Archive for posts on Short Tall Tales

Lovely changes Saturday, November 17th, 2007

I miss my Katie lots. Being in Oxford will be great for next year when she’s nextdoor in London, but right now it makes getting in touch harder, and when loneliness sometimes strikes it makes the blow even firmer.

Anyway, here are some lovelier changes:

1. I live in Oxford now. Oxford is actually a much smaller city than you might expect, and I like it a lot. There are grand old buildings peeking out against the skyline everywhere and everybody rides bicycles, which reminds me of Amsterdam and makes me happy.

2. I’m volunteering at Oxfam now. Currently I’m working on the intranet, and it’s a fairly dull job but also one that I find quite easy, which means that I’ll have the task finished sooner than planned and I can have a look around other departments that I’m more interested in. The people I work with are all lovely and there is something a little liberating about working for free, at least for an organisation that deserves the support. I suppose the knowledge that you’re not prostituting yourself is quite a nice one.

3. I’m going out now to send query letters to agents who may be interested in working with me to get my children’s stories published. I’ve been wanting to send out the queries for weeks but one complication after another has arisen and I’ve only just reached the point where it’s both possible and smart to do so. Perhaps now that I live in Oxford I will have greater credibility as a writer!

4. I’m a vegetarian now. I’ve wanted to turn vegetarian for some years and only recently felt that I could handle it: this seemed like a good time to make the switch, given all of the other changes occurring (especially since I’m only just really learning to cook), and it’s worked out nicely.

Posted in Books, Charles Charles and the Snow Morgle, Oxfam, Oxford, Personal, Short Tall Tales • 7 comments

3-2-1 Monday, October 29th, 2007

Some exciting things:

1. I’m moving to Oxford. I’ll be staying in an amazing freshly refurbished house (”the loveliest house in Oxford,” one of my housemates correctly said) with three other guys, all lovely, and starting an internship with Oxfam, which will, I hope, lead to a permanent position in a few months. It’s all happening; I’ll be off within the next couple of weeks. I’m excited to gain my independence, to do something professionally that I think is worthwhile, and to move to one of the nicest locations in England. Yay!

2. Katie was accepted to come to London with college next semester. With her in London and myself in Oxford, we can see each other at weekends and even some evenings and at not much expense. Yay!

3. Charles Charles and the Snow Morgle is ready to send to prospective agents, and I’m very excited about getting query letters out there (I’m waiting until I’ve moved). Wish me luck!

Some less exciting things:

1. Anybody who had trouble seeing my web site before should be much better off now. I’ve made it much simpler and more streamlined so that it should work on any computer. It’s not as much fun as before but on the whole it’s an improvement. Fascinating, yes?

2. There are fifty-seven days until Christmas.

Something depressing:

Why has it suddenly become de rigeur for huge corporations to cut thousands of jobs? Cadburys, Royal Mail and the BBC are all planning absurd quantities of redundancies because the people at the top still want more money for themselves. It’s “definitely in the best interests of the BBC,” says Michael Lyons. What about the interests of the people who work for the BBC, with families to feed and rent to pay?

3-2-1. Not a bad ratio, I think.

Posted in Books, Charles Charles and the Snow Morgle, Oxfam, Oxford, Personal, Short Tall Tales, kkcom • 5 comments

What I’ve been up to Friday, August 10th, 2007

Well, I spent the Summer (so far) with Katie in New Milford and Tulsa Oklahoma. I explained before that there were a few reasons: I got to spend lots of time with my sweetheart and other rarely-seen friends, and get away from a withstandable but menial job, and get some illustrations from Mrs. Robson to accompany my short stories. I had such a wonderful time; it’s difficult to explain what a relief it is to be able to socialise with everybody without the ominous knowledge that I’ll be leaving in one week, five days, two days, surrounding every event like an uncast shadow. I’m really excited for Katie coming to England in January, when she’ll be staying for five months (and, if I’m wily, I can sneak into her Shakespeare classes at the Globe theatre…)! The Robsons got so used to me that they were looking for ways to keep me in the country, which was so sweet and very ego-inflaming. The US immigration system is set against me coming permanently, though. There are endless variations of visas available to non-US citizens, but I’m eligible for none of them. Did you know that there is a visa available for which the only criteria is a high enough salary? Incredible.

