I’m It

EIGHT THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT ME Anne from smellshorsey has tagged me to play an internet meme, originated by Rebecca Laffer-Smith at The Writer’s Roundabout. I am delighted to join in, particular due to the first item on my list:

1] I’m supposed to be studying for a social psychology exam. I’m sitting the three hour, three essay event from hell this afternoon, and true to form, I’m cramming. This no longer comes as a surprise to me— I was the one in the back of the bus scribbling the required two pages about Julius Caeser— and I can only sigh at my red-alert level of procrastination [the problem, of course, being that I got an A on that Shakepeare paper]. My intention in studying psychology was to pursue a creative arts therapy degree, but I’ve changed my mind; however, I’m on the diploma track and can’t imagine not finishing. I’m a finisher of things I start.

2] I was a graphic designer in my first career, and I think part of the reason that I wanted to get the art therapy degree was to reconnect, and perhaps… purify? my visually creative impulses. I took a life drawing class at the National College of Art & Design [NCAD] and realised that A] I absolutely remembered how to draw and B] I wasn’t that interested. I do make art, mostly collaged journals around specific themes, and I make necklaces, too.

3] I still am a graphic designer. I left it [mostly] behind for five years and worked as a freelance theatre and cultural critic for a variety of Irish publications, but a series of setbacks in the industry [lack of funding for theatre to be made, then in turn to be criticised] and personal reversals [left my marriage] required that I get my butt back in somebody else’s office. I am extremely grateful that I’ve got a skill that can, and has, gotten me through some rough spots— and does support my extracurricular creativity.

4] I am always— always— always on time. Always. I am pathologically punctual.

5] I really want to compete in showjumping. Even on a wee, tiny, local level. I think about it all the time. I think about how far I have to go, and it doesn’t curtail the desire to get out there, on my own horse, and do it.

6] I write novels and screenplays, and have made five short films. I have long had ambitions to make a feature, and hope that I will. I’ve sold my first novel [don’t ask: I’ve got about four different ways to describe as anything other than chick-lit] to a publisher in the UK for a modest sum, and am awaiting the contract. As far as I can tell, they get everything including a monthly harvesting of my ovaries. Okay, not really— a quarterly harvesting.

I had an agent, and it didn’t work out; I did this entire business myself, and have contacted a solicitor to help me read the legalese; while I’m sick with nerves, I couldn’t be happier. I didn’t give up. If you get anything else out of this list, get this: Don’t. Give. Up.

7] Considering all the things you don’t know about me, this should be much easier to do than it is! Okaaaaaay: I can’t eat breakfast the minute I get up. Not even the hour after. It makes me sick. Working in an office means, though, that I do actually consume a breakfast-shaped feed, because it allows me to ease into the whole being-in-an-office thing. And I can procrastinate about doing work. And do my email. And my blog. It’s the longest bowl of muesli in the world.

8] I’m a Reiki practitioner with absolutely no interest in working with humans. The main reason I started hors eriding lessons was because I’d taken a Reiki for Horses workshop and realised how much I wanted to be around them. It’s an unexpected bonus that I am actually becoming a competent rider. In my amazing, coming-to-be life, I am a fulltime writer and horse-Reiki person and I ride every single solitary day.