The balm of calm

I had a lovely moment today when a person who needs their story told was subsequently informed by me that a publisher is interested in their story. This is on top of another book I am writing, so after 10 months of total lethargy and military-style avoidance; there's officially two books getting squeezed out over the next 6 months. Oh, not to mention a business that's about to be launched with a colleague and of course, an imminent MA. Serves me right for procrastinating. The person in question was so overwhelmed at the news, she had to pull in at the side of the road when I rang, because she was crying so much. It's been a difficult year and I swore I'd never write someone else's story again, but heart won out over ankles and I'm delighted to represent her. It makes this [often] shity job worthwhile. I had previously attempted to cover this way back when for a series of Features, but became so frustrated that I once locked her in my Dublin apartment and stormed off for a few solitary pints to calm down. (I'm sure that's probably a criminal offence). For years I wanted to write books; human interest stories mostly because other people's soujourns through life fascinate me. I suppose it's a fond form of Voyeurism that's easy for me to do with some amount of care. Writing for me is all about chipping in and sharing in some small way, satisfaction of actually completing something, and of course, seeing your name in print is like having your nipple licked. This is why I chose journalism as a career although it never quite worked out that way: I've now concluded that I would've made a better checkout girl or horse brusher than a newspaper person/ego/tosspot... ipsy dipsy: individual with a good wage & not a freelancer who lives in pyjamas & is soaked in uncertainty. I can't wait till it's all done and dusted and sometime in 2008 when both books are on the grimy bookshelfs, I can hang up my hocks and concentrate on fiction. The problem with fiction is that every time I try I usually end up living a story instead (journalism with engagement is another name for it, when you end up entrapped with interviewees instead of working with them. Or setting out to research a subject and suddenly becoming it. I have chameleon-like qualities) and it's always a tawdry mistake. The time has come to separate non-fiction from invention and look after myself better. That way, I might eventually make some money and get that holiday home in the Languedoc I've been salivating about since I first grew a tongue. Onwards and upwards and let no man step on my snail. PS. If anyone is travelling down to Dublin from Belfast, take note that if you book on translink.co.uk it's only £10 return and not the usual £27 day return they charge at the ticket office, or the outrageous £62 return of first class. I was down in Dublin today to do the cop mag in Phibsboro and met a lovely woman on the train who told me about the 'special offer' the mudderfookers in the ticket office are keeping quiet about. This was after the taxi guy on the way to the station farted out his life story to me... the most memorable bit was the nervous breakdown his wife had after they woke up one night to see a spide standing at the side of their bed with a kettle full of boililng water in the 'pour' position demanding the keys to their car. And the geezer taxi driver on the way back to the station confessed that he used to be a cocaine dealer and had to have treatment in the Rutland Centre. "Every fookin note in Dublin now has coke on it...but people here are fookin' stupid and think it's cool. I used to go on €3K binges binges and not give a bollix. I loved it.". The woman on the train told me a conspiratorial story about dead babies in Donegal. When Chernobyl happened, the wind of change blew over Donegal and for a good while meat was banned for export. Now, all these years later, there's a iltany of young people with cancer and the graveyards are full of dead babies. None more so than the graveyard on the outskirts of Killybegs. Is it my face or wha?