#i wish i was as smart and bookish as them but im not

[dollypartons95theses]

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[unproduciblesmackdown]

@uberoll-oystercrackers late night (early morning?) posting here but this is super nice ty and also again retroactively thank you additionally for all the long replies & kind tags you give

like really yeah it’s like, on the one hand, it’s fairly sucky having to have this thing where im always jumping the gun on considering someone Maybe An Friend and then having to remind myself / be reminded of the fact that like no probably not, which is true and yet sucks, which is just how some stuff is!! like sometimes stuff just is Not Good and is not ever going to Not Hurt, despite the fact you can kinda get better at living with it. and like this one isnt a huge deal even tho the larger problem of when ur like, lonely &/or isolated is kind of a whole real deal……

like it’s strange having these contradictory problems with it…..like, Being Myself has never really just been something i can Naturally do, so even just trying to be nice is like oh lord am i being ~manipulative~, and im always too prone to treat interactions like ive got to placate the other person, and then also just like….not having amazing social skills anyways in the sense that i know a lot of times i come across ~off~ to people and can’t really do a lot about that, but also, i feel like i’m always overcompensating for like, enthusiasm and just the fact i like to Get Silly and maybe i’ll act too cool~n~collected or come off like im trying to be all Smart and Smarmy and like jeez no……it doesnt help that when i was younger i generally preferred interacting with adults and so probably was trying to come across as clever and when i was wanting someone to like me i’d be real nervous and try to go too hard in seeming the opposite lol……oh the legacy of the time i found out my mom’s childhood friend who was funny and cool to us thought i was bookish (true) but like also snobby or something lmao like ah jeez i probably made too many sarcastic jokes about things….but oh well i was just like 10-ish at the time.

anyways tho i feel like that still kicks in and when i get the sense someone is cool and it’d be cool if they thought i was cool too i’m like Well So Then i gotta PLAY it cool!! and then like oh no am i coming across as a jerk? or an trying-to-be-an-intellectual?? i always have a lot of thoughts and i do go off when its like, also tied in to Opinions of mine, so im like, oh no am i coming across as trying to tell someone i think they should think exactly this?? or if i try to Be Witty and Tell Jokes are they just coming off as snarky b/c i hope not especially since a lot of times my actual Lighthearted Snark gets read as “i hate this and think its dumb af” lol. ahhhh i just do not know!! like, i wanna sort of dial back my Warmth b/c i can get enthused fast and i have a tendency to get too attached to ppl too fast, which really only sucks for me, but still!! yet i dont wanna rein it in too much and try to overcompensate and come off like im Eternally Unimpressed and don’t really care and etc etc and just…..idk its wild it’s hard to tell how i may be socializing awkwardly lmao ahhh….and on top of it all, i manage to be godawful at realizing when other ppl actually like me. like, that sort of sounds like The Opposite but i guess its just more of that problem of thinking that im going to always bother people….a lot of times it takes me like, months or a year (or two or three) to realize that someone who willingly interacts w me during that time probably does genuinely like me and is maybe a friend. wrow

uhhhh anyways lord that was all just. tangentially related. im Tangents

UH more to the point!!!! the good news is that yeah i don’t have to think “oh we’re totally real bffs” about anyone to really enjoy and appreciate Our Interactions…..and like i do have real appreciation and gratitude for basically all nice attention lol like, if a single reblog of smthing has kind comments, if someone cool just Likes a few posts, talking on occasion or like, ever at all. cuz for real The Little Stuff has always been a really good thing for years now, especially since there’s been plenty of times i havent really had anything happening In Person that was like….good interactions or ppl who were able to hear my actual thoughts and feelings about whatever and still be interested in interacting with me. cuz in terms of not being isolated and in what i find it easy to talk about and how, Online Interactions have been genuinely important and impactful in a positive way for like a solid decade now since i was able to be consistently Online and have my own accounts and stuff in the first place

so like yeah totally i really do appreciate stuff like that. i think its pretty incredible whenever anybody just like, thinks of me, and likes me. having None Of That Feeling is supremely trash and i so appreciate that i don’t have to feel like there’s nothing and that nobody out there in the world is aware of me, and yet i don’t need it to be that like, anyone is Constantly aware of me and like, intensely invested, cuz that’s just not how it goes lol and even kinda meaning a little bit to someone and having my tiny presence in their life be a positive one is a great thought and i really do appreciate it. Unfortunately for like….my entire life, The Contempt Of Others has been a consistent #thing i’m dealing with and it’s not great!! like yeah fortunately ive had the “felt so bad about myself that it eventually circled back around and now self loathing isnt too much of an issue for me” thing, but it still sucks experiencing it lol…..having any testimonials that like, whatever shit im talking about @ myself is fun to read, or i seem okay, or its fun to talk, etc etc, like thats fantastic really

and the kinds of leaf thoughts too, yeah, that kind of thing is nice to know too lol. i was hoping you were ok like, ten hours before i saw you posting again lol…..we’re out here……..

