Cherish Your Friends, Stay True To Your

You Know What I Can't Understand? You Have All These People Telling You All The Time How Great You Are, Smart And Funny And Talented And All That, I Mean Endlessly, I've Been Telling You For Years. So Why Don't You Believe It? Why Do You Think People Say That Stuff, Em? Do You Think It's A Conspiracy, People Secretly Ganging Up To Be Nice About You?

She Drinks Pints Of Coffee And Writes Little Observations And Ideas For Stories With Her Best Fountain Pen On The Linen-white Pages Of Expensive Notebooks. Sometimes, When It's Going Badly, She Wonders If What She Believes To Be A Love Of The Written Word Is Really Just A Fetish For Stationery.

She Glanced Across To Where Tilly And Her Brand New Husband Were Posing For Photographs, Tilly Fluttering A Fan Coquettishly In Front Of Her Face. 'unfortunately I Didn't Realise There Was A French Revolutionary Theme.' 'the Marie-antoinette Thing?' Said Dexter. 'well At Least We Know There'll Be Cake.

But At The Best Of Times She Feels Like A Character In A Muriel Spark Novel — Independent, Bookish, Sharp-minded, Secretly Romantic.

The Trick Of It, She Told Herself, Is To Be Courageous And Bold And Make A Different. Not Change The World Exactly, Just The Bit Around You. Go Out There With Your Double-first, Your Passion And Your New Smith Carona Electric Typewriter And Work Hard At ... Something. Change Lives Through Art Maybe. Write Beautifully. Cherish Your Friends, Stay True To Your Principles, Live Passionately And Fully And Well. Experience New Things. Love And Be Loved If At All Possible. East Sensibly. Stuff Like That.