Interview!

Hooray – one of my hugely long application forms cast out into the world has netted me an interview next week! I am really pleased, firstly as I didn’t think this would happen until next year, and secondly as the job itself sounds really interesting. I shall have to do a ton of research between now and then, but already I can feel my confidence return in bubbling rushes, like the fizz sparkling through newly-opened champagne. Phew – considering much of that was fast pouring down the plug hole, it is brilliant to feel happy again.

When being asked about my availability, I would love to answer in excited gushing bursts, like below:

‘Yes! Of course I am available! What date suits me? Whenever is best for you! Six in the morning, eight in the evening, anytime! I can jog alongside you reciting successes while you are in the gym, I can shout my CV over a bathroom partition, I can serve you tea and pass my portfolio along with the biscuits! Anytime, I don’t mind!’

But of course that didn’t happen. Instead I consult an imaginary calendar, (as am very-imaginary-important) and we settle on a date / time in a grown up and adult manner. It is only when I am off the phone do I yell ‘yippee’, caper around the living room and phone J to excitedly gabber down the phone at him. He excitedly gabbers back. Woohoo!

And even if I don’t get this job, it is all good experience at the end of the day, so it really is a win/win situation. I have shortlisted a few more jobs to apply for this week as well... but all of a sudden I feel inspired to edit the novel instead. Confidence and happiness work wonders!

Jayne (potentially) Two-Jobs

This is going to be a post filled with woe and fret, I’m afraid. You’ll have to either fortify yourself with a nice cup of tea before continuing or choose to duck out altogether and come back tomorrow when there will hopefully be a nice non-fret post up instead.

How can I have ended up in this pickle? Desperation, that is what happened, yer Honour. It was painfully obvious that I needed a job, so I chose two – one (Job A) that appealed, and another (Job B) that I knew would be easy for me. Job B has all the advantage of a mighty corporate machine, and first interview, second interview went bam bam – in just one week all was done, and I had a job offer. Job A, bless their cottons, are not a giant corporate machine, and are taking ages to make up their minds, as in a way it’s a much more important decision for them, being a smaller company. And so here I sit and wait their final decision… yet all the while aware that Job B expects me to start in their employ rather soon. Ye Gods.

I haven’t actually signed a contract with Job B, or agreed that I was starting... yet there is this wave of assumption that reaches me even in my little town. But why would they doubt? Oh this is so stupid. What if I cannot do Job A? Should I just accept Job B? What if this is all academic and Job A doesn’t want me anyway? Job A said they’d let me know yesterday or today… and so surely before six they will end this torture?

And incidentally, Job B was the one that I thought could potentially help the novel perhaps in the long run… but thinking about it seriously, it really is a punt on a punt, and not totally convinced that it is only by working there could I get their interest… If it was all about the novel then I should get a job in a PR/ Marketing firm, or in a literacy agency, or work for a publisher’s, and even then does that guarantee an ‘in’? More than likely the last thing a busy person will want is someone they have brought in to do a job and solve a problem sidling up with ‘The Novel’ in their should-be-busy hands.

*pause for more fretting and checking mobile signal.*

I can't concentrate on anything else, so it's youtube for me until 6pm. And then I think I will cry! (Am crossing fingers for tears of happiness).

Good week

This week has been infinitely better than last week, and all thanks to the tentative little plan I decided on last Friday, watching the sun rise after a night of worrying. I did get an invoice paid early (glory be and Halleluiah), which gives me breathing room. I did apply for a couple of jobs, and both contacted me back asking me to come in for an interview. And funnily enough, although the answer most people truly want to give is ‘money’ when asked ‘why did you want to apply for this position?’ I actually am excited about both roles, in a shock not-actually-just-about-the-cashola sort of way. Both are writing roles, one probably more so than the other, and I think I know which one I am leaning more towards. But we shall see!

I also am almost there with the editing… *ducks keyboards thrown at her from various directions.* I know, I know! Every time I say ‘right – nearly there’ in a jolly hockey sticks sort of way it turns out I am lying – but lying to myself too, if it makes you feel any better. I honestly think I have nearly cracked it, and then I re-read and think oh pants. I am halfway through chapter 3, and it is already infinitely better than it was before. I truly think that I’ll have cracked it by Tuesday. *she declares, in a sheepish ‘haven’t we been here sometime before’ tone of voice.*

The reason I am a little behind with my chapter is that I had another commission to write a feature, this time on horse-racing, in a roundabout way. Historical horse-racing… yes, I bet that has you shaking your head. I can assure you I’m not actually a sporty person, but the timing of this feature was brilliant, as tomorrow I am actually going to Ascot! We got the tickets as part of a Christmas present – I remember at the time thinking that it was a little way off, and yet here we are – skint, but off to the races! I am hoping it will be like the dogs and I can bet in shiny twenty pence pieces. Hoorah!

