OK, I have first post nerves...
What do I start off with? An introduction to my life? A joke? A quote from someone famous? An emotional out-pouring?
This feels weird.
I suppose I need to get the hang of putting my thoughts out there, for the whole world to ignore.
As an underachieving, under-ambitious writer I guess I'm used to that. Particularly as I don't actually write. I sub-edit other people's work. Sometimes it's really badly written and crummy, but at least they wrote it. I never did pluck up the courage to get that novel written... not even a short story or vignette.
I've developed a real loathing for people who are massively productive and scuttle off to their MySpace accounts to write reems about their tube journey/death of cat/murderous thoughts. Obviously I'm filled with pure, unadulterated jealousy.
But there's also that impotent arrogance, niggling away every time I slice extraneous words from flabby workaday copy: "I could do better than this!"
Jesus. If I could do better, why am I working as a TV Listings Editor? Why am I copying and pasting the programme description for One Tree Hill into a copy field, while numbly inserting indignant British 'u's into America's colorful lexicon? A monkey with 2 weeks' training would be defter and more engaged in the task at hand than me.
So, anyway, enough about how cheery and successful I am.
I'm not here to bleed my heart out about how, in spite of being hugely driven, busy, happy and downright nice, I often feel the need to put my thoughts into words. Publicly.
Nope, I am here drivelling on because I have just been told I have malignant melanoma.
News as traumatic as it can possibly get.
And I reckon having a space to moan into might give my family and friends a break and allow me to say the things that are probably too dark, self-indulgent or silly to say to anyone's face.
Happy reading.
Helen x
2006-10-29 @ 13:42