like yeah ldmbgglh whatever my weird problems are with being overexcited abt any Potential Friendship, and also being bad at realizing if people do like me, and also just being Weird and not great at talking, and overcompensating for whatever and maybe coming across too Coldly when rly im a fiery dumbass, wanting friends but also wanting not to be burned by getting ahead of things and being reminded that most ppl aren’t like, as starved for even just friendly interactions……..i’m better at navigating and handling it in some ways but c’est a m’ess!!! aaaggbfg

really what im trying to say is i do appreciate that sort of thing a lot yeah. i could very well Not be thought of by anybody and that would suck and the fact that i get to know that i am is a really great thing. maybe i couldve said this all better last night cuz i was kinda in my feelings abt Life a little but then also it was in a sort of déspresso way so, maybe this is okay lol….

also i worry i don’t express affection and appreciation enough!!! it’s not that i’m like Oh i don’t want to Commit to Being Friends ew…..it’s that i don’t wanna be the one pressuring someone else into being like uh oh i have to play up being invested in milo!! but then maybe my playing-it-cool just makes other ppl do the same thing or think i don’t care or something. like oh i appreciate this person a ton and think they’re great and they’ve been kind to me but if we only talk so often and obviously im not There for them and involved in their life in the way a ~real friend~ would be, maybe it would just ring hollow to say i love them, for example. lord lol……. it’s all “oh don’t dial down your kindness and affection” and yet also “but don’t wanna inadvertently push other people or Be Weird or get myself invested in something where i don’t mean as much to the other person not cuz they suck but because like, of course im just a fun internet acquaintance, which is fine!!” ahhhhhh the challenges. anyways!!!!!!!

the point is well i do like ppl yeah and i really appreciate ppl liking me. every now and then they do it online or even in person and thats just a Joy and i wish things were more secure!!! i also have to not even necessarily want ppl to get invested in me in case things go to shit too soon or whatever and it doesnt help that ~being open~ means talking abt depressingass stuff sometimes that like, i don’t mind being open about, but i also don’t want to put on other ppl. which, sidenote on that, im feeling relatively alright all these recent months even if im not technically thriving; it’s okay. it’s a hot mess! but that’s just How It Is sometimes!! it’s what it is. and ive had support from ppl in big and small ways that i know i could have had to go without and all the ways ppl are nice to me count for a whole lot and i have appreciated it, and do appreciate it, and will continue to appreciate it.

tldr 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

[lilietsblog]

tag meme

tagged by @kerowyn-ankh​ man you keep tagging me in these wonderful things and I keep leaving them open in a tab to do later and then just. not doing that. im so sorry. i love them. please do this forever

Name: Hanna! or Anna. If you call me Ganna you'll be technically correct but I might just cry. LILIET FOR Y'ALL MY NAME IS LILIET

Nicknames: eeeh I'm assuming you are not trying to refer to my memories of being bullied from kindergarten to middle school nor asking about all the vast landscape of RP characters I've made on RP forums where your character's name had to be your nickname... so, um, Liliet. Or if you're asking for pet names / diminutives for my actual real life name, Anya, Anyuta... basically anything that Russian allows except Nyusha and Nyura I will fucking deck you for that

Zodiac sign: Equius what do you mean that is not a zodiac sign

Height: 156 cm

Orientation: aro ace last I checked

Nationality: Ukrainian

Favorite fruit: THIS IS LIKE ASKING WHICH OF MY PARENTS I LOVE MORE. I'll go with "tomato" just to underscore the feeling of being utterly lost that I experience looking at this question.

Favorite season: UHHHHHH. I HAVE TROUBLE PLAYING FAVORITES OKAY. I'll go with "summer" I guess bc WALKING BAREFOOT ON THE GRASS. And hiking. And swimming. And horrible, horrible stuffy heat you cannot escape from okay look I have trouble playing favorites okay

Favorite book: AAAA. HOW. ALL OF THEM. You know what I'll go with "Demon's Dance" by Zimina bc while she has very tenuous grasp of spelling, punctuation and grammar of the language she writes in her books have brought me hours of joy. It's trash. It's my favorite trash.

Favorite flower: uhhh roses. They are pretty. There's a reason they are a popular choice. SO MANY COLORS

Favorite scent: outdoors without exhaust fumes. I AM A BIG CITY CHILD. I literally don't give a fuck what it smells like give me cow manure and rotting swamp JUST AS LONG AS IT'S NOT EXHAUST OR CIGARETTE SMOKE.

