A Quirk

It's a little-known fact that I am absurdly superstitious.

Not in the 'never walking under ladders, stepping on the cracks in paving stones, or letting a black cat cross my path' way - even I find those ridiculous. I just have this bizarre belief system which tells me, for example, that I'm never going to win the lottery - if I get rich, it'll be through hard work, not luck.

Of course, I realise that this is a self-fulfilling prophesy - after all, how could I win the lottery if I don't play? There's just this nagging sensation in the back of my head that, even playing only £1 a week, it'd never work out in my favour... It's a bit too much like gambling, and yet another way for the Government to make money out the people who most need to hang on to their money.

Actually, that's not so much a 'superstition' as a 'conspiracy theory'... Ho hum.

I also firmly believe (as a result of many experiences) that it is 'bad form' (sounds better than saying 'unlucky') to discuss things with anyone that are 'in progress'. Whether it's a sketch that's taking days or - Heavens forfend - an actual piece of writing, I've always found that my interest flags considerably if I discuss - or show - the project to anyone.

The unfortunate thing is that, particularly with writing, it's considered beneficial to get another pair of eyes to look over it, hopefully giving worthwhile feedback rather than blanket praise (friends and family) or non-committal murmurings (er... my family, specifically). I suppose the ideal is that you share such things with someone you trust (not to rip you off, for example) but who has no vested interest in keeping you sweet, and so will offer that holy grail of 'constructive criticism'.

What tends to happen with me is that I'll write portions of something - generally centred around conversations between characters - then put it aside once I've exhausted the bits that are foremost on my mind and attempt to organise everything else. If, during this time, I am foolish enough to show the bits and pieces to anyone, when I next look at them myself - with a view to adding to the text - it somehow appears... wrong. All the stuff I've managed to organise in my head in the meantime no longer fits the events or the tone of what I wrote before, and so I find that I've taken one step forward and two steps back.

In a similarly superstitious way, when a friend or relative is unwell (or in hospital), I tend not to want to talk about it until it's all completely over. That's a much more recent superstition, owing to the untimely death of a friend and correspondent. No-one can know what 'complications' might occur even following a highly successful operation. You hear all kinds of weird stories about things left inside people during surgery, and bugs picked up in hospital, let alone when they are discharged, that are devastating to someone who is 'in recovery'.

In other news, I finished reading 'The Ghost' by Robert Harris last night. Holy crap, that has a twist. It's actually very clever about it, though. The book spends so much time pointing the finger in one specific, constant direction but, all the while, it's subtly telling you something different is going on. 'Literary sleight of hand' is the phrase, except it's not really even disguising the truth. It's there, all the way, but the story is written in such a way that you're just not looking. The protagonist's almost imperturbable sarcasm leads to some very funny moments in his narrative (generally about events in the story that are anything but funny), but he is key to the one thing I found disappointing and hard to believe - right at the end, and for no discernible reason, he applies the correct cipher to the autobiography's 'hidden code'. Admittedly, he's been given clues... but to settle on that ciper so quickly just seems bizarre. It didn't ruin the story, however - by that point I was so engrossed by it all that I just took it in stride. It is only in retrospect that I find it a stumbling point... And what do people always tell me about overthinking?