#atinylife GoFish

Does everyone remember how to play Go Fish? It’s the sort of entry-level card game, easy to pick up, and you have a hand of seven, which can be held by the smallest of fingers.

I love cards, and this was the first game I taught my kids (I should add that I don’t ever play for money – sometimes matches!). I can still remember my little one, learning to play.

When asked ‘All your Kings, please,’ despite having been reminded of the rules of the game their response would always be the same.

‘I don’t even have any Kings!’

Then we would roll our eyes, and say, ‘So what do you say?’

And then we’d be treated to a triumphant ‘Go Fish!’

Now, when we play, I will take up the refrain.

‘I don’t even have any Kings…Go Fish!’

#atinylife 140…280?

This post is long overdue.

I am the sort of vague that doesn’t necessarily connect the increased word limit of a social network that I based my blog design on, with said blog’s design post length.

So: to 140, not not to 140? That is the question.

Will the significance of the number 140 fade into obscurity? Should I allow myself the number of words per blog post to always match the equivalent number of characters in the modern Tweet? What even is that, these days? I’m just getting a circle – my tweets are somewhere between a half and a waxing moon.

After two full years of blogging, I’m starting to feel connected to my tinylifers (thanks guys!). Something is beginning here.

140 it is then, for now, perhaps forever. I can cope with the number obscurity. I hope it keeps me from rambling.

 

#atinylife success

Those of you who follow my writing life, either through this site, or via my Facebook page, will know that the last part of 2017 was something of a success. I won a poetry prize. The Scottish Book Trust chose my piece for their ebook. I got invited to speak at a Poetry evening.

But I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

Which was that I couldn’t write. At all.

Success, which I had thought I wanted, needed – something to balance the sixty two rejections received over 2017 – was harder to bounce back from than failure.

I had plans to work, a quiet house, and instead ended up sleeping through multiple episodes of Ru Paul’s Drag Race.

It was a relief to discover this is normal – I let myself write tiny things, and rest, and watch Netflix.

There are always more words.