A Load of Old Rubbish

Model of #Success

It’s a wet Saturday; I’ve just bought the Irish Independent having scanned it in the Spar to make sure my piece is in it, otherwise, I’m afraid it’s online for me. I’m still pinching myself that my opinion is getting into print. No point in wondering if I went public on the D v Ireland case eleven years ago how my *career* might have shaped. Would my yearning to be a writer have been fulfilled sooner? I wouldn’t have done all the other stuff like a Masters in Building Conservation to block  the memory of the D Case and because the college was in walking distance.

The Cost Centres were eleven and thirteen when I started that course, I was sure it would slot nicely into our lives. One should always remember that taking exams and writing a thesis in a subject one loves is guaranteed to put you right off. It does, until it suddenly helps you find work, work that you enjoy and that pays. I'm even going back to college again in a few weeks, or rather I will be if I can pay my fees in kind. More anon.

Since the Big R the old building conservation work dwindled to nothing, so in 2011 I decided to write a novel based on my thesis; the Cost Centres were going to be away for the whole summer on their J1s, absolutely no excuse to put it off any longer. I had it finished in six months. Finished as in 70,000 words with a beginning, middle and end. Basing it on the thesis didn't work (as in boring) so I set half in New York and half in a rural Irish backwater. I'm not trying to sell it here BTW.... Plenty of time for that.

This week I did the thirteenth re-write, cut from 140,000 words to 98,000, having been two books in one, with a screenplay rearing up every now and then.

Discipline, I realise now, is everything in writing, I just filled pages to get wordcounts up, which is a good ploy, very motivating. But then you've got to get the scalpel at it quickly.  It has been read in many versions by dear friends and one professional editor. The editor had me dismantle my ‘experimental’ structure; every alternate chapter was set in 1850 and 2011. After meeting an agent three weeks ago who encouraged me to shorten it and change the title, I had a new version on Tuesday to be read by a literary queen. It just had to be printed and bound, I was relieved to email it to the printers with instructions for two copies.

Little Cost Centre graduated in Economics and Philosophy this week, he wasn’t even bothered about his graduation, but a lot of work went into those exams so I encouraged him, planned a lunch with his girlfriend, brother and a dear family friend and prevailed on jewellery star, Clarice, to find a worthy memento for the day, the *boy* version of the ‘success amulet’. I sat beside his girlfriend in UCD while the ceremony proceeded, naughtily tweeting and checking emails on my phone while other people’s children were being conferred.

I had an email from info@panda.ie ‘this appears to have been sent to us in error’.

My manuscript. My two and a half year slog. The meaning of my future career/life. 

I’d sent it to the binmen.

The cost centres have told me not to over-react.

Trolls, Trials and Tomes

I was so exhausted after two weeks with a student who, in fairness, was no trouble, it was me, talking 200% more than average and mentially being on home-duty every morning and evening... that I couldn't even blog.
Now there's a pile up of landlady lore before the next fella moves in. 

Morning holds such promise with freshly brewed coffee, an allegedly low-cal cereal and opening hopeful emails, any day now a publisher will write back. With good news this time.

Europe might be out of the recession but I for one know that it won’t be over in this house until I unsubscribe to emails from jobs.ie, eTenders and GrabOne.  I don’t even know why I bother scanning the list of jobs for IT/foreign language programmers on Google, because any of the ones I could do, like PA with English, they don’t even reply to. Last year was the upskill, interview, CV, recruitment drive. I can either say it was a complete waste of time or it gave me a perspective on a niche sphere. Well, it is a sphere that is a complete waste of time if you’re not in IT/Finance/Marketing/PR/HR, masters level liberal arts and twenty years of business practice counts for nothing these days. Yet I was told my CV was intimidating, my references were outstanding and could overpower a boss, so I should remove my achievements and big-up my typing speed (70wpm in case you’re interested). I even did on-line tests in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and was impressed by what my laptop could achieve as I dithered; now I know what Macros are for.  

