A happy end to my chocolate story

At the end of this post is an offer you might want to accept.

If you’ve been following the poignant saga of my quest to receive some chocolate, you’ll know that I submitted two entries to Nicola Morgan’s Hotel Chocolat Halloween Competition and waited patiently for the results (while trying to decide between the two people competing to be my nominees, only to find that I hadn’t won, although I did get very close.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. Nearly a month ago, a lovely lady called Teresa Stenson offered to do this thing that some people call, “Pay it forward.” Teresa called that a painful expression and I tend to agree. She called it a “Random act of kindness,” which sounds better.

So, for a change, I put aside all doubts and put my name down to receive something from Teresa, and today I discovered a little package in our letter box. Opening it, I found a box of four chocolates from Hotel Chocolat – the very same Hotel Chocolat that provided the prizes for that competition. This was better than winning the prize, because Hotel Chocolat wouldn’t have sent the chocolate out of the UK, but Teresa did. She also sent a beautiful card with a personal message on it.

I rushed up to my computer (with the chocolates of course – I couldn’t let them out of my sight), thanked Teresa while keeping one eye on the chocolates, and began sampling the chocolates. Chocolate brownie, butterscotch ganache with shortbread biscuit, Amarena cherry suspended in Amaretto buttercream and praline with crispy pancake. Each of them was soft, creamy, and delicious. And they came at a great time for me, soon after my first publication.

Thank you, Teresa, for that lovely act of kindness.

And now for my part. This is how it works: the first three people who comment on here will receive something lovely from me. Each of them has to promise to send something lovely to three other people – not necessarily via a blog. That’s all. So who are those three people going to be? Come on – don’t be shy. I wasn’t.

That’s Me!

This post was inspired by Lauren Becker.

You know how you read a description of someone and you think, “This could be me!” It hasn’t happened to me often. Generally, characters in novels aren’t like me and people like me don’t get much attention. Three sources stand out for me.

The first is the first description I found of social anxiety, back in 2002. It’s still there on the site, where they still use the term social phobia:

WHAT IS SOCIAL PHOBIA?
Social phobia is a persistent fear of doing something embarrassing or humiliating which interferes with both personal and professional lives. People with social phobia think that other people judge them negatively. This fear may reflect a sense of being inferior, different, or unacceptable, and it goes with assumptions such as thinking that “if people knew what you were really like, then they would reject you”.

There’s more on the site. When I first read it, I was amazed that even one more person could have similar thoughts and behave in a similar way, let alone “between 3 and 13% of the population”.

I’m not a fan of Jodi Picoult. In fact I’ve only read one of her books, but that one book, Nineteen Minutes, kept me riveted because of the central character, here described by an expert trying to claim he was suffering from PTSD:

A child who suffers from PTSD has made unsuccessful attempts to get help, and as the victimization continues, he stops asking for it. He withdraws socially, because he’s never quite sure when interaction is going to lead to another incident of bullying….

Different people have different responses to stress. In Peter’s case, I saw an extreme emotional vulnerability, which, in fact, was the reason he was teased. Peter didn’t play by the codes of boys. He wasn’t a big athlete. He wasn’t tough. He was sensitive. And difference is not always respected – particularly when you’re a teenager. Adolescence is about fitting in, not standing out.

The last quote is by Etgar Keret in his story: The Son of the Head of the Mossad. I admire Keret for his simple language and complicated ideas:

Ehud was tall and strong and was always quiet. Lots of people thought that Ehud was quiet because he was stupid. That wasn’t true. He may not have been the smartest kid on the block, but he was no moron either.

Have you been described by chance?

I Nearly Won

The lovely Nicola Morgan (ignore everything I wrote about her before) has said that I was next on the list to win a prize in her Hotel Chocolate Halloween Competition, and although I don’t know which of the two stories I submittted nearly won, I’m going to put one of them here. The other one suffered, in my opinion, from being cut down to a hundred words. I’m going to restore it to its original state and use it for something else.

Bye for now!

