Fran Macilvey's Blog, page 31

The last two years

The last two years

Since my father died – in March 2016 – and my brother died in October 2016 – my life, the last two years of my gentle, unassuming life has been held rather in abeyance by legal minefields – estate in three countries, family in three countries, and notaries who prove reluctant to communicate, listen or act with what I would call dispatch. Thankfully, all that – all that, and so much more – is almost – finally – nearly finished. So now, maybe I can build new memories of my fa...

Time and tide wait for no woman

Time and tide wait for no woman

Time and tide wait for no woman…. Just occasionally – Not at all often, I am pleased to note – I encounter comments about my book, ‘Trapped’ along the lines of ‘miserable book, miserable git’ or words to that effect.  Not that I mind – different strokes for different folks; and these days I’m more likely to smile at that, than get upset.

‘Trapped’ took me four years or so to write, and was first published in hardback in 2014.  In the intervening period my hopes...

Editing my next book

Editing my next book, Making Miracles’

I have made time lately – finally! – to get on with editing my next indie book, ‘Making Miracles’, which I hope to publish in May this year.  Given my legendary ability to procrastinate, having a deadline of sorts helps me to focus with the job in hand. Deadlines help me both to work better, and to relax, knowing that I can plan and aim for a certain date.

‘Making Miracles’ is based on a dream diary that I have been keeping since… let me see…since about...

Reading while writing

Reading while writing

 

Few pastimes give me greater pleasure, these days, than leaving wonderful reviews for books that I have discovered that are – wonderful. Well written, funny, intriguing, satisfying, well plotted, thoughtful… we have a hundred adjectives to describe why we like books. I have a few reads and reviews to catch up on.

So I guess I do read while writing, but not always, and definitely not at the same time – even with my super-light e reader, I don’t have enough fingers. Per...

Walking on my hands

Walking on my hands

I remember many years ago coming home from an evening out with a boyfriend.  For some reason, as I put my key in the lock and turned it, I grazed my knuckle, which bled profusely.  Said fellow – oh, the cad! – refused to believe me when I said I had cut it thus; and when he did, he could scarcely credit my carelessness.  I had no sympathy from that quarter.  At the time I was puzzled and confused, until I realised he thought I had been lying, trying to fetch out extra symp...

Lost without my find key

Lost without my Find Key

So there I am, after a day of editing, busily editing some small part of my Mum’s next book.  She has written many, all of which we will have to get published.  And blow me down with a feather, if I don’t find the pages of one rather early draft, neglected for a time, scattered with strange Chinese characters, all of which help to further obscure the meaning of a rather, um, specialised text.  What to do?  Go through every page carefully deciphering each complex char...

How we define ourselves

My earlier post ‘Dissing Ability’ has left me wondering.

If, as I suggest there, most employers and most members of the public are at worst incurious about impairments and, at best willing to be encouraging and supportive, from where comes this habit we have acquired of identifying ourselves first and foremost by what hinders us: “Hello, my name is David and I have CP.”

Increasingly, anti-discrimination legislation is regulating what we regard as acceptable behaviour carried out in the public...

Moving Boundaries

Moving boundaries

New Year, new boundaries.

Having spent fourteen plus years looking after daughter and managing many of the small details of her life – does she need a new toothbrush? What about feminine products? – I have decided that this year, she is old enough to manage these for herself. Goodness knows, she is far cleverer than me in a whole host of ways, and she can afford to leaven her lying about our home with a few trips to the shop at the top of the road – it is, literally, at the...

Dissing Ability

Dissing Ability

Warning: This post is contentious and may trigger uncomfortable feelings.

In my experience, one of the first things people with disabilities talk about is – their disabilities. It’s as if not only the world at large, but we too, think first and foremost about our burdens, our blindness, our CP, our deafness, our otherness. I know I have been guilty of this. For years, as I wrote in a lead letter to ‘The Herald’  ‘…my disability became the only thing I identified about myself f...

Britain’s most extraordinary job seekers

Britain’s Most Extraordinary Job Seekers

That’s not my line, it’s a quote from the BBC series, ‘Employable Me’, a quote with which I take issue.

What is extraordinary about job seekers with impairments is not that we are exceptionally heroic, though attempts to find jobs and field the disappointment of literally thousands of job rejections contain incredibly valuable lessons about the inflexibility and inhumanity of the current mainstream system of looking for work.

Adults with impairments d...