’s 3.30 a.m. and I can’t sleep…this makes me grumpy.

“I TWEET, I FACEBOOK, I BLOG, THEREFORE I REALLY REALLY SO AM.”

No. You’re not.

Let me take these things one by one…

Twitter: Get off it, get back to having a life, talk to real people who haven’t told you what they’ve had for breakfast, what mood they’re in and what colour pants they’re wearing and may well be stalking you on google Earth…and all before you’ve got out of bed. Leave it alone and do more stuff. Life will be better. Done.

Facebook: I deactivated my Facebook account for a week. I gave prior notice via a status update but still the results were interesting. Friends emailed to ask me what they’d done to upset me. Friends emailed other friends to ask what they’d done to upset me. Friends emailed other friends to check I was ‘okay’. No one texted me, or called. Two people thought I was dead. Really? Is this how we exist now?

I’m kinder to Facebook than Twitter because I like keeping up with writer friends all over the country easily on it, but I currently have 104 outstanding friend requests sent by people I have never met. Not one of them has put a message in the request. To me, this reads like a demand to be my friend. Like they have some God given right because the Internet has validated them and therefore I should welcome them in. Well, I’m sorry – if you’re too rude to stick a “hey, I’d like to be your FB friend cos I want to spam you constantly about my upcoming self-published chapbook.” in the message line, then you’re too rude to be a friend of mine. My friends aren’t rude.

I’m giving serious thought to deactivation again. The quiet was nice for a while.

Blogging: Now my issues with blogging may be because I don’t really get it. If I didn’t have this job I would never blog. Ever. I do it because I’m told to, and I’ve tried (although they’re now mainly hidden on the website under this wordpress) to make them interesting and not all about me, me, me. But if I didn’t have a publisher wanting me doing stuff, there is no way I’d do it. The world does not need to know my thoughts. It probably doesn’t need to know yours. Everyone seems to be blogging these days and it leaves me baffled.Is your life really that interesting? I know mine isn’t. Neither is my opinion on stuff important. The same goes for you. Harsh, but true. Some people do the blog thing brilliantly (I follow a few) but most people don’t. Some people have fascinating lives (Stephen Fry, Amanda Palmer) that I want to read about – most people don’t.

Having a blog does not validate your life. It’s just words on a page that a lot of people will never read. And then there’s the content. The other day I found myself nearly writing an abstract blog about something recent that hurt me very badly. It stopped me in my tracks. Why would I blog about that? It was a private thing. It should exist only in me. It should not be papering the walls of the Internet. That’s just so…..American.

Not only does the world not need to know what I’m thinking, it definitely doesn’t need to know what I’m feeling. Maybe it’s because I’ve never felt a particularly overwhelming need to be liked. In fact, I’ve never felt a particular need for anyone or anything to validate my life. Except maybe my books. I want people to like them, and I want publishers to keep buying them from me and maybe that’s all the words and liking I need.

The long and short of it is, with all this noise in the Internet I find myself thinking,”World, shut the fuck up.”

So I’ve decided to take my own advice and shut up. I’m taking a break from blogging. I don’t want to feel the pressure to stick something on here for a couple of months. Maybe when the house is sold (decorating nearly finished – yay!) and my mad move to London is underway I’ll have something more interesting to share…but until that moment strikes, it’s adios from me unless I have book news to post…

Catch y’all later. Now switch off the computer and go and do something more interesting instead…

Eyeore x

So the Ashes to Ashes finale has been and gone and the programme has shuffled off this mortal coil…sigh. Anyone that knows me knows I’m partial to Gene Hunt. He could call me Bollyknickers anytime. In fact, he could call me a lot of things….

But I digress…

Couldn’t help wondering if maybe there was a funny little between this life and the next one place for writers. Who would be the Gene Hunt of that? Edgar Allan Poe? Syvia Plath as the typist working out her angst under his watchful eye?

Somehow when I picture it, all I can see is Stephen Jones charging out of that DCI’s office and shouting ‘We’ve got an anthology to put together, and no one gets a drink until it’s done! Smith – put out that fag. Pinborough, I told you pink was banned in here. Morris, stop watching Dr Who re-runs. Why is Tim Lebbon the only one in this office doing any bloody writing? And what do you mean Kim’s still working on an Empire review?? Oh fuck it, let’s go to the pub.’

It’s an afterlife I could buy into….

Tuesday. Late-afternoon. Muggy, sweaty sunshine. Crouch End. My feet hurt. I’d been walking for most of the day browsing areas of London I might like to live in. London was busy. My head was quiet. Thoughtful. Too much shit in there – men, life, work – all just questions without answers and I wasn’t expecting any so I let my mind sift through it all and wander along aimless along with my feet.

The high street was alive. Men. Women. In this shop and out of that one. To grab a coffee or not. Laptops. Cigarettes. Laughing. Talking. So much going on and it all drifted in and out of me as I meandered towards Crouch Hill to test out the overground links.

I didn’t see him as I walked past. I hadn’t noticed him at all. Ordinary. Bland. I was looking elsewhere. And then.

It was the words that snagged me. He spoke one sentence that cut through the noise and the heat and the ache in my feet. Maybe he spoke more. Maybe he didn’t. It was only one sentence I heard.

“But they’re my children too.”

I stopped. Automatic. I turned. I hid behind my sunglasses but watched all the same. Man. Suit. Crumpled. Him and the suit. Paunch. Balding. Not so very old. Phone to ear. Tie skewed. Fat fingers. Pink face. Hot. Tired. Stopped in the middle of the pavement. Staring at some place that wasn’t on the broadway at all. Somewhere he was about to arrive at and couldn’t understand how. Mouth half-open. Listening. Maybe. Staring at that place. Definitely.

It wasn’t the words so much. It was the tone. Defeated. Endlessly reasonable. Hopeless. Helpless. End of the road.

Me. Heart. Ached. Stared. Stories in stories in my head. Where was the little boy that had become this man? Was this a moment that child had ever seen for himself? The sheer awful mundanity. Standing still on Crouch End Broadway clutching a briefcase. Overweight. Broken. Downtrodden. Reasonable. No fight left. Staring at that place that was coming for him. Alimony. Dinner for one. Weekend access. Her. Fine. New man. Awkward phone call. Wishes he’d just buck up. Deal with it. Move on.

I heard it all in his tone. The banality of life’s little heartaches. The quiet and slow destruction of a man. The reasonable trying to hide the heartache. A slow creep into the dying of the light. No fuss. I was never here.

He saw me. I walked on.

It stayed with me all the way home. It’s with me now. Story. His. Probably untrue. Maybe he just had a bad day. Maybe he was trying to persuade the wife to let the kids do something and she wasn’t keen. Maybe he wasn’t all of the things I heard in that tone and it was just a passing moment. He’d get home. Dinner would be on the table. They’d talk. Watch TV. Climb into a sexless bed or dress in rubber and shag like rabbits for hours. Who knows?

But that tone. I can’t shake it.

Stories in stories in stories. They’re everywhere.

First blog coming soon…honest…