Could some kind soul read my first ever piece please.

[diamondimelda]

Have a read and let me know what you think if you have a sec please.
--
Never trust a man who wears a ring on his little finger

I have no recollection where I first heard this phrase and due to my appalling failure to sort the stuff I need to remember from the stuff I can let leave my brain, this has stuck.

No idea why, as generalisations go it is random.

What is behind it, again no idea. In my fanciful moments I daydream of a haughty aristocrat, the lord of the manor ejecting tenant farmers and their brood of weeping children. The ring glinting, blinding them as the sunlight catches it.

But back to trust.

We have a three year old daughter & she is, in the way of most three year olds easily distracted, massively cuddly and vocal, my goodness vocal.

She chats to everyone, random people in shops, every passenger on a busy bus and the entire school playground as we collect her older, occasionally, exasperated sister.

Minor exaggerations in above sentence.

But that is a rough description of a chatty, affectionate, confident three year old.

Her father and I are going to have to put the brakes on this.

She will have to be schooled in who to trust, who to be affectionate with, who you can chat with.

And though I know this is necessary, socialisation in appropriate hugging is important for the future.

As is controlling her need to have long conversations with people in shops about how she has a hole in her sock like mummy does

Teaching her to be safe is paramount and one of our main roles as parents.

I am a little sad about souring that innocence though, allow me that.

.... I am still debating in my head about including the bit about men and their jewellery.

Begging bump

Even beggier bump

Sweet!

bump

Final desperate bump

Who is your audience? Who have you written this for? Is it a blog post, or something else?

First rule of writing - think of your audience!

It's short, thus hard to critique, also I'm not sure what it is - blog post, short story, etc - so also hard to critique.

I'm a bit lost as to how the bit about a man wearing a ring relates to a chatty 3 year old?

Hi Diamond,

I echo the earlier posters...what is this piece intending to be? A short story? A blog? The first few lines of a novel.

My take would be that it is quite observational, more like a blog. There doesn't seem to be a clear storyline so far, so it doesn't seem to be a short story or piece of fiction. The two elements - men who wear rings and your daughter - don't seem to be obviously linked.

Perhaps if you give us more information about your intentions, we can offer more of a critique.

I am not an expert or anything so I hope you don't mind me commenting. I didn't know where you were going with your writing. I was asking myself, what is this? A story, just some rambling, a build up to something completely different etc.? It was short so I read it all, but if it had been longer I would have stopped. I think it could be interesting if there was an inkling about where it was heading.

Good stuff. It starts off really well but you've finished off too quickly. Play on the superstition. No need to mention the sister. Paragraph and sentence demarcation could be tighter.

A couple more sentences in the middle could help wrap it up for your reader.

I really like the inconclusive conclusion. The 'men and their jewellery' is the key point.

Just a blog post about random thoughts.

The link between men and the the ring is & daughter is about trust how do you learn it. Also about how it is a little sad children have to lose that innocence.

No audience in mind as yet but excellent point.

Just the first random thing that came into my head.

Thanks so much for reading it.

Even blog posts have to be a bit tighter - a demarcated start, middle, point and end!

The ring then your dd story don't seem to go together, but I like your idea about starting off the blog post with a story/adage/idea. I'd like to see more! :)

Thank you so much for the advice I have tried to put some in this new one if anyone has the patience to read it.

Never eat the last biscuit

It appears my blog always start with a negative. This may lead the reader to surmise I had a dismal childhood, full of warnings and chastisements. Do not trust men wearing jewellery, put that last chocolate digestive down, but it was not, it was Waltonesque in its joy.

This, damn you, fluffy loving supportive parents makes writing hard as there was little angst to deal with, work through and now write about.

My title, the latest pearl of wisdom I have decided to write about was gifted to me by Smash Hits magazine circa 1992. I was young I had pocket money and yes, dear reader I bought it for the posters. Actually this did cause a point of friction in the idyllic childhood, sellotape on painted walls, I have a vague recollection of a raised voice, maybe not even that far, perhaps more an exasperated tone requesting “no more” and accompanied by a curt “please”. Stern stuff in my household, more for the pathos filled memoir I shall write.

Smash Hits implied by not eating the last biscuit you would be deemed cool by your peers. Now that is implying a lot behind the writing in Smash Hits at the time. Fuzzy as my recollection is through the fog of time and wine, peers were not mentioned and being cool was not mentioned in the article. It was merely a page, brightly coloured, various statements boldly outlined:

wear sunglasses at night
eat chips with your fingers
never eat the last biscuit

Sunglasses at night is just daft, never did it. That and the fact I wear glasses, I have never owned sunglasses was enough for me to ignore this piece of advice. I may be slightly bitter on the sunglasses front, unjustified as too lazy to bother with lenses, but due to the glorious childhood i need anger from somewhere.

Eating chips with my fingers, fairly regular occurrence. Chips figure high up on my life happiness scale, especially the twice cooked ones from the chippy down the road.

Never eat the last biscuit is a maxim that has lingered and I have wrestled with it for 22 years. I love biscuits, but that was never the issue. I always took it as a sound piece of advice as you would look generous, altruistic, kind, Mother Teresa like (a stretch there). Leave it for the person there who was hungrier than you. In those situations where they shared bad biscuits at meetings (there are bad biscuits, garibaldi for one) it was never too hard. When they roll out the good ones, chocolate covered Kimberleys (outing the Irishness there), bloody hell that’s a toughie. I have failed on occasion, once I justified to myself by taking the last two! See didn’t take the last biscuit, as there was no last biscuit.

