Reading is Fundamental

It's also about all you can do when your bronchials go manky. I have read through everything I had on hand - fortunately I had about four novels from the library. I can't really recommend any of them. They served their purpose - I was completely able to avoid daytime TV - and without exception they were well-written. Yet they lacked a sort of satisfaction to them, a certain sense of vigour. Perhaps the old-fashioned writer as egoist is lacking. Writers are trained to be nice now. Balls-out confidence used to be many writers' essential spirit. Now it's excellent research, thanking everyone and using a dozen editors. So civilised.

Actually, there is a book you should avoid, Robert Ryan's Death on the Ice, a fictionalisation of the 1912 attempt on the South Pole. First of all, everyone knows how the damned thing ends so there was very little dramatic tension, secondly it had some howler typos - real typos, as in "atttempt" and "property" instead of "properly" - hitting the wrong key typos, not the author's fault (I assume the author did not typeset it). I actually don't mind real typos, shit happens, they don't detract from the story the way poor writing does. But it was surprising to keep finding them in an otherwise blameless, if dull, book.

Anyway. Now that I cough only every other breath instead of each one I take, I'll see if I can't apply my right brain to some designing. Oh look, an unfinished bag - good place to start. Need to fumigate it when I'm done though... this chest infection is VILE.

Back in the Saddle

In order to claw back some integrity after a life spent mindlessly shopping, I propose to do more of what I'm good at and less of what I stink at. It seems to produce less carbon... might be a methane thing.

Hence, the bags: www.folksy.com/shops/PennyFancy

These bags are packed full of goodness and delight and other stuff that might otherwise end up in a landfill. Let's face it, doilies as a design element have it all over doilies, um, anywhere else. Please view all the other kind people at folksy.com. We UK crafters and we're proud! BTW it's nothing against Etsy, they just have a lot of bag sellers at the mo and shipping to the US is 'sepnsive.

I also propose to try and blog about the things that make ol' Mara tick, without giving away TMI. Now there's a challenge! But it's part of the integrity thing - it is unfair to whinge about those who cannot defend themselves on the spot. However, Worst Bus is in for a good spanking, and I may have a go at people who elbow me in queues. You've been warned, Elbowers.

I was going to spead all kind of didactic wisdom about ...didactic wisdom... but I have the most horrific cold. Perhaps when more of my skull cavity is taken up with working brain cells instead of green stuff I will be able to philosophise.