My First Attempt at a Magazine Story

So, I am an out of work Assistant to a Landscape Architect. Newly married, living in the adult play ground of the world, San Francisco. Doing what my husband has given me a chance to do, which is write. My ideal day would be 4 hours searching Craig’s List for a juicy overpaid part time job, then another 4 hours on the old keyboard typing away a load of old shite. Writing is what it has been referred to me as; “something I could do if I just sat my boney ass down and did”, an easy way to make ends meet. Well, believe me – I have contemplated this for a few years now. I even started to tell people that I was writing a book. I am so fucking sick of them asking me where it is that I have finally sat down, and am on with it*. A slight distraction from looking for a job, but at least I am not eating!

I spend my days wishing I could come up with just one idea that could make me a millisecond millionaire. There seems to be a lot of opportunity for entrepreneurs in this country, but in San Francisco it feels like one must be a really great muralist or be a pioneer in saving the planet, by recycling something as miniscule as the plastic film covering the pecan and cilantro dip at Trader Joe’s. There are a lot of artists here showing their wares, so I guess writing is an art form, so I go fourth. I will be parading up and down Market Street soon wearing nothing but a typewriter ribbon and a feather boa.

Being a British lass in the U.S of A is not too much different as being a Yorkshire lass battling it out* in London for twelve years. I lived in London after completing my college up North in Old York and no one understood me there either. However I was not a novelty item back home as I am here. Since there is not class distinction in this country I am not merely ‘Northern Scum’* from a coal mining background, I am European. Traveled, educated, have an accent and make people laugh - granted it is usually at me and not with me! I must admit I do like all the attention I receive due to my accent, I cannot complain really. Now that I have my husband to translate for me, life is getting a little easier in the States.

Thinking about writing all your life is annoying, especially when every 3rd person you meet advises you to “write a book”. So, you know that you have it in you, and you have support and faith from your family (and other complete strangers), but you feel always that it is wasting time, not constructive and not something a British girl paying $2k rent a month in the Mission should be doing! Can anyone offer me a few shifts in a bar please?

It is not knowing where to start that gets me. I always remember from my impressionable years at an all girl’s private school, that a story must have a beginning, middle and an end. Being that most people who do write for a living almost always include some biographical content one thinks about the end part of the story. I am in my thirties; do I have an end yet? At some point yeah, but how do you get that into a story when you don’t even know what is going to happen yourself? It is then when it clicked. A writer can write his own ending. Artistic license. I can predict my own future – Yeah that is it. My column’s going to be an instant success, I am going make a bucket load of cash and retire in Bali. The end!

If only it was. You know, ever since an ex boyfriend said to me. “You would love to live in Bali” That has been my get out plan, my escape from an ordinary life. Somewhere to go to escape the mundane and completely irrational behavior of my less than ordinary family. Half of whom live State-side. Sometimes I wonder why I actually moved here. I thought it was to be closer to my family, how wrong can one be? A can of worms will probably be opened over the course of these writings, but at the end of the day maybe this is the therapy I have been waiting for!

Just a few things that will help you decipher my ramblings, I have an accent, a thick one, so thick in fact it could cure bacon*. So un-American it seems like a foreign language to most people I meet. So for the purpose of maybe getting published, I am using American spellings and also italicizing words and phrases I deem to be unique to my folk. I have added a glossary for your convenience too.

So, if you do ever get a passport and travel further than than Yosemite, please visit the beautiful Yorkshire countryside. You should pocket a few of these phrases and the local ‘folk’ may even grant you a pint of Ale (no we do not say Ale, my Granddad may though; we say beer, like you guys. However our beer actually has a head on it is a full pint and is not warm, contrary to popular belief). So there you go, some free Brownie points for you. So, don’t say I never give you owt.






Glossary:

On with it: going forth

Battling it out: fighting

Northern Scum: London resident’s usual way of addressing people who do not live within a 30 mile radius of Buckingham Palace.

Buckingham Palace: the Queen’s official residence.

Bacon: a thick strip of pork with one fat end. Not a skinny multi calorie slither of fat soaked crunchy cack. (Similar to Canadian bacon)

Cack: slang for a ‘number two’.

Number two: Cockney Rhyming slang for crap.

Cockney rhyming slang: (now it gets confusing), colloquial utterings from a Cockney’s gob

Cockney: someone born in London within the sound of the bow bells, a church in the East end.

Gob: mouth

Folk: People- Always used when referring to Yorkshire ‘Folk’

Brownie Points: Brownies is the institution little girls are encouraged to before they venture onto Girl Scouts. They wear brown dresses. Well they did when I was one. They now wear themed sweatshirts in a yellow color only maybe a tenth of the Brownie population can actually carry off. This is not explaining the phrase however- I am going to have to ask my husband to try and give me an accurate translation this

Owt: Classic Yorkshire phrase meaning ‘anything’