Posted by on Sep 11, 2006 in Uncategorised | No Comments

Nothing is ever wasted …

A few years ago, when we were very strapped for cash, I did some mystery shopping work in airports. It was horrible – there’s nothing like spending a whole day in the artificial light, air and mood of a departure lounge to make you feel as if you’re not quite real yourself.

Last week, when I was asked to produce two pieces of audio erotica at pretty short notice, I had a moment’s panic. Then I remembered my airport experiences and set one piece in a departure lounge – half the work sorted!

The other piece had to be about an exhibitionist. Okey dokey – I didn’t grow up in a pub, and work in several others, for nothing. The background for that narrative came out of the time I spent table dancing in Germany, and the years I lived and worked behind a bar.

If you’d asked me ten years ago, what possible value there was to hanging around an airport all day, pretending to be a frequent flyer, I’d have told you I was doing it only to keep a roof over my head. But that experience, depressing as it was, launched the first of the two stories I had to write, and showed me where the material for the second one could be found.

However boring or grim your daily grind, there’s gold in there somewhere, if you’re a writer – even if it takes a decade to sift it from the rubbish!

PS – if you’re feeling dirty-minded, I have a story in the women’s erotica magazine ‘Scarlet’ this month ….

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