Time for a Backup

I stare at the screen, horrified. Instead of my document, large letters are drifting, mingling. Suddenly they stop. COOL CHAT E, I read. Sobbing from the loudspeaker. Drops of liquid trickling down the screen. Tears? More drifting, stopping at ETCH COLA O. More crying. This must be my computer’s final fling before…. I close my eyes and picture years of unbacked-up work disappearing down the snakelike cables. Opening them, I see, EACH LOCO T. Weeping, howling. Drifting again. CHOCOLATE. From the loudspeaker, whining. I hurriedly stuff a piece of chocolate into the USB. “Mmmmmmmmmrgrmgrmmrmgrmmrmgrrrahhhhhhh.” My document returns.

I didn’t win

*SOB* I didn’t win any chocolate in Nicola Morgan’s Hotel Chocolate Halloween Competition. This means that I have to disappoint the two people – Royal Holloway Girl and Gill – who were competing to be my nominee for the chocolate. Still, it also means that no one will fall out with me over this, and maybe they’ll find it in their hearts to love me anyway, despite my failure to assuage their cravings.
The winning stories are here.

The Long and Winding Road

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before
It always leads me here
Lead me to your door

I always loved The Beatles. I grew up with them. But I didn’t think much about the words in those far-off days….

I’m on that road; we all are. But each of us has to get past different hurdles on the way. I’ve just passed one – not just by being acknowledged as a writer, although that’s a big enough hurdle in itself, but also by having my blog discovered by more people, including people who know me but don’t know me. That still frightens me, despite all the praise and encouragement I’ve received. But I know it’s what I want.

Many thanks to everyone who said they liked my story. It makes it all worth the effort.

Have you passed any big hurdles recently?

First Times

First times are special, aren’t they. You remember them all your life. I remember my first day at school, aged five years and one week, even though ten… twenty… thirty… many years have passed since then. I remember my first boyfriend, my first baby and many other firsts.

Yesterday is also a day I’ll remember. The first time a story of mine has been published: http://www.metazen.ca/?p=915. A humorous story highlighting a pitfall of social media. And while I don’t want to turn this blog into one that brags about my achievements, this is the first time and I’m basking in the glory.

Exciting News

I have been published for the first time at http://www.metazen.ca/?p=915.

I’ll write more about this tomorrow. For now, this is all I can manage.

Don’t enter this competition

DO NOT under any circumstances enter Nicola Morgan’s Hotel Chocolat Halloween Competition. I have submitted my two entries and I intend to win, so make sure you don’t click that link and, even if you do, don’t send any entries of your own.

Not that I can actually win the chocolate *sob*, because I’m not in the UK, but I can nominate someone who is and will love me forever more.

Remember: YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

The voice in my head

The voice in my head shouts out loud,
But its sound isn’t heard by the rest of the crowd.
The voice in my head speaks in no tongue,
And yet its caustic words have stung.
The voice in my head says I’m stupid and dumb.
The voice in my head says I interest no one.
I try to tell it it’s got it all wrong,
But the voice in my head just sounds the gong.
“Go back,” it says, “and hide away.
Nobody wants to hear you today.”

What does the word anxiety mean to you?

Is it fear? Worry? Does it make you think of spiders? Constant worry over trivial matters? Or do you think it’s a lame excuse for people who are too lazy to get on with their lives?

I was amazed when I first saw it applied to me. What, me? Anxiety? No way! I’m not afraid of spiders, or flying. Not even of performing in front of an audience. I don’t worry that a disaster has befallen my loved ones when they still haven’t returned home.

The reason for my immediate denial of any connection with anxiety was probably the negative image of people who suffer from anxiety. They’re thought of as scaredy-cats, better to keep away from. It took me a while to accept that the word could apply to me, much longer to stop blaming myself for having “caused” a connection between myself and that dreaded word.

The fact is that anxiety is not something felt by a few people. It’s also not a term conjured up by the pharmaceutical companies to make money selling pills. Anxiety probably affects a lot more people than anyone realises. That’s because many are too afraid of being stigmatized to let on. And because many sufferers don’t even know they have it.

And people who have it are not cowards. In fact, those who are dealing with their problems are very brave to start and persist with a probably long and difficult process.

Somehow, the negative view of anxiety and those affected by it has to be turned around. Too many people are being ignored when they need help. Too many people are suffering needlessly. That’s why I need to explain. I just don’t know if anyone understands….