My menial job will be up for grabs again towards the end of September. That gives me a month and a half of free time, in which I’m going to try some street performing. There’s a pretty little town called Colchester a short train ride away from me - it’s the oldest recorded town in England and a tourist haven. Perfect! If I can make a half-decent living from it, I won’t return to Argos, because why would I when I can stand and play blues and entertain people all day instead, and choose my own hours?

Mrs. Robson just doesn’t have time to illustrate a whole book. She drew some concept sketches for me and they were wonderful but we both have to accept that an entire book, albeit a short one, isn’t going to happen, let alone four books. That’s fine. In fact:

That’s why it’s lucky that I discovered a delightful program called ArtRage, which is literally a virtual canvas upon which you can draw, sketch, paint, smudge and so on. The paintbrush even runs out of paint, and you have to wash it off in order to avoid the colours mingling.

I’m really pleased with the results. I have no skill at all with a tangible paintbrush, so being able to create something vaguely pleasant to look at was a nice surprise. Hopefully, soon, I’ll have finished the illustrations for my first story and somebody with a gambling personality will take an interest in publishing it…

(Click the pictures to englarge them.)
Illustrations © Kinders Kinley. All rights reserved.

Posted in Books, Charles Charles and the Snow Morgle, Personal, Short Tall Tales • No comments

Knobs on the doors in America! Thursday, March 29th, 2007

Kris at work asked me the other day how often I see Katie in a year. “Three or four times,” I told him, and we both laughed. Kris is one of the loveliest people I know and he wouldn’t laugh at my situation spitefully. He wouldn’t laugh if I didn’t also. And I laugh because, as they say, you’ve got to, haven’t you?

In any case, I’ll be seeing rather less of Kris and more of Katie in the months to come. The Robsons have, absurdly generously, agreed to look after me for, not the two weeks surrounding my birthday as was planned, but a period nearer to three months. In no particular order, the benefits or reasons are these:

• Mrs. Robson has promised to illustrate my short stories (now numbering four and a half), but, vile woman that she is, she works too hard and as such doesn’t have the time - or, I would expect, the energy - to draw silly pictures of weird fuzzy critters. So, for three months, I’m going to steal as much of her work away from her as possible and chain her to a table with pencils in her hands. I’m really proud of these “short tall tales” and I’m genuinely hoping to have them published as soon as possible. If we can achieve that, I can earn some credit as a storyteller and perhaps some money as well, both of which are very helpful when it comes to making films (which is next on my list of vocations…).

• May, June and July are the three months that Katie will be home from college. We’ve never spent more than three weeks together, so three months is going to be wonderful. Honestly, spending four hundred pounds to see your fiancÈ for two weeks every four months is laughable, isn’t it? Katie is planning to come to England for Spring semester ‘08, so, over the next year, we should get to spend a lot of time together.

• This is a perfect reason for me to leave my job, which, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve been feeling less and less comfortable with recently. What happens when I return is uncertain at the moment (an ambiguity that I’m quite reveling in). Perhaps I’ll head to Africa. I expect I’ll take up street performing as I’ve threatened. Human statuing is fun, and I also had a wonderful notion of getting an ugly old honky tonk piano (though of course I have no idea where in London [or Colchester, or wherever] I would keep a piano, and taking along my digital piano or a keyboard just doesn’t have the same charm…) and setting it up outside somewhere to play rhythm ‘n’ blues for passing pedestrians, which I could happily do all day long.

• A lot of the people reading this are my American friends. I get to see you! Although I saw most of my closest Pineappleers last July, I haven’t been to the States since - crikey - February ‘06, and I very much miss Betsy and Scott and Mr. and Mrs. R and Loki and you. It’ll be strange to be, for a little while, part of the social circle, rather than just a guest. Strange and wonderful. And I’ll get to meet some of Katie’s extended family and watch the fireworks on July 4th. I delight in fireworks.

It’s moving how accommodating the Robsons are to me. I made sure everybody was given the opportunity to object to my staying for so long, because three months is a long time to intrude on other people’s lives, but I’m led to believe that, as is their way, nobody raised a finger in defiance. I suppose I should expect my fiancÈ’s family not to be too bothered about putting me up, especially given the circumstances, but I’m still unspeakably grateful for how lovely they all are to me.

Posted in Books, Personal, Short Tall Tales • 9 comments