Social Interaction? Not as Bad as it Sounds...

It's funny how life imitates art, innit? No really, trust me. It's hilarious. 

The art in question is my own work in progress. I know. Listen to me. Deluded much? That would be a hell yeah, but let's go with it. I am halfway through the first draft of Carry the Beautiful 2. That's not its real name. I have a overly long shortlist containing a secretly preferred title, but decisions like that are months away. For now, let's call it CTB2, or Tilda Returns, or CTB: This Time it's Personal. 

Struggling to find the words.

I saw a friend at the weekend and tried to condense the themes and ideas behind the book into a pithy soundbite. That went as well as you can imagine. Especially as I was several pints of Camden Hells down, and making no sense, regardless of how impassioned I was. (Also, I'd seen Fleabag Live a few hours earlier so it was pointless to even try and talk about writing anything of worth ever again. It's all been done. We're wasting our time.) Anyway, I tried to extract the main themes of the book and convey them via the medium of human words. I can't remember how much my attempts sounded like the next paragraph, but it's more or less what I was aiming for. Also, fans of Carry the Beautiful - all fourteen of you - might want to pay close attention. I'm dropping teasers and hints all over the show. Ready? Good. Here we go.

If you want a refresher, or to
find out what happens before all
this, find out here.

CTB2 is about the search for meaning and connection in lives that society considers have none. Three middle-aged people (all characters from CTB) are dealing with new situations. Tilda is now single and living alone in a new town. Bea (her friend from the office) has embarked on a whirlwind romantic relationship that is not as wonderful as it first appears. Stewart (the solicitor) is dealing with the unbottling of years of grief and suppressed emotion. All three are isolated and lonely. All three are searching, whether they realise it or not, for meaning and worth. Without the societal brownie points of marriage and children, how do they navigate their way towards fulfilment and happiness, whilst dealing with their isolation and increasing loneliness?

I'll be honest, it sounds quite depressing when I write it out like that. Note to self: Make the blurb more upbeat! In reality, there's loads of humour that has seeped in. I like writing darker themes through the perky delusion of character dialogue. It means the reader has to do a bit of work, and make sense of hints that creep up on them, not have it explained every step of the way. And it's no great plot spoiler to say that one of the ways of combating their isolation is for the characters to connect with each other. They do this in a variety of ways, but by the end, their search for fulfilment involves moving away from being lonely, to making connections with each other and the world beyond. It's not rocket science to suggest that's how they solve their predicaments. 

Loving a bit of me time

So, how is life imitating art? Well, over the course of the summer I turned into Tilda. No, I didn't buy a campervan and drive off into the sunset, but I did spend every week since June churning out the chapters, and keeping a low profile. My parents, who tend to be quite hands off in their role, even made contact last week to say they hadn't seen me for months and were coming around. Clearly I've been out of action for some time. Even when I did venture outdoors, it was usually alone. A brisk walk around the park with a podcast fed into my ears, a cinema trip, or a couple of days by the seaside - all things I did by myself. It was always through choice, I should add. I like my own company. Arranging any social event is far easier when there is just one schedule to coordinate. But still. I kept a low profile over the summer months.   

But over the last three weekends, things have suddenly got a lot busier. A boozy night with friendly strangers on my writing course, a house party for a friend's 50th the week later, and then last weekend there was a dinner party and Fleabag.

The tastiest pie ever,
and all for me. 

The dinner party was brilliant. My friend's friend invited me along because I was in the area, with the stipulation that I made a pie for someone called Zoe. When I got there, there was a pie waiting for me from someone called Sam. It was a pie party. What's not to love! Despite the very real fear of giving Zoe food poisoning, it was the loveliest evening with the loveliest people. The pie I received was delicious, although highly amusing to Sam when I confidently announced it to be Thai chicken, when it was curried carrot and butternut squash. A fab evening, with several people I'd never met before. Then the next day, Fleabag! The play was perfect. That is all. Read reviews if you need, or simply take my word for it. The hours after the play were just as good though. My friend's friend (another one - she has so many!) had organised the tickets for us, as well as for other friends of hers. As a result, a group of mostly strangers went for a drink after the theatre and proceeded to have a marvellous time chatting away until it was time for trains. The experience reminded me why the Bechdel Test still stands as a watermark of realistic female representation. Five women chatting, for roughly three hours, with about 99.9% of the conversation covering topics other than men. (I did bring up Taron Egerton at one point, but only to see if it was just me having feelings. It was a brief diversion before returning to more engrossing topics such as writing projects, US politics, Brexit, careers, theatre, and everything else in between.) All of life got sorted out, right there in the pub.

I came home, knackered but replenished. Talking to like-minded people is good for the soul. I should do it more. I need to do it more. But for now, I've partied hard all weekend and it's time for to get my writing head down again. I am desperate to get to the end of this rough draft, so I can go back to the beginning and start making it better. That means, hard work for another couple of months, and then Christmas off. If you see me over the December period, I will talk with you for hours, put the world to rights, and bleed you dry as I fill up on enough social interaction to see me through till Easter. Thank you in advance for your energy.

Have a lovely week, folks.