annethology
  • Home
    • About Annethology
    • About me >
      • A little more about me
    • About my books
    • Author talks
    • Contact me
    • Forthcoming events
    • World Mental Health Day
    • Privacy
    • Sign up for my newsletter
  • Sugar and Snails
    • Acknowledgements
    • Blog tour, Q&A's and feature articles >
      • Birthday blog tour
      • S&S on tour 2022
    • Early endorsements
    • Events >
      • Launch photos
      • Launch party videos
    • in pictures
    • Media
    • If you've read the book
    • Polari
    • Reading group questions
    • Reviews
    • In the media
  • Underneath
    • Endorsements and reviews
    • Launch party and events
    • Pictures
    • Questions for book groups
    • The stories underneath the novel
  • Matilda Windsor series
    • Matilda Windsor >
      • What readers say
      • For book groups
      • Interviews, articles and features
      • Matty on the move
      • Who were you in 1990?
      • Asylum lit
      • Matilda Windsor media
    • Stolen Summers >
      • Stolen Summers reviews
  • Short stories
    • Somebody’s Daughter
    • Becoming Someone (anthology) >
      • Becoming Someone (video readings)
      • Becoming Someone reviews
      • Becoming Someone online book chat
    • Print and downloads
    • Read it online
    • Quick reads
  • Free ebook
  • Annecdotal
    • Annecdotal blog
    • Annecdotal Press
    • Articles >
      • Print journalism
      • Where psychology meets fiction
    • Fictional therapists
    • Reading and reviews >
      • Reviews A to H
      • Reviews I to M
      • Reviews N to Z
      • Nonfiction
      • Themed quotes
      • Reading around the world
  • Shop
    • Inspired Quill (my publisher)
    • Bookshop.org (affiliate link)
    • Amazon UK
    • Amazon US
    • books2read

About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

A necessary nip of narcissism?

26/3/2017

15 Comments

 

It had been a
great night at the Polari salon in Nottingham, and the audience was waiting for the final performer to take the stage, when a woman bounded from the back of the room. Scowl framed by the hood of her black anorak, and ignoring the compere’s insistence that she wasn’t on the programme, Barbara Brownskirt barked out a series of poems from her numerous unpublished collections about, among other things, her unrequited love for Judi Dench. She was scary. She was hilarious. She was – and still is – the unsuccessful lesbian Poet-in-Residence at the 197 bus stop, Penge, and the brilliant creation of writer and performer Karen McLeod.

Picture
Barbara Brownskirt works because there’s a bit of her in all of us. Raging at real and perceived injustice, she hides her vulnerability behind bluster and that tightly tied anorak hood. Having poured a lifetime’s pain into her writing, she’s determined her voice is heard. So self-absorbed she can’t conceive of others as separate people, with different, and sometimes opposing, interests and needs. I was going to kick off this post saying I met Barbara Brownskirt at Polari Nottingham, but that wouldn’t be true. Unlike her interesting and interested creator Karen McLeod, whom I did meet, Barbara Brownskirt is incapable of truly engaging with anyone. To her, other people exist solely as receptacles for her emissions.

Not me, you say? Well, she’s certainly an exaggeration, but don’t we all need a smidgen of narcissism in seeking an audience for our words? We need to believe we’ve got something worth saying keep submitting to editors, appearing at events and posting to blogs. We need the capacity to set aside our fears of rejection and criticism, of being ignored or misunderstood. A writer, or indeed
an artist of any kind, encapsulates the anxieties of relating to others inherent in the human condition.

It’s also the bit that’s missing from Barbara Brownskirt’s character that makes her so poignantly funny: the humility that is necessary to temper our narcissism, to know that our words, thoughts and opinions are mere specks of dust in the universe of ideas. It’s only as babies that life owes us an audience (and we go on
yearning if we don’t get it at that stage) and we find another source of satisfaction when we swap entitlement for gratitude. You know that of course.

Picture
If you get a chance to see Barbara Brownskirt in action, I highly recommend you do. You can follow developments on Karen McLeod’s blog. The author addresses similar themes of vulnerability, narcissism, attachment and the boundary between inside and outside in her debut novel, In Search of the Missing Eyelash, published ten years ago. In a nutshell, it’s a humorous LGBT coming-of-age story about a lonely young woman who stalks her former lover. It also addresses the concept of home and gender as performance (p90):


being female is about artifice, let’s pretend, putting things on, in, pulling bits off, plucking, waxing, cutting; squeezing into a shape or an idea.