As for eTenders, I might as well unsubscribe now. The last time I tendered was at the invitation of a semi-state to be on their conservation panel. I had to take out Professional Indemnity insurance just to submit, at a minimum of 1,000 euro that turned out to be a complete waste of time and money.

That leaves my email inbox with the odd Twitter message, Facebook telling me to say happy birthday to loads of people, sales of sex toys and invitations to galleries and book launches.

It’s a shame our two major galleries are all but closed and there are no blockbuster exhibitions to excite tourists and denizens alike. But emails from the private galleries still show commitment to artists, they're putting on regular shows, there's still money to buy art, just not new money. Green on Red, Kevin Kavanagh, Oliver Sears, Cross Gallery and the Kerlin are all still doing business.

Without email I wouldn’t have got my invite to Roddy Doyle’s The Guts launch or Joe Joyce’s Echoland.  Three Booker winners at one of them, veteran investigative journalists at the other, talent and good will everywhere. I’m glad I went, bought the books, had the chat with friends I haven’t seen in ages and resolved to persevere even more on editing my own novel. 10,000 of my 125,000 words cut in the last two weeks, ouch.

Now that I’m contributing opinion pieces to the Irish Independent, how could I give up Google? They mightn’t want to interview me but they save me all those years I used to spend in libraries. And as for email, I wrote an article in 3 hours last week and was able to verify all my facts by contacting expert friends in high places, without getting out of my pyjamas.

There’s a lot to mistrust about the internet, there’s scary Ask.FM, scary Eric Eoin Marquez, loathsome trolls on Twitter, it’s up to the rest of us to uphold good standards and cut out the crap.

I met a man recently who would have nothing to do with any of it, a much respected literary agent. He doesn’t have a mobile, a web-site, email or use the internet. I contacted him by landline, left a message on his answering machine, he phoned back, we talked, I posted a hard copy of 3 chapters, in an envelope with a stamp.

We got along very well, but he sent me away to ‘do more work’ and I don’t think he meant writing blogs to distract myself from the task in hand, back to the book…

He represents 160 authors. Sure, who knows….

The Dail Dawn Chorus

Could've been in the back garden with a good book

I drove back to Dublin from the midlands on Wednesday thinking I’d never been as hot at mid-day in Italy. Having *filed my copy* to the Indo (so love saying that) I made my way into the Dail for what was to be the night of #lapgate and the #Daildawnchorus. 

When I arrived in Kildare Street the sitting was adjourned for two hours and, damn, I had nobody to meet, it was way too sunny to go inside so I found myself engrossed in watching the protesters from a safe distance. It wasn’t very comfortable to be honest, seeing these two factions being kept in line by the Gardai, shouting Father Ted slogans at each other. This is supposed to be about dignity for women, not a side show. A crowd gathered around my side of the street, the army was mobilising from the well-funded, expensively t-shirted campaign group. It was time to retreat to the dark depths of Buswells and have a *healthy* salad and chips. What on earth was I doing in the city centre on a sunny Wednesday evening alone in Buswells? There is a back garden and a good book as an option, Mad Ted. I realised I was in deep; and deeply committed to changing something if I can. Changing a man-made law that would ease the trauma on women and men of a double tragedy.

The vote on the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill was supposed to be decided by 10pm, it was extended until 2am and while I sat in the gallery, I heard a furore from the benches and a bluster from Gerry Adams. The doors opened, all and sundry piled in, most interesting was the press gallery, the narrow overhang filled to the brim, 21 journo’s jammed in a row. The doyenne, Miriam Lord, took her seat, delightful Lise Hand beside her. The silver glint of David McCullagh’s hair flashed in the harsh light. David Davin Power nestled between the smart glossy locked girls from the other papers.

The majority decided to extend the vote until 5am. There was a quick exodus, I checked my Dublin Bus App and went home. I assumed they were all having late committee meetings elsewhere, perhaps a nap on a trolley in the corridor, provided by Minister Reilly. They could hardly be drinking in the bar with such a serious issue going on? Drinking at work?