Favorite color: fuuuuuuu this is REALLY HARD OKAY. I DO NOT DISCRIMINATE AGAINST COLORS. Maybe pink but like so many different shades of pink it's not even the same color so I guess I'm cheating by picking pink? Whatever.

Favorite animal: rats, cats, foxes, dogs, ravens, dolphins, rabbits, horses yes I did in fact give up thank you for noticing.

Coffee, tea, or hot cocoa: Tea, because it's much easier to make tasty than cocoa, doesn't cause headaches like coffee (COFFEE I LOVE YOU WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN TO ME) and has SO MANY VARIATIONS. I love all of them. Except the gross ones. Which ones taste gross to me varies day by day but thankfully tea is VAST AND DIVERSE.

Average sleep hours: hmmm if I say I go to sleep at 11 pm and get up at 7:30 that gives me 8:30. Sounds about right. Except for when I go to sleep at 2 am :>

Cat or dog person: I am a rat person. I love rats. I want to get a rat as soon as we move to our new house. I also love cats and am a cat person and have dreamed of having a cat for years and now my cuddlebug cat is my greatest joy. I love every single dog I've ever interacted with and we are going to get a dog and I'm so happy and I'm a dog person. I DO NOT DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN WONDERFUL AND JOYOUS PETS OKAY

Favorite fictional character: urgh. You are not making it easy on me. Basically I have several Types that I love every single one of: 1) nerdy stoic/emotionless bookish smart girl not good with people, aka me. Twilight Sparkle, Ayanami Rei (yes I group them together here bc I love them in the same way), Hermione Granger, the list goes on. You know them when you see them; 2) a kid who's been doing horrible things because of parental issues and struggles with the concept of empathy and being a good person bc they weren't really taught how. Vriska Serket, Marvel's Loki, I KNOW THEY ARE ALL TERRIBLE THAT'S THE SELECTION CRITERION BUT THEY ARE MY CHILDREN AND I WILL PROTECT AND GUIDE THEM TILL THE END OF MY DAYS; 3) a dark-haired (preferably LONG haired) stoic/emotionless pretty guy who's Been Through Shit and as a result acts offstandish to everyone but really just Suffers. Often overlaps with 2), like Marvel's Loki. Popular examples include Uchiha Sasuke. The fucking trashiest examples I get angry at myself for even acknowledging include Kylo Ren. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry.

Apart from that, I also love TRAITS in characters that make them my absolute faves: - hypercompetence. Does not necessarily mean "can do anything they need to" but "has a very good idea of their own ability and can tell how hard a challenge will be realistically ahead of time". That's literally all I ask for how hard is it to provide writers (I am an anxious baby okay this is Important For My Mental Health) - hyperempathy. Gimme Heart of Gold who will sympathize with and forgive literally the person who is currently trying to kill them. Gimme someone who is legitimately tortured over not being able to help everyone at the same time and is running themselves to death forgetting self-care. GIMME - trickster traits. Like yeah I fucking hate pranks and the kind of joke where you're supposed to know the other person is not speaking seriously but tricksters - strategists, pranksters, shapeshifters, teleporters - are still delightful and wonderful and REALLY FUN. OH LOOK THIS IS ALSO LOKI FUCK THAT GUY FOR HOW MUCH OF MY HEADSPACE HE TAKES UP. wait not even a guy all the time Loki's genderfluid PRONOUNS ARE HARD - a politician who is selflessly working for the good of people. I WISH I WAS JOKING BUT I AM NOT. I have SUCH a hard-on for political fantasy and GO WATCH LOG HORIZON IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT. This is one of my most favorite things in the book world

actually now that I've remembered Log Horizon I would like to nominate Shiroe as my Absolute Fucking Fave bc while tumblr provides very little content re: him and I cannot flourish in a fandom without other people, he is like the dense concentration of all my favorite things in one character. I can't even say that it's a flaw that he's a guy bc a certain flavor of selflessness and caring is much more fun in a guy bc girls are already socially expected to be like that and Fuck That Noise. I love him the way he is I love EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM /goes off to cry also he's aro ace fight me

Number of blankets you sleep with: one, but a REALLY BIG AND HEAVY one. I don't care how hot it is I will wrap myself around the blanket instead of the blanket around myself I NEED IT

Dream trip: hmm. This is actually an interesting question because I've never thought of it that way. I'd like to go everywhere possible but logistics of travel are hard and frustrating and I like hiking and grrrhh. I dunno. I want to be able to fly

Blog created: 4/13 2014, around midnight. I WILL NEVER FORGET

[allofbeercom]

Susan Hill: ‘I am not pro-Trump! Really? Do people think that of me?’

