Don't Bring Me Down

Today being Sunday, I've ingested my weekly dose of printed news to discover that according to the experts, tomorrow will be the most depressing day of the year.

As if to prove it, a press release in my inbox announced that the Irish Writers Centre lost its funding from the Arts Council. To be (reluctantly) fair, the Arts Council has lost funding itself, so we writers aren't the only ones suffering.

The Writers Centre has come out of its corner swinging, so to speak, and its petition of protest has been signed by all the brightest stars of Ireland's literary firmament, except perhaps Ken Armstrong, who's been mysteriously omitted from the published list. While they're rectifying that, you can book your place to meet Costa Award-winning author Sebastian Barry at the Writers Centre benefit evening on Wednesday 22 January. Like most other literary events in Ireland, it's in Dublin in the evening, and as the last train leaves the city soon afterwards, I can't go.

No comment.

Aside from having a now gloomier expectation regarding continued funding for myself from the Arts Council, this Day of Depression tomorrow is actually looking up, I think.

Reasons to be cheerful:

1. January's almost over, and as I think January is a poop month in general, WOO HOO!

2. Wednesday is my hubby's birthday, which will be a fine excuse to eat cake, indulge in lovely thick steaks for dinner, then eat more cake, and buy him new pyjamas after eating some cake. One friend has asked me why I buy him presents when he won't buy them for me, and my answer is that this one is for me. His old pyjamas are so old and the elastic so worn that every morning when he gets out of bed, I get mooned. Believe me, this birthday couldn't arrive soon enough.

3. Our American friends have the day off in honour of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. The rest of us can lean over each other's cubicle walls all day Monday and moan to each other that we should have the day off as well. It beats working anyhow.

4. Speaking of faraway places, Aer Lingus has a January sale on, which means you can go to several European cities for a tenner, or all the way across the ocean for €136. Seriously. So, to cheer myself even more, I'm taking them up on the offer and will spend half of February in my favourite place on earth. (uh, sorry Cavan, but you know even English Mum isn't too happy with you either, just now.)

5. January 2009 has FIVE Thursdays, that's FIVE paydays, and how depressed can you be after noticing that?

6. Tomorrow is also the day before Tuesday, and this coming Tuesday isn't just ANY Tuesday. If you're excited about it, WEbook wants stories about your experience of Inauguration Day, with a deadline of 21st January (tight, huh?).

And there's plenty more to keep your writing hands busy:

Writers' Digest runs a bimonthly competition based on a writing prompt: it's only 750 words so give it a go.

If you enjoy the Christine Kringle series, you've got less than two weeks to write a plot for her and (possibly) win $5000. Woooo. Details here; book purchase necessary.

6Sentences wants your six sentences. Thats it. Anything you like, in six sentences.

Writing4all has chosen January 2009 to launch some writing competitions, which you can check out on their website. I particularly like the GUBU competition, which asks for "the best Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre and Unprecedented original book title together with a brief summary of the contents (maximum 250 words)". Ooo...tempting, tempting. I've been feeling a bit GUBU myself lately, so might try my hand at it.

If nothing above tempts you to pick up a pen and write, well, what do you like to read? Post about that on your blog, and send the link to Catherine over at Sharp Words. I'll be writing my own post for that project later this week, and thinking of my favourite reading material has perked me up quite a bit.

See, the week's not shaping up to be all bad, is it? ...unless you (like myself) now have the Electric Light Orchestra singing in your head. Sorry about that.