Tuesday 18 October 2011

Things I would rather do than write a synopsis

1.      Lick cat vomit
2.      Drink a roadside puddle
3.      Eat whatever’s lurking at the back of the office fridge
4.      Ride a rail replacement bus through London at the weekend holding a bag of thawing fish
5.      Write a 20-page report on the varying nuances of beige, complete with chemistry compound tied in to theories of depression
6.      Get pooped on by a pigeon with chronic diarrhoea
7.      Wear pale trousers, sit on chocolate, and walk around all day oblivious of suspicious stain
8.      De-clog a railway station toilet with my bare hands
9.      Root around scary storage centres on my own at night for obscure pieces of stage equipment
10.  Watch daytime chat show programmes on a continual loop until my mind bleeds out of my nose
11.  Sit a three-hour exam on Advanced Maths
12.  Enter the Guinness World Record cracker eating contest
13.  Drop and smash a priceless antique in a shop with a sign that says ‘Nice to see, Lovely to hold, If you break it, Consider it sold’
14.  Sew my fingers together and then pull the thread out very, very slowly
15.  Go mud larking in bare feet along the Thames in central London
16.  Ask the most gorgeous man in the world on a date
17.  Walk around all day in towering heels
18.  Go for colonic irrigation
19.  Wear butt-skimming hot-pants to a work conference
20.  Eat a raw onion as if it’s an apple

I have done #9, #14 and #17. As for #16... maybe one day.  *grins*

Just to clarify  #14. It was a textiles lesson at school. I was thirteen and bored. We were supposed to be sewing something dull and one of the boys instead sewed the thread through the pads of his fingers and was trying to gross us out. He dared one of us to do it. I took him up on the challenge and realised it didn't really hurt if you used shallow stitches; it just looked awful and freaked out the teacher. Then to get the thread out you pulled it slowly from one side, trying not to break the skin - and this felt really weird and icky. It wasn't a clever thing to do as it can make your fingers very sore, so please don't try it! Not that you would, of course. You have brains.

36 comments:

Jessica Bell said...

LOL. Um , I'd follow you! :o)

Old Kitty said...

Erm. You've SEWN your fingers together?!?!?! Oh.My.Giddy.Aunt.
Seriously?!?!?!

Excuse me while I scrape off my jaw off the floor for a sec!

Yikes! Take care
x

Out on the prairie said...

I take it you must send your sewing out now.A great grandparent ate a onion when he suffered migrains.He also had 9 kids, maybe it kept them away.

Jayne said...

Old Kitty - um... yes. During textiles at school. I somehow discovered you could sew through the pads of your fingers without it really hurting - it just looked gross to freak out teachers. Did no one else do this??! Surely I wasn't the only one... (looks around). Oh.

M.J. Fifield said...

This list is great. And so very true. When I was writing my synopsis, I had a similar list. It didn't involve London quite so much as I don't live anywhere as interesting as that, but still... thanks for the laugh!

Anonymous said...

Man what a gross list. Made me realise, that I can't hate doing synposis' as much as I thought.

I still can't believe you'd sewn your fingers together - soooo gross. I think you must have been the ONLY one. People used to put a pin through the skin on their fingers - but that was as gross as it got.

Anne Gallagher said...

You THINK we have brains.

I'd rather do all these, minus the sewing fingers, and possibly the cat vomit, than do revisions.

Great list.

E. Arroyo said...

Eww...I think we get the point. LOL.

Guilie Castillo said...

LOL... And LOL harder because there were a couple of items (the sewing-fingers-together was one, I admit) that made me go, "that's not so bad..." But point taken--we do NOT like synopses. I believe we all agree on that.

Great list. Totally great.

KamilleE said...

4. Done that! But not in London. It was on the train to London Waterloo though and I had to sit through 4 stops with a can of tuna that had been open for about 2 days.

11. 3 hours is torture!

14. That. Is. Gross. I know it doesn't hurt but this kid in my class did that. he got an infection all over his finger lol!

I like 16!

The Book Analyst said...

Hi Jayne,

Can I suggest that for fun (!) you write a synopsis for a book you've read? It's really good practice and less nightmarish than writing your own.

Good luck!

