Author: Miriam Drori

Author, editor, attempter of this thing called life. Social anxiety warrior. Re-Connections, a collection of short stories, published with Ocelot Press, 15/10/2025.

Categories
Books

Surviving Beauty

I offered to proofread this book. In the end, I fell in love with it and did a lot more than proofreading. I suppose what I did was closer to editing. Not that it needed a lot of editing. The author obviously has extensive background knowledge and has worked hard to weave an intriguing plot round the places and things he describes, with the help of some believable and well-rounded characters.

In addition, this novel tackles a difficult topic that needs to be discussed more: the exploitation of youthful beauty – the sale of children’s images.

David Rory O’Neill blogs here, and you can see descriptions of all his novels on his blog.

***

There’s going to be a gap on this blog while I catch up with real life. I’ll be back next month.

Categories
Bullying

Revisit or Revise

Sorry – it’s been a while. I’ve been wondering what to write about. Then I saw this question on Facebook from A Soldier’s Mother:

What is the single moment you wish you could live over again? Not necessarily to change anything – just to experience it again?

There were several replies. Most found it hard to pick out a single moment. Me too. What would I choose? The moment after giving birth? How wonderful to relive that moment without having to suffer what goes before it! But isn’t the suffering part of what makes that moment so special?

At this point, I could go off on a different tangent: the value of suffering. But I won’t – not for now, anyway.

So, what other moments do I want to relive? Our wedding day is another significant one. But there are other, less notable moments I could relive. Walking on the mountains of Switzerland or elsewhere, dancing, giving a presentation to an audience. I really enjoy all of those.

A Soldier’s Mother later said she decided not to ask what moment people wanted to change in their lives because it could make them sad. But I thought about it anyway. One moment stuck out. There must be others, but this one blocks the others from my mind.

I was fourteen. I’d been bullied for nine years, although I never thought of it as “bullying”. I decided to stop talking. It was the only thing I could think of doing that might stop them tormenting me. It worked – partially. And I’ve been suffering from that decision ever since.

I don’t deny that my life has been good and still is, but it could have been better and easier and less complicated without it.

So, I invite you to think about either of those questions (without being sad – I’m not). And, of course, you’re welcome to comment below (although if you’re looking at this page of this site – not just this particular post – the comment button is at the top of the post).

Categories
Books Israel

Booths and Tales

If you wandered around towns in Israel this past week, you will have seen strange constructions dotted around, fitted into every possible space – on the ground and on balconies. They’re temporary dwellings to remind us of similar dwellings in which the Children of Israel lived during the forty years that they wandered through the desert.

Yes, it was the festival of Succoth, during which Israelis, religious and secular, honour the tradition of building, eating in and sometimes sleeping in booths. I was lucky enough to be invited to eat in the Sukkah of David and Ruth:

In this wonderfully-decorated sukkah, I was treated to a delicious vegetarian meal and delightful company.

***

In other news, the Society of Authors has now made a recording of the Twitter story, for which I contributed the last line – read by a real actor. Here it is:

Categories
Bullying

My Crime

Yes, I have decided to reveal all. I realise this could have serious consequences for me, notably that they’ll be coming to take me away. I just don’t know who “they” are.

So this is it. I promise I didn’t make this up. No, in fact I borrowed it from mapelba, who wrote it this comment: “I was a first class criminal in high school. I broke the laws of fitting in.”

A great comment. I could have said it myself. If I’d been clever enough.

***

My next post may well highlight the wide diversity in shapes and sizes of boo….

Until next time 🙂

Categories
Social anxiety

It doesn’t go away

I think this video, which I discovered via the Mind site, describes social anxiety very well. It’s not all that similar to my experience, but it’s typical:

Having met people who claim to have rid themselves of anxiety but don’t appear to have done, I think this sentence makes a lot of sense:

You never get rid of anxiety completely, but you learn to manage it.

Categories
Books

Facts about Writers

Do you want to know what makes a writer tick?

Here are a couple of facts. The first is brilliantly funny. It’s here.

And if you’re still in the mood for something more serious, this is what Amos Oz says in A Tale of Love and Darkness:

… that sour blend of loneliness and lust for recognition, shyness and extravagance, deep insecurity and self-intoxicated egomania, that drives poets and writers out of their rooms to seek each other out, to rub shoulders with one another, bully, joke, condescend, feel each other, lay a hand on a shoulder or an arm round a waist, to chat and argue with little nudges, to spy a little, sniff out what is cooking in other pots, flatter, disagree, collude, be right, take offence, apologise, make amends, avoid each other, and seek each other’s company again.