Audience is the topic of this week’s flash fiction challenge; timely for me as I’m contemplating how to present my second novel to readers and potential readers in person and online. After the production phase (a shape-shifting dance between characters, language and plot) gives way to the hypercritical editing phase it’s like completing a circle in going back to the start with a fresh look at the ideas that inspired it.

Picture
Picture
For my 99-word story, I’d like to have plagiarised one of Norah Colvin’s on a baby’s first steps. Instead I’ve done a rather silly take on international diplomacy, and surprised myself in the process, which is always a bonus:

That man

Say I’m out walking the corgis, repatriating the Elgin marbles, having a sly fag out the back. I’m pinning a gong on a Muslim, completing my tax return, composing a Tweet. Say I’m out shopping for gold-plated bath taps or up in the Highlands shooting grouse. Say it in Mexican Spanish, received pronunciation or Cockney rhyming slang. Say it with a smirk or a smile, in buckles and breeches, wearing a crown or bearskin or a yellow toupee. I don’t care what you tell him, or how, but I will not grant an audience to that man.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
15 Comments
geoff le pard link
26/3/2017 10:56:28 pm

the post is great and thoughtful but hey, who cares with that flash; you're wasted on serious stuff; stick to Liz humour in future...

Reply
Annecdotist
27/3/2017 12:12:23 pm

Thanks, Geoff, that’s praise indeed from a master of the humorous touch. My WIP is slightly comic but it’s married with tragedy, so not yet sure if I’ll be able to pull it off. Also be interested to see whether the narrator of this flash is recognisable outside the UK.

Reply
Jeanne Lombardo link
28/3/2017 01:06:34 am

Gawd, this flash is brilliant, and hilarious. I think we desperately need you this side of the pond!...though our late-night comics are double timing it and trying not to drown in the daily deluge of material. And yes, the post is great too. I have a new interest in LGBT performance as well as serious criticism. BB sounds fabulous and I will check out the link you provided. Still chuckling....

Reply
Annecdotist
28/3/2017 06:40:50 pm

Thanks, Jeanne, the political situation is so bizarre I imagine comedians must be manic with an excess of potential material. I’m glad you like the sound of Barbara. Although she was performing within an LGBT context I think the character should have wide appeal (which of course LGBT art does anyway).

Reply
Charli Mills
30/3/2017 07:44:53 am

The comics and Saturday Night Live are keeping the rest of us sane! :-)

Sherri Matthews link
28/3/2017 04:43:06 pm

Oh no...not Barbara Brownskirt! I've met a few in my time...And I love your flash Anne, very clever. I've never thought of narcissim in this way before, but you make an excellent point. We nurture our writing in our quiet spaces...yet, we want it out there. At least, unlike BB, we are humble about it! Great post!

Reply
Annecdotist
28/3/2017 06:46:09 pm

Thanks, Sherri, I’m pleased you recognise Barbara, or maybe I should commiserate. Yeah, we do tend to think of narcissism as negative but how could we put ourselves out there if we had none? (Actually psychologically the extreme narcissists like Barbara are often that way because they haven’t had enough attention when it matters.)
And talking performance, I wish you’d been with me at a conference at the weekend where I was extremely impressed by a panel of three very different writers talking about memoir and I’d love to have known what you thought about it.

Reply
Liz H link
29/3/2017 04:22:16 pm

That may be the only way to get rid of him. If we all close our eyes, clap our hands TOGETHER, and ignore him, d'you think he'll just disappear in a pouf of fetid orange smoke?

Reply
Annecdotist
29/3/2017 04:44:23 pm

Ha. Since logic seems to have left the stage, that strategy might have as good a chance as any.

Reply
Charli Mills
30/3/2017 07:50:43 am

Sure I recognize Babs; she's our 45th! You've given us so much to think about, recognizing narcissism but not wanting to be seen in it's costume. Yet here we are, building audience. Thankfully none of us are doing it bigly or getting carried away with tweets. Your evening sounds fun, and I'm impressed that Karen Mcleod is out there with a 10-year old book, and a clever way to gain an audience by allowing her character to be the obnoxious attention-getter. And your flash! Yes! You did go with humor! I hope Your Majesty sticks to your 99 words! I'm pleased it surprised you, too.

