A Twitterati Xmas Party

I received my first blind-twitter-date last week. Set for some time January. Venue unknown. I may hold a white rose. Although, I probably won’t need to go that far. I’ll just wear my sunglasses. My Ivana-up-do. And a smile.

Anyways, this twitter turnabout gave me courage. Courage to reveal my plan…

My plan, to host an imaginary Twitterati Xmas Party. 

Just because. Round about this time of year, when I’m sitting in my tower office after picking peonies, trying to conjure up words on the page. All alone. I imagine holding a kick arse Xmas party. A party more Bruce Lee than Bruce Lee. An end of year shindig of a different kind. This year it's invite via satellite. Strangers only. 

Mostly. We’re actually pen pals of a futuristic kind. We’re Twitter-ettes. We talk only in 140 characters. Sharp. Quick. Direct.

We already belong to a dating club of sorts. I’m just pushing the fibre optic boundaries a little further. I’m saying come out from behind your avatar smoke screen for one frivolous afternoon. You witty, amusing, intelligent, provocative lady-minds come on. Let’s do lunch. 

I’d wear my new pink Kathryn Wilson sandals ($300 worn once #crapnzweather). And perhaps the blue flowery dress I wore to my little sister’s wedding. I’d want to look my best at our table for 26. 

Sorry, sorry-a-lot, in advance for overlooking to invite any femme fatale(s) who might fancy attending my twitterati party. However, in order to make a sensible sit-down-lunch-number, the only fair prerequisite I came up with was – IF WE READ EACH OTHERS SHIT, FOLLOW EACH OTHER (3 not) & I’VE NEVER ACTUALLY MET YOU, IN THE FLESH, YOU ARE YOU ARE ON THE LIST. Apologies again. Party planners lament.There will be stuff-ups. Best to start big.

@beckeleven                                @doesnotdoit

@radiomum                                   @mlle_elle

@TheBloggess                              @caitlinmoran

@megrosoff                                   @Kiwimrsmac

@irihapeta                                     @UpsideBackwards

@ZoeMeager                                @angew

@SonyaCisco                               @HonestMummy

@eehbahmum                                @_wideeyedgirl

@naomiarnold                               @suecopsey

@nickypellegrino                           @lucymk

@MumsnetBloggers                       @WriteOnTime

@Shellface                                     @AliLeonardMC

@AimoCronin                                @JessHelicopter

I think everyone would, sort of, know someone else. Possibly recognize them, even those whose headshot is an orange square or a picture of their cat. Or rabbit.

Some of you in tweepsville might think I am completely bonkers. Slightly pervy. Predatory. Definitely weird. Stalkerish. To take it this far. Okay, but it would be a group blind date. Not a romance novel conference. We’d get on like a bunch of i-phone 6’s at a concert. Swag. Swag. Illuminati. 

We’ve already chatted. On-line. Followed each other. Favourited. Goaded. Outwitted. Out worded. Congratulated.  Retweeted even.  I admit some of the above, live on the other side of the world and are famous people, but you never know they may be on a book signing tour to Godzone. Or not.

Imagine us fueled by a crisp Malborough Sauv Blanc or elderflower cordial and first date nerves. We’d be positively on FIRE. It would be like those Friday lunches of the ad days. Back in the pre-crash 80s. If you staggered back to the office you were a LOSER. Or the receptionist.

We’d eat kale caviar and organic duck breast on quinoa compote. Sip fizzy water from Fiji. No we wouldn’t – we’d rock our own cool. We are not posers. We might play word games though. Quick ones. Like who can make the worst personalized plate. MUDDER. KOCANE. OARSYM  (actually that’s taken). STORNCH...

Things could get out of hand, as our order is delayed and we wait for herbed bread and dukkah to arrive to soak up the liquids on our empty late morning stomachs. We might do gelfies (group selfies) and tweet them. FB them. Snapchat and Instagram them. People at other tables would have bad FOMO. We’d be loud. Probably annoying.

I’d take no responsibility for later on. Twitter-only-knows what might happen. A mélange of young and middle aged (speaking for myself here) women out on the town. Auckland. Wellington. Christchurch. No mind. Where. We’d find a nightclub that rocked cool tunes. Dance in groups around our hand bags. Stayin Alive. Doubled over by giggling fits. She’d be a good time. Letting our perms down. Imagine.

Maybe we’d let some boy ‘@s’ come later. To amuse us. Then again, maybe we wouldn’t.

Tweeter-esses for life. 

At least until, December 2015. And our next year imaginary Xmas Party. 

Disclaimer: I live at the bottom of the south island, and the aforementioned ‘@’ persons are scattered all over the country and the world, so the likelihood of ever pulling this XP off are as low as a Limbo pole. However, stranger things have happened. And imaginary Xmas parties are free.
 

Seasons Greetings – it’s nearly December.

Sunday Star Times Short Story Awards - Third Place Non Fiction

*****And the winner is...I placed third in the Sunday Star Times Short Story Awards - Non Fiction category, 2013. Click here for my story: 

'A Letter to My Brother'

 
Last Sunday (13.10.13), I found out I’m a finalist in the ‘Sunday Star Times Short Story Awards Non-fiction Category’.

There I was minding my own business in the Christchurch Koru Lounge when I cleared my emails and found this:

Steve Braunias @SteveBraunias

Wow! Congrats to Queenstown writer and wit @janeebloom Jane Bloomfield, finalist in non-fiction category at @SundayStarTimes writing award

To say I came over all funny would be the understatement of 2013. I started shouting to my daughter on the other side of the room. She was scuttling back from the buffet minding her own business too. 

Soon we were both having an attack of the vapours, sharing that first heady glow of feeling like the-chosen-won. 

