Everyone needs...

...an editor. A good writer friend who will, with patience and a good eye go through your work without prejudice and make all those small deletions and highlight all the bits of overwriting and self indulgent phrases.
I have boyf, who has spent hours this weekend doing just that. It is daunting watching someone else wield the red pen over your work, but boy is it helpful. I have just looked at the first chapter and with his help it is now tight, fluid and does what I want. In fact it is pretty damn close to resembling exactly what I thought I'd written but hadn't - does that make sense?
Writing is lonely most of the time, dispiriting a lot of the time, sometimes it is frustrating, sometimes exciting and always consuming. What makes all of this bearable is having someone who understands to share it.

Last night we talked through his screenplay which he is adapting for an American audience. I can see why, but I wish it wasn't necessary. We discussed the different national sensibilities, how would Americans get this joke or that line? It is almost like having to write a whole new story. Of course when he is done or at whatever point he is ready, I will do the same for him as he has done for me. The trouble is, I won't have to do as much, he is very good at editing his own work.

Saw a woman I used to know in Sainsburys this weekend. She didn't see me and I didn't put myself out to be seen. The thing is, that now my kids are older, I have no reason to pretend friendship with this woman - which I did for years. While our children were friends, I ignored the oh so subtle put downs, the passive aggressiveness and the outright rudeness of this woman. When I saw her in a dress shop and she decided to try on the same outfit as me and called out 'I'll need it in a smaller size' in a loud voice, I didn't beat her senseless with her oversized handbag. When she had to stand in for me at the last minute as parent rep at school and took the chocolates the teacher had been told to give to the rep - saying - 'Oh, I didn't like to hurt her feelings, and I've already accepted them' I didn't choke her with her own Alice band or drag my keys along the side of her oversized car. I never called her on any of the mean things she said or did. I smiled and seethed.
No more. I can ignore her with impunity. My daughter is no longer in touch with hers. I can be honest with myself - she was a bitch and I was weak to keep her in my life for so long. I can, with time and distance see that I did what I couldn't at the time. Now I can be better, truer, I only keep the friendships that are meaningful and rewarding and that deserve to be in my life.
Now if I can learn to do that with the words I write....