Back home, with the magic of Twitter I discovered the live link to the chamber, much to my amazement I actually watched until 5am. I looked outside, shocked, I haven’t been up ‘til that hour without revellers in my house trying to find the stash of duty free sambuca or whatever remained from the old days, me hoping they wouldn’t wake the sleeping children, who by now were revelling somewhere themselves. Plus ca change.

Well, at least I’d enough to write about for the Irish Times next day and, surprisingly, a radio interview with the lovely Matt Cooper. On Friday evening, I sat in FM104 with an ice bucket of cool beers and baskets of tortilla chips in view, times have changed since I worked in a *real office*. As I waited to go into studio I stuck my tongue in my broken tooth, chipped during the Dail Chorus by a diversionary caramel, for once, I wished I was in a dentist’s waiting room. It’s awful having to recall a very unhappy time, again and again. 

In between Druids and Dail Debates, I'm interviewing new tenants for landladyhouse. Stalwart gentleman lodger #1 is still with me, just trying to find someone to match him.

Dublinlandlady does Radio

It's been a long road to here

Gentleman lodger #2, whom we call Tristan Davenport, has been a reader of this blog prior to his arrival. He tells me he sometimes checks it to see who he is, but yesterday he asked what had happened to dublinlandlady, what with hospital visits, newspaper interviews and radio talks, she no longer looked, never mind sounded, like the mother of two who'd gone all boarding housekeeper in January. Give me time, I say, I'll be back.

I was nervous at the thought of a live interview, what if I stuttered or couldn't remember a word? Which happens quite frequently at home when I can't remember the name of the dishwasher or microwave,  'put it in the w-w-w white thing or turn off the b-b-brown thing'  I stammer, you would think the cost centres would have me worked out by now.

Worse again, the researcher said there would be photographers, and I still look like a car crash, bandaged nose and black eyes. I hoped the surgeon would remove the dressing yesterday, he looked at me in horror when I told him I was doing a radio interview, 'can't you do it on the phone?' he gasped, apparently I'm supposed to have been in bed the last five days recuperating.

Luckily a friend got the brilliant idea of coming into Radio Centre with me, I'd completely overlooked what it might feel like, pouring out a rather painful and tragic event on the air and its consequences. So the girl I've known for nearly thirty years, with whom I've shared a house and gone on grown up holidays without our kids, came and held my hand. Her name is Friend in Time.

CC # 2 has been rising early seeing as his finals are imminent and we have breakfast together these days, or rather he piles lashings of food into him and checks his phone incessantly while I ask him seeming irrelevant things. Like what do you think about this interview, you being a philosophy student, like?
'I think it should be up to women to do whatever they want, I told you that already, mom.'
End of.

I drove the short distance to Montrose, what a lovely place to work, all Miesian long low glass and steel, classic Scott Tallon Walker, and hasn't dated. I distract myself analysing the architecture and admiring the cherry blossom. I'd made notes on things I needed to remember, Friend in Time reminded me I  just had to tell my story, that was the only thing people wanted to hear, and to speak to the person at home or wherever they were listening to their radio. That had a spontaneous lachrymose effect, when I think of the personal, I feel the weight of injustice come crashing towards me and the waste of effort to save other Irish women from the same fate. I now feared having a similar tearful episode on air and in front His Patness.

Interestingly and very helpfully, no notes are allowed in studio. We were both taken down to the sound room in which three women worked at complicated looking monitors and we watched until Pat Kenny was ready to call me in. Whoosh, it went in a blink. I now know why he is such a successful broadcaster, very kind, very good. I was even able to tackle the 'Mick' question without notice.

There was a lady from the Irish Independent in the foyer, I was by then in a bit of a blur, I checked with FiT and we agreed it would be ok to extend the interview. There were an awful lot of women in RTE, busy women doing great work, a side of the radio I hadn't appreciated. It's just the ads I don't like, and the news. And, no, I'm not going to say I think I'll apply for a job in there too.

The woman from the Independent has three children, I believe she well understood why I am doing this.

And now, I am relieved.