The Happy Story-Feeling In My Belly

Looking through all  my poetry written this year - trying to figure out what can be worked on and submitted to Re-Draft.


And I've realised, it's ALL CRAZY. Like in-my-head crazy dreams and descriptions and floaty and even if its not in my head its still a bit mad. Compared to you-know, 'story of people I see' and want to share, like I used to write. Funny man. Funny. Crazy as in before I could submit anything random to this comp.. and they just published it, and now I don't think the judges would be so kind.. 'cause they wouldn't get it get it


I wrote a story about a lady called Grace who is an alcoholic. And she liked to watch the phone fall off the wall and kinda strangle the voice calling. And somedays she would spend the whole day in bed and other days she dreamed of being a cooking teacher with hot housewives and their soft soft scarves hanging off her every word. Grace had a sister that stopped coming to visit. She had a '98 travel magazine on her stove. Grace had to plan days in advance for when she left the house.


I am not sure whether I'll send Grace to this competition. I'm not sure where Grace even came from. Oh! I know. I had had a few glasses of wine one weekend and was feeling all dead and random and I just started writing. By myself, too lazy to cook, all that really was in the fridge was strawberry wine, and I just started extrapolating that mindset out into a story.


I wanted to write a blog about reading. I even wrote in on the wall to remind myself. The other night I read The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls. When I finished the book I remembered why I need and enjoy reading. 'Cause I need these peoples stories and experiences floating around in my head. These stories talk of other places, and take me away for a while. Reading about a tiny little nothing-mining town in West Virginia and the falling-apart house, and going to New York, and seeing your homeless parents rummaging through bins as you walk to your magazine job.. all adds to the fodder. That is my Input talking (collecting information). This all helps my understanding of the world. Stories need to be told. And finishing the story made me happy! There is a feeling that is good.


When I was at high school, sometimes I would get a book out of the library at lunch, then I would read it through last period then on the bus and then sit outside and read it til it was dinner at 5pm and it was getting dark. By then the book would be finished. And I would be very happy. Normally those books were biographies of random girls who got out of slavery or whatever but even though my eyes were sore and I was starving from not eating (I was bad at eating at high school) I would have a good story-feeling in my belly. I would just smile at nothing in particular, as I ate baked sausages and boiled veges and drank too much cheap fizzy drink (pretty much raised on the stuff, a constant argument). Just have the story floating in my head. Reading, eh.


A story-feeling in my belly. That's it.