No Greater Authority Than My Wife

No greater authority than my wife told me the other day that people don’t want to read my Starter for Ten practice pieces. The cheek of it! The accurate, understandable cheek of it! I know she doesn’t read them herself because a) she’s too busy doing all the work that I don’t do because I’m an important writer and b) she never gets the references to my own writing that I pepper our conversations with.

ME: Huh, do you think Trump did pinch/punch/first of the month on Kim Jong Un, that’d be pretty funny, right?!
HER: Look, either help me change this tyre or sit in the car.

ME: Hee hee! Do you think Brett Anderson from Suede could be a hitman?
HER: What? I’m a bit busy here Shan! No darling, don’t shout – just put pressure on it and the bleeding should stop.

I thought to remind her of this spousal betrayal the other day when she was eating a packet of Peanut M&Ms. This is because those very comestibles were the literal (not literal) fruits (not fruits) of my labours on this blog. My good friend and loyal reader Yolander Yeo sent me a box of 24 packets as a “I suspect you might be starving through lack of income” present based on one of those very practice pieces that no one wants to read!

Do the M&M men know that they themselves are M&Ms, thus wanting to eat a bowl of M&Ms is cannibalism? Or are they the evolved form of the M&M? In which case it would still be like me eating a chimp, which is wrong and I wouldn’t do it.

True story about Yo. She’s not Ugandan or Chinese, she’s actually Glaswegian, the best designer there is and she’s been making my work look much better than it is for a long, long time. We worked together for 15 years before we ever actually met. Look at this picture, which was taken on the very night of our first meeting, and ask yourself if you’ve ever seen a worse case of hoverhand. I’m honestly the oddest person I’ve ever met. Thanks Yo. Sorry everyone.

I wasn’t touching Yo’s shoulder but I was firmly grasping Tom’s buttocks.

Em is, of course, right – the Starter For Ten posts are annoying, especially this morning’s which sucked donkey teeth, but then as I pointed out at the beginning, this here blog is almost certainly more for my benefit than yours. I did promise Em that I would try and write more about what I was doing which I’ve been a bit lax on lately so I’ll try and remedy that. To neatly close this narrative loop – Yo will actually be designing the front cover of Shut In, providing that I/you/others deem it worthy of publishing.

I’ve just started on the final section of the book and I’m now just eight seven (forgot I done wroted one today) chapters from the finish line. I still really like the story and I’ve grown to be very fond of Ben Stone (name shamelessly stolen from one of my favourite films) and if nothing else I want to know what happens to him. There is plenty of implausible and downright bad writing that needs to be excised, but as the mantra goes the first draft is all about getting it written, not get it right. Off to eat the delicious tea that my long-suffering wife has cooked for me. I hope it’s Peanut M&Ms.

2 thoughts on “No Greater Authority Than My Wife”

  1. You are funny! Feeling the love! Can’t wait to read the book and design the cover.

  2. Big love for bold moves, and bigger love for telling the world how awesome Yo and your wife are! Looking forward to the book. Best of luck. x

Comments are closed.