Day 2: Blog Each Day in August Challenge.

Five things about you that most people don’t know…

One of the problems of being a writer is that you share far too much. As V. S. Naipaul once wrote:  “Fact can be realigned. But fiction never lies; it reveals the writer totally”.  So – to think of five things I haven’t shared somehow in my writing was actually very difficult. But I did my best to put together my list…

1:  I used to be a very active child…

2:  This leads on from one, and those active years. In my childhood, I rode horses every Saturday; that is, when I had enough pocket money to hire a horse from a  stable close to my home in the suburbs. But when I was thirteen, my parents decided to move to Kinglake, a country area of Victoria. My father promised me a horse. I should have remembered his black sense of humour. He came home with a Shetland pony in the back of the family’s station wagon. Not only the tiniest Shetland pony I had ever seen in my life, it was also a vicious, mad beast driven by a great desire for human murder. Definitively no Flicka or Black Beauty. Alas – the move to the country put an end to my horse riding days.

I wish I had continued to be active and ride horses…But at least I had those years to help me write up scenes when my  Tudor characters are on horseback.

3: I was once offered a job working as a receptionist at a brothel.

I was seventeen at the time, working at a shoe shop. While taking care of the women’s shoe-line was kind of boring at times (I rather go barefoot than wear shoes), I thought it best to turn down the job offer. I wasn’t too certain if I might be called upon for other duties.  Plus, the big boss of the shoe shop franchise had suggested managerial training for me in the future, after my boredom inspired a complete re-organisation of my shoe display to something rather arty.  He thought I had a future in shoes.

Ah – the lost opportunities of my life…Shoe Shop Manager or Madam.

Scratch head. Still think the customer was joking. We had such interesting customers at the shoe shop! (Including that uncaught shoplifter who came in almost every week to steal just one shoe.)

4:  Really, I don’t eat everything…

5:  Or drink everything…