A Gambol in Blogland

Oooooooh! So this is it, the sunlit uplands of Blogland! That was some ascent through the choking canopy, and the first thing I really must do is roll on my back in the soft golden grass, like those unicorns over there.

Ah, yes, that’s lovely. There’s lots I’m going to have to learn about upkeep and maintenence, of course, and indeed the principles of blog husbandry. I’m an artistic gardener down in Realworld, so I’m sure I’ll be able to cultivate some interesting effects, once I get used to the particular conditions up here.

So what’s this first one to be about? Maybe it could celebrate the buzz of a Glasgow wearing its rakish literary hat, as seen through the eyes of one who has found out (a little late in the day) that her lifelong love of writing can actually be her occupation, if not one that can quite support life. The best move I ever made was in 2005, when my partner and I moved to Motherwell. Thus I came within Glasgow’s magnetic field, and fell in love with my future (acknowledgment to Zoe Strachan for the quote, not used in precisely the same context). Extraordinary, how one can spend years behaving in expected ways, dressing in appropriate clothes, speaking in comfortable cliches. All the while, there’s an exhibitionist, counter-conventional, extremely inappropriate woman in there, dying to join the (by now, rather younger) throng of creatives cavorting in their carnival procession past the cheering – and sometimes jeering – crowds! Fear not, I’m still the reserved, mild-mannered nice person I ever was most of the time (somebody once gave me a T-shirt which read ‘Nice Person – Wrong Planet’), but the creative in-line (and on-line) valve is now open, and some of the stuff emerging is really quite hrrrrrumph, dirty. Only when artistically justified, of course. But so good, to be able to hop, jig and bounce along at the rear of the capering column, chortling with the sheer delight at finding myself here at all.

Part of Glasgow’s allure for writers, performers and artists is its packed calendar of events. I imagine that you guys, my readers (thank you so much for visiting, btw) feel as I do that there is nothing more nourishing than the company of other writers. And one of the things the tyro writer keeps hearing is, it’s who you know. Contacts. Networking. AndGlasgow is heaving with it all. Annoying for me personally, that I just can’t go to all the stuff  I’d love to – I have to get a living as well as seek fulfilment as a writer (see ‘About’ page). But I hope to give you snapshots and reports from time to time of both upcoming events and some in which I have taken part. Join me. I hope to see you at some of them.