Christine Rains said...

*LOL* Great list! I like to procrastinate about writing synopses too.

Emily R. King said...

I am totally grossed out. Good job!
Take that list and apply it to a query letter, and that's how I feel.

Terri Tiffany said...

LOL I hate synopses too and I know I need to write one with this book I just wrote! But I won't do some of those things:))

music obsessive said...

Actually, if you're ever in the #11 situation and need a stand-in, I'm your man...and I've got a red wig.

Lindsay said...

Thank you for making me realise that writing a synopsis is actually a lot nicer than some of those things. The 'asking the guy on the date' would be much better of course - if he said yes. I've been known to sew my fingers together too. By accident.

snafu said...

Not a nice list, is a synopsis that bad?
Funny you should say about sowing your fingers together, I thought it was only something we dared each other to do at our school. It feels very strange, doesn't it.
But it hurts much more when your dentist is stitching your gums after an abscess removal and the local anaesthetic has just worn off, I would not want to do that again.

Golden Eagle said...

Er, I've actually done that to my fingers . . . I never did more than one stitch and not to two fingers, but I tried sewing the skin. I suppose I don't have brains. Ah, well, at least I'm zombie-proof. :P

Anonymous said...

I used to sew my fingers together quite a lot, actually. It was kind of fun.

(And if you hate writing synopses that much, send the thing my way. I like doing them.)

Debbie Coope said...

Eek! I did that a few years ago when I was tacking a hem together. I was making blinds and sewed (by hand), through hard skin on my finger tips. Thought there was glue on the material. When I lifted my hand the material went with me. It didn't hurt.

Iain said...

I remember doing that when I was at school to gross the girls out!
It really is a weird feeling.
Great list! :o)

Kenda Turner said...

Oh, dear--it seems you REALLY don't like writing a synopsis! #4 got me. I hate the smell of old fish :-) Fun post, thanks...

catdownunder said...

Oh, I see - you do NOT like writing a synopsis? :-)

Maggie May said...

I really can't believe that! You can't hate writing one more than the things you listed! But I believe you do hate writing a synopsis!
Maggie X

Nuts in May

mshatch said...

oh boy do I agree - except for the licking cat vomit. I'm going to choose the synopsis over that one :)

Elizabeth Mueller said...

Lol... I'd rather write the synopsis!
*holding stomach*

♥.•*¨Elizabeth¨*•.♥

Can Alex save Winter from the darkness that hunts her?

YA Paranormal Romance, Darkspell releases October 31st!

Bob Sanchez said...

And yet...and yet...will you eventually write that synopsis?

Mia Hayson said...

Heyyy #5 sounds kind of fun. I bet you could also put the shades under a microscope an compare the images. Mmmmm. Yes. I can totally see that. 20 pages you say? Mmmm. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Dolly said...

Excellent laugh! Actually I have always wanted to do number 15 though not in bare feet I have to admit.

As a child, growing up in Canada, we would dare each other on (freezing winters) to lick the metal posts on the swings. Just to see if your tongue would freeze to the post. Seriously :)

Hope you get the synopsis done so that you can meet Froggy & I when I am over during mid-term.

Unknown said...

Yes, I agree with all that. I would rather do almost anything than write a synopsis. I'd probably draw the line at sewing my fingers together. Probably...

Have a great weekend!

Val's alentejo blog said...

Dear Jane.. i cannot imagine anyone wanting to do those awful things.. Hope you recover !!

kelly said...

I'd rather write the synopsis than lick cat vomit. See, my cat vomits daily. I wonder, if I write a synopsis, will my cat stop vomiting? I'm really tired of the laundry.

Unknown said...

Did you ever consider that your list might make for the synopsis of a very avant-garde novel? :)

Sharon K. Mayhew said...

Funny!

I had to turn in a synopsis for a picture book...I was like..."a synopsis for a pb?"

Hannah said...

Hmmm, I actually like writing synopsis-es?? They make me smile. :D

L.A Speedwing said...

AH AH Jayne, you're too much! Hilarious. How the hell do you come up with all those things! But to go back to the main subject. God I hear you. Been through the synopsis process and it was a nightmare. Thanks for your kind words on my blog.