Reply
Annecdotist
30/3/2017 08:43:16 am

Indeed, BB is even more relevant now than when Karen first created her. I think however, she’s not using her to publicise her novel as much as taking her creativity in a different direction, building on her skills in performance. I really hope she makes it big – who knows, you might get to see her taking the stage in the US in a few years’ time (although she’d probably need a different love object to our venerable British actor).
I’m glad you liked the flash. Maybe, in the spirit of support, or narcissism, I should send it to Her Maj – it might be encouraging to think she might offer him only ninety-nine words (or even hundreds and forty characters)

Reply
Norah Colvin link
30/3/2017 11:24:23 am

Love this post, Anne, from beginning to end. Start with them laughing, finish with them laughing, and give them plenty to think about in the middle. What fun and how delightful to have Barbara Brownskirt take over the Polaris awards. Why wouldn't anyone love Judi Dench and write copious poems about it?
It is interesting the dual personality of the writer - a shrinking violet and a narcissistic extrovert. I wouldn't describe myself as quite the later, but we do need to have a little of that, as you say, to keep putting ourselves out there. Sometimes it's a battle. It guess it's the battle that keeps us going, but not too much.
I'm honoured that you would contemplate plagiarising one of my stories! From such a wonderful storyteller as you, I take that as quite a compliment. Now let me enjoy my moment for a while before you tell me that isn't what you meant!
Your flash is great. What a wonderful magic bagful of excuses. I'll have to keep some of those in mind next time a narcissist comes knocking on my door wanting to devour my precious time.

Reply
Annecdotist
30/3/2017 01:24:42 pm

Oh, I agree on the Judi Dench issue, although my personal crush is Juliet Stevenson.
Of course I meant I admired your flash and would have loved to have been able to claim as my own. And was pleased to be able to trace the link. So enjoy the compliment as I’m enjoying the return compliment that my opinion is worth something to you.
I wonder how it would work as if we all follow that line of giving the narcissist 99 words. I’m usually so annoyed at being talked at that I don’t give them any if I can get away with it, but maybe I could be a bit more generous if I know there’s a limit.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
3/4/2017 11:28:22 am

Must I admit I don't know Juliet?
I think there are many who will agree with you on that 99 word limit if you can get it passed. :)

Annecdotist
3/4/2017 05:41:33 pm

I wonder if she doesn’t get out of Britain much!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliet_Stevenson
She’s often doing voice-overs on the radio and did some magnificent crying in the film Truly Madly Deeply but I think I noticed her first on TV doing a thing to show how rape could be represented as a responsibly or irresponsibly on film.




Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Free ebook: click the image to claim yours.
    Picture
    OUT NOW: The poignant prequel to Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home
    Picture
    Find a review
    Picture
    Fictional therapists
    Picture
    Picture
    About Anne Goodwin
    Picture
    My published books
    entertaining fiction about identity, mental health and social justice
    Picture
    My latest novel, published May 2021
    Picture
    My debut novel shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize
    Picture
    Picture
    My second novel published May 2017.
    Picture
    Short stories on the theme of identity published 2018
    Anne Goodwin's books on Goodreads
    Sugar and Snails Sugar and Snails
    reviews: 32
    ratings: 52 (avg rating 4.21)

    Underneath Underneath
    reviews: 24
    ratings: 60 (avg rating 3.17)

    Becoming Someone Becoming Someone
    reviews: 8
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.56)

    GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4 GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4
    reviews: 4
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.44)

    The Best of Fiction on the Web The Best of Fiction on the Web
    reviews: 3
    ratings: 3 (avg rating 4.67)

    2022 Reading Challenge

    2022 Reading Challenge
    Anne has read 2 books toward their goal of 100 books.
    hide
    2 of 100 (2%)
    view books
    Picture
    Annecdotal is where real life brushes up against the fictional.  
    Picture
    Annecdotist is the blogging persona of Anne Goodwin: 
    reader, writer,

    slug-slayer, tramper of moors, 
    recovering psychologist, 
    struggling soprano, 
    author of three fiction books.

    LATEST POSTS HERE
    I don't post to a schedule, but average  around ten reviews a month (see here for an alphabetical list), 
    some linked to a weekly flash fiction, plus posts on my WIPs and published books.  

    Your comments are welcome any time any where.

    Get new posts direct to your inbox ...

