Marian Keyes: in the pink

As for her own happy ending, Keyes seems, if not happy, at least content. "As I get older the stars have gone from my eyes more, and I see that life is just something that has to be lived with, that it's better not to struggle," she says. "I have had to lower my expectations and embrace the shiteyness, to embrace the fact that as a human being I'm nearly always going to be in a state of incompleteness or yearning or pain of some sort, or fear, because that's what human beings are … Joy is so fleeting – God, I sound such a misery guts – but for me it's not about chasing happiness or chasing joy, but to say, when it does happen, 'oh that's lovely'. To appreciate it, rather than to expect it."

Almost famous

I've been quiet here for a while now. But this week has been a big one: I have had my first piece of flash fiction published.

It's called Bog Standard and it's super short but it's quirky and I like it, and you can read it in the shake of a baby lamb's tail.

This week I have also had my final wisdom tooth out, and just this minute I've found out I'm getting another short story published, this time online and in print so I can look at it both on the screen and in a frame, hehe.

So basically I figure that right now I'm almost famous.