Archive for the 'friends' Category

reasons to be cheerful

Published
by
Debra
on 14 April 2008
in Travel, friends and stuff
. 8 Comments

I’m coming home!

It’s been in the planning for a long time, but now at last I am able to say it.

No matter how often I’ve written and rewritten this post in my head, I couldn’t commit the words to screen even in draft form, because until it became a reality I wouldn’t be able to guess how I might feel. And it’s not how I expected - not at all.

I am coming home, to beer in pubs like the Unicorn, to friends and family, to wide open spaces, to watching my friends kids grow up, (not to mention my nephew who doesn’t like having his photo plastered all over Flickr).

The last 18 months have been a roller coaster of raised hopes, broken promises and finally, an end in sight. I have raised more than one glass on the way hoping that this time it was real.

15/52

And now it is.

I have a date in mind. I will spend my last Queensday in this crazy beautiful city, but by the summer I will be settled in somewhere new. On the Solstice I will watch the sunset from an English hillside. That’s my plan but even if it rains, I’ll be happy to be home again.

But today I am a mess of emotion. I feel like laughing out loud, jumping, screaming, crying. And none of it feels real. Not yet. Something I have spent so long dreaming of, planning, wanting is finally within my reach and I can’t take it in.

I’ve been on the verge of tears all day because Amsterdam is the kind of lover that you know right from the start that things will never work out with, but you still love them with all your heart.

And I know England isn’t the same place I left behind, but nor am I. Maybe we’ve both grown up and it’s time to set aside our differences and get on with being reunited.

Giving away the ending

Published
by
Debra
on 14 March 2008
in Books, Writing and friends
. 4 Comments

Meet Alastair. Over dinner he let me take his photo and let me in on his unusual reading habit.

Alastair is an avid reader - he reads all kinds of books but prefers historical mysteries. When he buys a new book he reads the first chapter or so and then reads the ending.
Alastair
The writer in me immediately jumped to the author’s defence. I thought of the years of work that often goes into writing a novel, the sweating over plot points and all the work that goes into making a satisfying ending. I was horrified. I don’t go in for twist in the tale endings, but the ending should be a surprise, even if the novelist has carefully arranged for you to see it coming and spend much of the novel willing the protagonist to do something stop the slide towards an inevitably unhappy ending.

Alastair admitted that sometimes the ending is enough for him to stop reading on. But mostly he reads to the end and he’s happy knowing how it’s going to turn out.

I thought of all the work that goes into the endings of my own stories, and realised that I have absolutely no control over whether that ending is given away right at the start or in the middle, even if I didn’t write it that way. As a writer it sent a shiver down my spine.

As a reader, I can kind of see what he means. Though I wouldn’t read the whole last chapter, sometimes I can’t resist a glance at the last sentence.

How about you? Have you ever read the ending of a book before you should? And if so, what makes you do it?