A Place to Sleep
Alright, I should probably update you on precisely what has been happening in the last couple of days...
If you can remember as far back as my post a couple of days ago, I've been in London homeless and directionless after walking out on my deadend job over the new year. I'm now, I'm sure you'll all be pleased to know, no longer living out of a youth hostel and have found myself a place to stay - at least temporarily.
It all happened two days ago, when I looked up an old friend of my mothers from University. We'll call him Max, which is a suitably fitting name for this sixty-two year old doyen of the publishing industy. He works for a pretty high-up publisher and I looked him up on the internet in the hope of... I don't know, really. I was harldy going to sell him my book, which isn't yet written, or concieved or even anything more than the sum of my intentions. It was more just to be doing something, to try and make a contact. In any event I was surprised that he let me in to see me.
When I went into his office he was wearing a crumpled grey suit, when I went in and was chewing on the end of his pen, leaning back in a big black swivel chair. There was something about him that reminded me of one of those big Hollywood movie producers, chomping on a blue biro instead of a cigar. He welcomed me in, sat me down, talked a little about the past - used to bounce me on his knee, some such crap - said complimentary things about my mother (perhaps too complimentary, perhaps me and my mother were a little closer than friends). Then he gets to the question: "What can he do for me?" I manage to umm, and ahh enough for him to think that I've just called in socially, a young whippersnapper whose paying a social errand because his mother has compelled him. I stay a little longer then leave, taking his hints that he's a busy man with little time and I'm wasting it.
Outside his office I get talking to a girl in the open-plan outside; a secretary, or a pa - something of that sort. She's pretty and smiled at me on the way in, so I stop to talk. I think she's flirting, so I stick around for a while, and also start talking to her friend: a brunette with a bob, with a round friendly face. Perhaps too friendly to be arouse my amorous attentions. After around ten minutes they've asked me to a party they're going to. As I've got nothing else to do except sit in my hostel and read a book whilst the snores from the fat bloke below float up to me. I take the blonde girls number and meet up with them.
The party is in a house in Kennington. I meet up with the two girls from the publisher's office and the crowd they're with. Despite my expectations, even my plans, I don't spend any time talking to the blonde girl (whose name I don't even know) but spend most of it with the brunette with the bob, Carly, and a friend of hers called Darren. She's got a temping job at the publisher's office (which sounds boring as sin), but is really an artist. She does big and conceptual stuff. I explained to her my sleeping situation and she said I could crash at hers for a couple of weeks until I found something better. I was amazed, she didn't even know me from adam, but she's asking me into her house and onto her sofa. I must come across as pretty trustworthy.
The house is pretty nice, a three story building with a lounge and maybe five or six bedrooms. I slept there last night and she's said I can stay as long as I like.
Have pretty much come to the end of my time allocation, so I had better go. I'll write more about my new living arrangements tomorrow along with the actual purpose of this blog - about the progress on my novel.
'Til tomororw.
If you can remember as far back as my post a couple of days ago, I've been in London homeless and directionless after walking out on my deadend job over the new year. I'm now, I'm sure you'll all be pleased to know, no longer living out of a youth hostel and have found myself a place to stay - at least temporarily.
It all happened two days ago, when I looked up an old friend of my mothers from University. We'll call him Max, which is a suitably fitting name for this sixty-two year old doyen of the publishing industy. He works for a pretty high-up publisher and I looked him up on the internet in the hope of... I don't know, really. I was harldy going to sell him my book, which isn't yet written, or concieved or even anything more than the sum of my intentions. It was more just to be doing something, to try and make a contact. In any event I was surprised that he let me in to see me.
When I went into his office he was wearing a crumpled grey suit, when I went in and was chewing on the end of his pen, leaning back in a big black swivel chair. There was something about him that reminded me of one of those big Hollywood movie producers, chomping on a blue biro instead of a cigar. He welcomed me in, sat me down, talked a little about the past - used to bounce me on his knee, some such crap - said complimentary things about my mother (perhaps too complimentary, perhaps me and my mother were a little closer than friends). Then he gets to the question: "What can he do for me?" I manage to umm, and ahh enough for him to think that I've just called in socially, a young whippersnapper whose paying a social errand because his mother has compelled him. I stay a little longer then leave, taking his hints that he's a busy man with little time and I'm wasting it.
Outside his office I get talking to a girl in the open-plan outside; a secretary, or a pa - something of that sort. She's pretty and smiled at me on the way in, so I stop to talk. I think she's flirting, so I stick around for a while, and also start talking to her friend: a brunette with a bob, with a round friendly face. Perhaps too friendly to be arouse my amorous attentions. After around ten minutes they've asked me to a party they're going to. As I've got nothing else to do except sit in my hostel and read a book whilst the snores from the fat bloke below float up to me. I take the blonde girls number and meet up with them.
The party is in a house in Kennington. I meet up with the two girls from the publisher's office and the crowd they're with. Despite my expectations, even my plans, I don't spend any time talking to the blonde girl (whose name I don't even know) but spend most of it with the brunette with the bob, Carly, and a friend of hers called Darren. She's got a temping job at the publisher's office (which sounds boring as sin), but is really an artist. She does big and conceptual stuff. I explained to her my sleeping situation and she said I could crash at hers for a couple of weeks until I found something better. I was amazed, she didn't even know me from adam, but she's asking me into her house and onto her sofa. I must come across as pretty trustworthy.
The house is pretty nice, a three story building with a lounge and maybe five or six bedrooms. I slept there last night and she's said I can stay as long as I like.
Have pretty much come to the end of my time allocation, so I had better go. I'll write more about my new living arrangements tomorrow along with the actual purpose of this blog - about the progress on my novel.
'Til tomororw.
posted by The Wandering Novelist at 8:52 PM
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