The period Oz is discussing was a century ago, but what he says is still true today, the difference being that you can now do some of those things without leaving your room.

Happy writing!

Categories
Blogging

Blog-a-log

If you’re as old as me and grew up in the UK, you’ll probably remember watching two puppets, who used to say things like “Loblob” (for “lovely”) and “Flobberpop” ( for “flowerpot”). If you want, you can see them here:

I suppose that’s where this post’s title comes from, although it’s only vaguely connected to the topic.

Amos Oz’s grandmother used to say:

If you have no more tears left to weep, then don’t weep. Laugh.

I know that because I’m reading his memoir: A Tale of Love and Darkness.

I’ve shed a few virtual tears here about my childhood and what it did to me. Perhaps it’s time to laugh about it. If I can….

Categories
Uncategorized

Mnemonics Competition – Answers

Congratulations to Sarah Pearson, who worked out that

Rejoice heartily, your teacher has measles (Music)

is a way of remembering the spelling of RHYTHM.

No one got the others, which were, admittedly, harder:

LADPOCS (Geography)

is a list of factors affecting the weather: latitude, altitude, distance from the sea, prevailing winds, ocean currents, clouds and rainfall, slope of the land.

BODMAS (Maths)

This is the order of working out a mathematical expression: brackets, of, division and multiplication, addition and subtraction. In other words, if you have to work out 2(4×6+2), then you first multiply 4 by 6 (=24), then add 2 (=26), then multiply the whole thing by 2 (=52). Which doesn’t seem to be in the order of BODMAS, but it made sense at the time!

King Henry’s daughter makes delicious cream meringues (Maths)

This one I’m sure of: kilometres, hectometres, decametres, metres, decimetres, centimetres, millimetres.

“But Miss, what if it’s grams and not metres?“

Then it’s: King Henry’s daughter gnaws delicious cream meringues.

Categories
Uncategorized

Mnemonics Competition

There’s a competition in this post!

Today’s word for the day on Facebook Scrabble is ADJACENT. The definition is: near, next to. I immediately thought back a thousand years to English lessons, where we had to recite:

Abundant plenty
Abundant plenty
Abundant plenty
Adhere stick
Adhere stick
Adhere stick
Adjacent next to
Adjacent next to
Adjacent next to

I can’t remember what came after that, but I did once. Reciting these definitions definitely helped to improve my vocabulary.

There are a few other things I remember learning at school. Like “M-I-double S-I-double S-I-double P-I” and “N-E-C-E-double S-A-R-Y”.

And these:

LADPOCS (Geography)
BODMAS (Maths)
King Henry’s daughter makes (/gnaws) delicious cream meringues (Maths)
Rejoice heartily, your teacher has measles (Music)

So, there’s the competition. Do you know what any of those things in red mean? The first person (people) to tell me in the comments will get… I don’t know. But I’ll think of something.

People who were at school with me (you know who are) are not eligible to enter.

Moral: when all else is forgotten, it’s the mnemonics that stick.

Categories
Books Israel

Yesterday was a good day

Yesterday morning, I read Nicola Morgan’s blog post about  a tweetathon being organised by the Society of Authors as a protest against BBC Radio 4’s plan to cut the number of short stories it broadcasts. It seemed like a worthy idea and a fun activity, so at one o’clock my time I read the first line of the story and composed and tweeted my suggestion for the second line. At two o-clock I read the chosen second line and tried for the third line. Then the fourth. At four o’clock I tweeted my suggestion for the last line and took my laptop down to the kitchen to listen while I cleared up. Soon after five I thought I’d better check to make sure I hadn’t won  and discovered that I had. My last line was chosen to conclude the story.

Here’s the completed story. I’m thrilled.

Later on, I played Scrabble with my husband and my son, both good players, and I won easily.

Good things always come in threes, right? But there was no more time left yesterday. So, early this morning, I met my friend Marallyn and we sat outside in a quiet little cafe and discussed writing. We’ve often done this before, but not recently as Marallyn was away all summer. I’m looking forward to writing with her next week.