Yet, how did Mr Braunias know? I quickly searched through the Sunday newspaper, lying crumpled beside me on the newly upholstered moss green banquette.  

“Sunday Star-Times short story finalists named”

 “Never mind the Man Booker, this is our literary shortlist”

If you say so!

“For the first time, the 2013 competition included a non-fiction category, for a story of 800-900 words on the theme of ‘family’. This category, which attracted around 130 entries, was judged by Sunday magazine editor Kim Knight.”

I read on…

And there was my name, Jane Bloomfield.

Along with fellow finalists: Ellen Rowntree & Megan Doyle Corcoran. And highly commended, Edgar Clapshaw and Charle Farnell.

“The winners will be announced in the Sunday Star-Times on November 3.”

Two weeks yesterday. It may as well be three years…

Since Sunday 13 (my new lucky number) October 2013, I’ve experienced elation, deflation, confusion, angst and paranoia. Questions like, is there more than one writer called Jane Bloomfield in New Zealand, have crossed my mind?

When daughter 15, read the first draft of the story I sent in she sobbed. She said afterwards that my piece had inspired her to write. So if that is the secondary outcome of this, I’ll be a proud mum.

“The awards, which have been running for three decades, have helped launch the careers of numerous Kiwi literary stars...” The article says.

I’m not holding my breath (anymore). But meanwhile, I’ll enjoy my finalist status and say good luck to my fellow finalists because, at the end of the day, the best story will win. 


 'A Letter To My Brother'  - published in the Sunday Magazine, 19th January 2014

In Praise of #fridayshorts

I like to keep up with social media goings-ons so when I saw, “#fridayshorts The hotly contested New Zealand Book Council’s weekly short short-story competition. Kudos beats a mere cash prize” in the going up column of the Sunday mag a couple of weeks back, I thought I’d give it a try. 

Experts say you need to try new things to keep your brain from disintegrating as you age. Like washing your teeth with your left hand if you happen to be right handed for example. I do grapple daily with words. But not in the form of the short 140 character short.  

When last week’s words: bucolic, fun, end, hedge, fib, honey were tweeted. I took one look and thought I’d pass. I had to look bucolic up in the dictionary. I was already picturing James Herriot hedgerows, but I had to be sure. I was going out in public. 

 At the same time I was actually working on a frivolous children’s story, A Quest for No Chocolate by A Girl Named Cocoa. I wasn’t in the mood to be distracted, a strange phenomenon that sometimes occurs in my cerebral cortex and one, in this world of self-doubt and writing only for writer friends, I need to slap the reins and run with.

But at 3.05pm when the wordy river in my head ebbed into a stagnant siding, I had my first attempt it went:

 Miss Honey zipped along the bucolic hedge row, looking for Henry

– nah too long already. I rechecked the required words. Then dashed out:

You’re fibbing Henry. You can’t end it now? Not after we just… you know… roamed in the bucolic hedgerow? Henry?

I double checked I had the correct words and 140 character length. Tweeted it and went and got the kids off the bus. Mildly excited at the prospect of checking the impending outcome. Definitely not expecting to win or anything. #fridayshorts closes at 5pm, the grand announcement made soon after.

The Book Council choose: one winner and two honourable mentions.

Later driving home I checked my emails (it was dark and I live down quiet road: shingle/rural aspect). Blow me down with a feather quill, was that my tweet insignia I just saw? From @nzbookcouncil?

I slowed down to a virtual halt and refreshed the screen.

NZ Book Council @nzbookcouncil

And our #rāmereshorts #fridayshorts winner of much kudos is @radiomum Great stuff! And honourable mention @janeebloom & @UpsideBackwards

Yee ha. Talk about happy. A night at home, eating tomatoe soup and chicken chips on the sofa watching, ‘Kath & Kimdrella’, with my lovely almost 15 daughter lay before me. Annabel Langbein’s, Ultimate chocolate cake, fit to satisfy a dinner party of 12 was happily expanding and cooking. The house would have sold in seconds.

After a speedy round of thank-yous to @nzbookcouncil and congrats to the winner: @radiomum and fellow place getter: @UpsideBackwards a giddy night of giggly girl-dom followed.

To be fair I didn’t go too crazy. I’m having a dry August. Well to be scrupulously honest the days of 2^nd & 3^rd August were not dry but every other day up until now has been. Don’t fret I’m not asking to be sponsored. Things could change any day. Nor am I standing on my sober pedestal acting all pious. I am however wondering when the whites of my eyes will shine with a Macleans zing of confidence and when I’ll wake up feeling refreshed? The Panadol I chuffed through last week as my drug of choice and necessity to get me through a stinky flu virus, must have left my liver by now? I’m four days clean. Where are you God-of-bounce?

Anyway post happy news, I didn’t cartwheel nude across the lawn either. A display I foolishly promised my children years ago I’d do, if I ever got/get a book published. Magazines don’t count so I haven’t fulfilled that reckless display of naturalist gymnastics yet. But as the sand in the hourglass rapidly slips through, with those grains goes my dream of ever getting into ethically sourced hardback and so too does the appeal of disrobing in public.

Later I received my first ever RETWEET: 

		Jane Bloomfield
		@janeebloom
		Henry you’re fibbing. You can’t end it now honey? After we just…you know…roamed in this bucolic hedgerow? Henry? #fridayshorts
		03:19 AM - 09 Aug 13

Retweeted by

		NZ Book Council @nzbookcouncil
		To 2334 followers.

As author friend Melinda Szymanik says; you have to take the pats on the back when you get them. 

Good times were had on Friday night at Club Kudos. And if nothing else happens for the rest of the year I may need to remind myself of that.

...like sands through the hourglass, so (slip) the days of our lives. 

Happy writing…