How to deal with biscuits has taken up some space in my inner monologue. I work at not allowing the decision to be based on the loveliness of the biscuit on offer. I have struck up some random and lovely conversations with people as I stand by a table gazing at biscuits. I have also had some people question my sanity. Majority of the time I leave it and I feel nice when I do. Five words I read in a pop magazine over two decades ago have stayed. It has taught me self restraint, generosity, allowed me to make people laugh and perhaps a calorie or two. A lot Smash Hits may not have intended perhaps. It may also be a phrase I pass onto my children.

Begging bump number 1

rainy day bump

and now we go for the evening bump, needy artist already!

A bit better than the first

Hi there Diamond.I agree with a Meg that it's a lot stronger than the first. Clearer and a lot more coherent.

It does read a bit stream-of-consciousness and could do with a bit more structure overall. Try reading it out loud to a friend - it's a good way to gauge which parts are working and how easy your thread is to follow.

Are you actually posting to a blog or are you working up to this?

Hope this helps and good luck.

The comments help a lot thank you all.
I have started a blog, not sure why to be honest.
I am off work sick and struggling with the thought of going back, this was started as a distraction but nothing can come of it to be realistic.
I have really enjoyed it though

That biscuit piece is not bad. When I read your first one I thought: the problem is that you have nothing to say. Reading the second one makes me think that you probably do have something to say but you don't quite know what it is, yet. You have a reasonably nice, fluid style but there are billions of people writing 'this is my life with my kids and blah' type blogs and some of them get paid shitloads for doing this even though they are boring as fuck but there's an actual spark about the link between Smash Hits and biscuits.
My advice is to keep writing and keep reading. Reading is vital for a writer.
Good luck.

Yes, it's better than the first. More focused and with a start, middle and end. You could do with focusing it a bit more - cut out extra sentences, make it tighter so that every word counts! Agree with Freesias that you should try reading it out loud and see how it sounds.
Keep going!

Oh wow thanks for more comments, I thought this thread had died!

Yes I am not sure if I have anything to say, I have enjoyed writing, real world annoying at present so it has been escapism I think.

My utterly biased sister thinks they are ok, I emailed them too her on her commute to work and they made her laugh.

I shall if I can inflict my third piece.

Am cruel.

Again new piece feel free to rip to shreds!

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Last night a Spice Girl stole my blog!

(you do have to sing the title to the tune of ‘Last Night a DJ saved my life’ by Indeep)

At 10:04 yesterday I had an idea, being a modern sort I tweeted it. (It is on twitter!) Just a few words, a new blog post about music and sadness would be unleashed onto the internet. I left it at that. I sat down yesterday evening to get writing, tea and biscuits on hand.

I have a look at The Guardian website, just get up to date on the news before I start the creative process ie typing. There it was, my idea, it had a picture, a headline, near the top of the page, important news. Mel C not keen on her five year old daughter watching some music videos as they are ‘raunchy’.

Reading the piece, I found that Mel C had been in my head, poking around my ideas about music today and I had not noticed. I agreed with her. My blog began differently of course, this is my third post and I was going rogue, this was not going to start with the word ….never.

It began in January 1986 and I was a bit teary in the kitchen, my favourite song at the time Walk of Life by Dire Straits was no longer at number one, Madonna was. My mother was explaining to me how the charts worked, how the number one song was determined by sales and she was very understanding at my perhaps overblown outrage. I did get a biscuit to help me feel better. Biscuits feature at crucial points in my life, but I digress.

I loved the Dire Straits song because I loved the video. Music videos were a treat when I was growing up. Sunday mornings, we had to go to Mass. Meticulously the video recorder was set and ‘The Beatbox’ taped. This was Ireland in the 1980s and this was what we did. My many, many cousins and I were obsessed with music videos. We could spot if backing singers moved between bands and if the lead guitarist had changed his instrument of choice. Home from Mass, the decision making was fraught with, did we stop the tape mid recording and risk missing a good song, or tape the whole programme and watch it later with the divine ability to forward through the ads. BBC viewers will only be able to compare this with watching Strictly Come Dancing on demand and forwarding through Brucie.

We learned dance routines, lyrics and most of us were pretty sure we could play bass guitar we had watched so many videos. This was how our Sundays were spent, singing, laughing, dancing, not at the crossroads, but in the sitting room.

My, my how things have changed. Dancers these days wear no clothes, that is not an exaggeration. I know my daughters do not yet understand that the moves the dancers are making are sexual, but I do not want them to learn them. I don’t want them rehearsed in the playground at school. My oldest daughter is seven and has been scrolling through the songs on my iPhone. She asked what the E was beside some songs and I had to explain that those songs had rude words in that were not appropriate for her to listen to. She accepted that.

I know some words but I do not have enough to express how much the state of music videos today, anger me and offend me. This appalling mass of scantily clad, crotch thrusting fools have stopped me sharing some of the great joys of music with my daughters. It is not necessary. Children are a big market they have more disposable income than their parents. Tap into it by toning down the sexual nature of every bloody video and song being released.

This has got a bit ranty. I will not apologise for that. My children cannot turn on the TV and dance in a synchronised fashion to the current songs. My husband and I watch some of the music channels at night to see if some of the videos are suitable. OnIy rarely do we find one.I thank all that is good in the world for YouTube and the ability to force my children to listen to the songs of my childhood, as they cannot listen to the songs of theirs.

Getting sharper, needs some editing.