Interview answers

I had to answer three short questions this week, that will run in one of the magazines I write for occasionally. I was allowed ten words to answer the following (questions in bold, my answers below)...

Style icon: Grace Kelly or Kate Moss?
Grace Kelly, grace by name, grace by nature.

Do I use Facebook?
Not at all! Although it doesn’t stop me getting invites…

I spent the summer…
Drinking Pimms.

Eurk, I hit send and then thought those answers are really crap. See, I do prefer Grace Kelly’s style to Kate Moss’s, mainly because Kate gets told what to wear and when she is on her own time she seems to slope around in whatever is comfy. But Kate is obviously the ‘cool’ choice… and it doesn’t help that I reached for a tired cliché to describe why I prefer Grace Kelly – still, tricky to say in ten words that I prefer black and white photography, that the pictures I have seen of Grace are mainly black and white and that she is always pictured looking classy, which I admire. Although saying that, these were the days before being papped sloping around was considered the norm, so I wouldn’t see pics of Grace Kelly farting around in baggy jeans with a Starbucks coffee like you do Miss Moss, which could change my opinion (stops herself about to go around in a circle).

And I avoid Facebook like the plague (another un-cool point, I feel), because I seriously do not need another time waster to my day. I already know everyone’s email that I want to know, being on Facebook just gives me another way to contact the people I already contact and therefore another thing to check, and I have more than enough things to check already. It doesn’t stop people asking me why I am not on there though, or getting invites… The whole thing smacks of a Friends Reunited craze to me, and who still checks that out eh? Eh? Exactly.

And drinking Pimms… for a start that is just a line that means nothing, I don’t want to say anything personal here, yet wanted to sound, oh I dunno – fun? Why did I put that? And Pimms, a nice drink but associated with braying twits (see advert). Again, unoriginal to choose that brand of drink and it is not even true, but who wants these answers:

I spent the summer…
…nervously pacing around my room, trying to feel confident.
…watching re-runs of House, Life on Mars and Top Gear every night.
…in Tesco, trying to think up healthy lunchtime diversions.

See? So the answers I actually gave make me sound like a ponce-y safari suit wearing luddite, with alcohol problems. Great…

Jill Barklem

This might be the first example I had of coming to a children’s book via merchandise. I was given Brambly Hedge stationary as a gift and wrote my first ever story in the exercise book. I was also intrigued by the words on the back:

“The mice of Brambly Hedge live on the other side of the stream across the field. If you look very hard amongst the tangled roots and stems, you may see a wisp of smoke from a small chimney, or through an open door, a steep flight of stairs deep within the trunk of a tree…”

I love the fact they could be anywhere, near anyone. They could be other side of my stream, your stream, anyone’s field. It was a really clever way to start the imagination firing… And the illustrations are gorgeous, highly detailed, mixing animals with nature.

I had the very good fortune to chat to Jill some years ago, as she was another very kind lady like Shirley Hughes, who responded when I sent them a letter asking for help during a University project. I was amazed and thrilled that Jill phoned for a chat, she was a lovely lady to speak to.

Jill told me that she got interested in art as she had an eye complaint that was thought to worsen if she played sport at school, so sat drawing in the Art room instead. She went to St Martins School of Art and would sketch the countryside on her hour long train journey into London. Interested in both biology and art, ‘Brambly Hedge’ is a mixture of the Lake District and Epping Forest, near her home.

She has a studio in her house with a large desk and various cubby holes filled with odd bits, leaves and berries. She draws a rough version of her sketch first, and then photocopies the roughs and goes over the characters in pencil, adding ink, and then watercolour for a final result. Jill likes to draw out of season, as “if you draw out of season you look back with more nostalgia.”

She had just got married when she started Brambly Hedge in 1980, so her husband supported her financially at first. She took her portfolio and lots of research to three different publishers at the same time, which she admitted was a little naughty, but received an offer within two days.

Her favourite book to date is The Secret Staircase, as she likes to draw exteriors and interiors, and I could hear the smile in her voice when she said that her drawings can take ages, but are helped along with a bit of chocolate! However, she had an eye operation which meant since then she had only done bits and pieces of work. Even though her eyesight is now better, she said it was hard to take the plunge to do the books again. She sounded a very nice person, and seemed very pleased I liked her books.

Our chat was back in 1998, and it seems the last new book Jill wrote about Brambly Hedge was Poppy’s Babies, in 1994, although all eight are so popular that they are continually in reprint. It is a speculation, but perhaps her eyesight now struggles with the tiny detailed precision that her illustrations require, so, since Poppy's Babies felt like a natural stop, perhaps she has decided it is best to leave the mice there.

Since then, the books have been successfully adapted to a TV series by the BBC, and there is plenty of collectable merchandise out there, so the world of Brambly Hedge lives on… So next time you are passing a stream, do look towards the other side, as you never know what you may see…