Friday 23 April 2010

Shop Girl, the Egg, the Candlestick and the Basket



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I can’t sleep.
It’s the effect of winning the Author Blog Award.
I’m too excited and I want to DO stuff.
I want to plot my novel.
I’ve got an idea now I just need a dollop of time.
I thought about writing it in the shop.
I'll start as soon as the two women stop dithering over the brass miniatures, I thought.
It’s three for a pound and I’ve written the offer on a giant label.
For some reason people take longer deciding over these ornaments than over a five hundred pound crystal chandelier.
“A pound for one?” one of them asked.
“No, a pound for three pieces.”
“Which three?”
“Any three.”
Uncertain what to do with the brass eggs they tried balancing them on top of the mini candlestick.
“What about this?” one said, holding up a brass basket.
“Yes, you can have three of those, or mix them up.”
“How much is it?”
“Three for a pound.”
This is more than a £1.00 of my time, I thought. Then realised it probably wasn’t.
Apart from writing my novel, I also want to learn stuff about applications and widgets and embedding.
I’m suddenly bored of saying I’m not technical.
Why can’t I be technical?
I’m the sort of girl that gets excited about a good pair of wire strippers. Surely I can learn this computer stuff.
Furthermore, I’m determined to understand twitter. I wasn’t bothered about it until my blog got short-listed and I suddenly realised the time had come to embrace it.
So far I write a tweet and think what a stupid tweet that was.
Then I wish I could delete the tweet.
But to delete it you have to write a new tweet.
So I do.
Then I think what a stupid tweet that was.
So I tweet again.
Oh look, I have one less follower.
The mistake is to care so much.
It's just the excitement of having my blog noticed by so many people.
I’ll calm down soon enough.
I might even get offline for five minutes and scribble the plot for this new novel on good old pen and paper.
I’ll start when the next lot of women are finished choosing their ornaments.
They’ll be stuck between the egg, the candlestick and the basket.
They won’t realise they can have all three for a pound.
It’s so silly I might even tweet about it.

4 comments:

Christine Coleman said...

I've just found this via Twitter (am fairly new to it and to blogging - I started mine in May last year) Anyway, I just dropped by to say CONGRATULATIONS - I guess you must be very excited about winning.
Am I incredibly generous-spirited, or merely a sad old bat, when I tell you that I get a vicarious pleasure when a writer I don't even know, but who seems like a nice down-to-earth person, wins a prize?
Whatever, enjoy your win and your blog!

Shop Girl said...

You don't look much like a bat so it must be the generous-spirited one. Either way it makes me very happy to get your comment! Come back and read more soon!

Emily

Girl Afraid said...

I actually brought your book, quite by accident. I was checking out Salt Rock as i was thinking of sending them something and there you were (well in book form at least) and i thought why not. I too went to UEA and was plagued by the stripy sock brigade. They have now upgraded to waistcoats and statement watches. What a small world this is!
Anyhoo congrats on the award.

Shop Girl said...

Haha great to hear from you GirlAfraid. Damn, I'm loving the upgrade! I bought a waistcoat from a charity shop for my new years pirate costume so I could fit in now!