    Enter your email address:

    or click here …

    RSS Feed


    Picture

    Tweets by @Annecdotist
    Picture
    New short story, “My Dirty Weekend”
    Picture
    Let’s keep in touch – subscribe to my newsletter
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Popular posts

    • Compassion: something we all need
    • Do spoilers spoil?
    • How to create a convincing fictional therapist
    • Instructions for a novel
    • Looking at difference, embracing diversity
    • Never let me go: the dilemma of lending books
    • On loving, hating and writers’ block
      On Pop, Pirates and Plagiarism
    • READIN' for HER reviews
    • Relishing the cuts
    • The fast first draft
    • The tragedy of obedience
    • Writers and therapy: a love-hate relationship?

    Categories/Tags

    All
    Animals
    Annecdotist Hosts
    Annecdotist On Tour
    Articles
    Attachment Theory
    Author Interviews
    Becoming Someone
    Being A Writer
    Blogging
    Bodies
    Body
    Bookbirthday
    Books For Writers
    Bookshops
    CB Book Group
    Character
    Childhood
    Christmas
    Classics
    Climate Crisis
    Coming Of Age
    Counsellors Cafe
    Creative Writing Industry
    Creativity
    Cumbria
    Debut Novels
    Disability
    Editing
    Emotion
    Ethics
    Ethis
    Family
    Feedback And Critiques
    Fictional Psychologists & Therapists
    Food
    Friendship
    Futuristic
    Gender
    Genre
    Getting Published
    Giveaways
    Good Enough
    Grammar
    Gratitude
    Group/organisational Dynamics
    Hero’s Journey
    History
    Humour
    Identity
    Illness
    Independent Presses
    Institutions
    International Commemorative Day
    Jane Eyre
    Kidney Disease
    Language
    LGBTQ
    Libraries
    Live Events
    Lyrics For The Loved Ones
    Marketing
    Matilda Windsor
    Memoir
    Memory
    Mental Health
    Microfiction
    Motivation
    Music
    MW Prequel
    Names
    Narrative Voice
    Nature / Gardening
    Networking
    Newcastle
    Nonfiction
    Nottingham
    Novels
    Pandemic
    Peak District
    Perfect Match
    Poetry
    Point Of View
    Politics
    Politics Current Affairs
    Presentation
    Privacy
    Prizes
    Psychoanalytic Theory
    Psychology
    Psycholoists Write
    Psychotherapy
    Race
    Racism
    Rants
    Reading
    Real Vs Imaginary
    Religion
    Repetitive Strain Injury
    Research
    Reviewing
    Romance
    Satire
    Second Novels
    Settings
    Sex
    Shakespeare
    Short Stories General
    Short Stories My Published
    Short Stories Others'
    Siblings
    Snowflake
    Somebody's Daughter
    Stolen Summers
    Storytelling
    Structure
    Sugar And Snails
    Technology
    The
    The Guestlist
    Therapy
    TikTok
    TNTB
    Toiletday
    Tourism
    Toxic Positivity
    Transfiction
    Translation
    Trauma
    Unconscious
    Unconscious, The
    Underneath
    Voice Recognition Software
    War
    WaSBihC
    Weather
    Work
    Writing Process
    Writing Technique

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Picture
    BLOGGING COMMUNITIES
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from havens.michael34, romana klee, mrsdkrebs, Kyle Taylor, Dream It. Do It., adam & lucy, dluders, Joybot, Hammer51012, jorgempf, Sherif Salama, eyspahn, raniel diaz, E. E. Piphanies, scaredofbabies, Nomadic Lass, paulternate, Tony Fischer Photography, archer10 (Dennis), slightly everything, impbox, jonwick04, country_boy_shane, dok1, Out.of.Focus, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Midwest Region, Elvert Barnes, guillenperez, Richard Perry, jamesnaruke, Juan Carlos Arniz Sanz, El Tuerto, kona99, maveric2003, !anaughty!, Patrick Denker, David Davies, hamilcar_south, idleformat, Dave Goodman, Sharon Mollerus, photosteve101, La Citta Vita, A Girl With Tea, striatic, carlosfpardo, Damork, Elvert Barnes, UNE Photos, jurvetson, quinn.anya, BChristensen93, Joelk75, ashesmonroe, albertogp123, >littleyiye<, mudgalbharat, Swami Stream, Dicemanic, lovelihood, anyjazz65, Tjeerd, albastrica mititica, jimmiehomeschoolmom