The novelist caused a stir this week by accusing a bookshop of anti-Trump censorship. Even Michael Gove waded in. But shed rather talk about her new book, and leaving her husband of 40 years for a woman

Susan Hill barrels around the corner to our table, which is tucked away in a noisy alcove of the bar at the Covent Garden hotel in London. She looks pleased to see me, if a little apprehensive. That is not surprising: this week, she set off a storm of outrage that had her running for cover as much from her publishers, Chatto & Windus, as from the keyboard critics who piled in on social media.

In an article in the Spectator, she announced that she had pulled out of an event because the bookshop concerned was promoting anti-Trump authors. It was not: the Book Hive in Norwich, which outed itself as the target for Hills ire, was merely the conduit for novels about totalitarianism donated by a local reading group as gifts for customers. The books included George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four and Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale.

Hill sits down with a thump. She is a small woman who wears her peppered hair cut short. How are you? I ask. Although in emails the day before she was adamant that the Book Hive debacle is off the agenda, she seems relieved by the question. One small article and the world went mad, she says, clutching at a necklace of oversized turquoise beads. Have they got nothing else to worry about?

It sounds disingenuous. I look the 75-year-old writer of The Woman in Black in the eye; she returns my gaze steadily. No, she says, to my unasked question: surely someone who has written more than 30 books, from ghost stories to crime novels, short-story collections and literary novels, cannot be naive to the impact of an article in a national magazine denouncing an independent bookseller? She drums her fingers on the metal table. I dont want to talk about that, because this is not about that and the publishers will kill me, she snaps back. In an instant she adds: Frankly, the less oxygen you give it Her initial bluster disappears with a sigh, like air from a balloon. Its all about nothing. Has nothing happened in the world that people go crazy?

The spat has shaken her, however, and although she has told me she will not talk about it, she alludes to it throughout the interview with shoulder shrugs, sighs and comments. Before we part, she says of the Book Hive proprietor, Henry Layte: If he rang up and said, will you come and talk to us, of course I would. Only if he said he wanted me to. I wouldnt want to walk in there uninvited. She adds hastily: I dont suppose he would let me in his shop.

But she has not invited me to London to talk about that, she insists. She wants to talk about her new novel, From the Heart. A slight tale of 211 pages, it is a coming-of-age story set in the early 1960s. Olive Piper is an awkward and bookish teenager whose escape from home is blighted by an unplanned pregnancy and then a doomed love affair with another woman. It is written in the Whitbread winners characteristically pared-down style not a word wasted which adds great impact to the books two big reveals.

And there is one particular aspect of the novel Hill particularly wishes to talk about: Pipers love affair with another woman, because it has parallels with her own life. The unexpected happened to me: I fell in love with another woman who fell in love with me. The woman is screenwriter and producer Barbara Machin, creator of Waking the Dead, for whom Hill left her husband of almost 40 years, the respected Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells, six years ago.

Taking a sip of ginger beer with lots of ice, she begins to say more, but her words are drowned out by the clatter of empty champagne bottles being upended into an ice bucket at the bar, followed by the loud rasp of the cappuccino machine. She throws a sharp look at the barman and we wait in silence until the noise subsides. The love affair with Machin bloomed over drinks in Cotswold pubs, where the two would meet to discuss the screenwriters adaptation of Hills Serrailler series for ITV. We had met in Cheltenham because I was doing some gigs at the festival, Hill recalls. Although she regarded her future lover as a very nice woman when they met, she says she was just shellshocked at the gradual dawning of a love affair.

She says it was her first adventure into same-sex relationships apart from a crush shared with other girls on a geography teacher at her Scarborough convent school. She got married and we were all devastated. For a moment her voice, from which Yorkshire has long since been scooped out, becomes wistful. It absolutely never crossed my mind that I had any attraction for women or was attracted to women, she adds. Three years before marrying Stanley, her heart was broken when her fiance, David Lepine, the organist at Coventry Cathedral, died suddenly of a heart attack in 1972. He was the love of my life, she says, and insists that throughout her long and happy marriage she never had an inkling that she might not be straight.

You fall in love with the person, she says, with another twist of the beads. That person could be the same sex or the opposite sex, but you fall for that person. And I felt very much that [Barbara] was somebody whom I liked. Machin was very warm and attractive, she continues, then laughs. The woman thing, I thought, Heavens! Her eyes pop at the idea.

Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

As she speaks, I become aware how Hill has softened her appearance since I last saw her, 10 years ago. Back then she dressed like a Gloucestershire landowners wife, in brogues and Barbour. Today she wears coordinated bright colours: a long-sleeved cotton top matches the beads, and a bright red handbag on the floor beside her matches a red undershirt only visible at the neck. The ensemble suggests a confidence about her appearance that I havent seen before.

In a trade in which the cliche is to be a Hampstead liberal, Hill stands out for her forthright support of the Conservative party, of which she is a member. And while other writers will not be surprised to hear that she is a party member, they will be surprised by her claim that, Im not very rightwing. I certainly wouldnt be Ukip or anything. That may be true, but some of her closest and most vocal supporters number among the most vociferous elements of the libertarian right. Asked where she places herself in the political firmament, she replies: Theresa May. Trouble is, I dont know any of them any more. She does know Michael Gove, however, who stepped into the row over the Book Hive with a tweet that said: Susan Hill is a brilliant writer and her detractors are illiberal bigots.

Essex Serpent writer and Norfolk-based novelist Sarah Perry bit back at Gove with a tweet saying: 1. Nobody queries for a second her genius, MICHAEL. 2. Disagreeing is not detracting, MICHAEL. 3. It is not bigoted to disagree, MICHAEL. This was on top of comments directed at Hill by the likes of the Father Ted creator, Graham Linehan, who tweeted: Ha! Even fonder of my local bookshop now. What a stupid crank Susan Hill is. Hill will not answer questions about Goves involvement, but their friendship is strong Hill has defended the would-be Tory leader on threads posted about him on Facebook. What she will say is that her support for May and Gove is firmly tied to their stance on Brexit.

Again, it is an unusual stance to take among novelists, who last year were overwhelmingly in favour of remain. Why does she want to leave the EU? Her response becomes less coherent than anything else she has said in our interview: I voted to leave because … I am old enough to remember very clearly the last referendum … I am not sure about this … but watching over the years more and more rules coming to us from an unelected body … I dont mean just the stupid things to do with health and safety, but taking away every countrys individual national decisions … Her words fade out. When I challenge her about the truth of this, she shrugs and replies: Anyway, I just think Brussels costs so much money. Like her criticism of the Book Hive, it seems as much about supposition as information.

Hill is also a devout Christian, a high Anglican, but doesnt see any contradiction with coming out as gay. I long ago gave over any anxieties about that, she says with a wave of ringless fingers. The break up of the marriage has been very amicable, she insists. There have been no harsh words. Wells, she says, is happy to be queen bee in Stratford-upon-Avon, and there are no plans to divorce. The marriage, she believes, would have ended anyway. You do pull apart. Once your children leave home, you either become a tighter unit or you become the opposite, and that happened to us. Her daughters, Jessica and Clemency, although shocked at first, have settled into a good relationship with Barb, as Hill refers to her new partner.

But the parallels between the writer and Olive are not just about sexuality. Born in 1942, Hill would have been Olives contemporary. Both were awkward teenagers, whose bookish demeanour masked a shoot-from-the-lip habit that speaks first and asks questions later. Hill blames her inability to watch her words upon her Yorkshire childhood. In Yorkshire they will say what they think and people will say, How rude! But it isnt meant to be. It is meant to be just straightforward.

Straightforward it may be, but forthright criticism of friends on Facebook has left wounds. She somehow feels she has the right to take people down a peg, one such victim confided. She can be cantankerous, says another, yet she inspires powerful loyalty.

She looks genuinely shocked when I say this to her. Kindness is important to her and the idea that she has left friends smarting after voicing her opinions on social media stings. I dont think I write many unkind things … I try really hard … she says, all bluster gone. That she is kind is attested by many women who have received her support given quietly and without fuss when their relationships have turned abusive and they have needed to escape.

Hill herself has been calloused by painful experiences in her life. As well as the death of Lepine, she had several miscarriages after the birth of her first daughter, the novelist Jess Rushton, and lost her second child, Imogen, five weeks after she was born. A hand-painted box given to her at the time by the writer Bel Mooney remains a treasured possession. However you lose a child, she says, all sorts of people come out of the woodwork and, even if the circumstances are different, tell you that it happened to them. It is a real human bond.

Like Olive in her novel, Hill was told by her mother from an early age that she was not attractive. It still pains her. When your mother says: Oh, no one will ever look at you, a plain face like that, you believe it, dont you? she says, the confidence punched from her face by the recollection. In the book, Olives schoolfriend Margaret Reid is the pretty girl who was seen in town with her boyfriend, Hill says, admitting that such girls were granted a confidence about life that she never had.

The photographer interrupts us. Its time to take her picture, and her partner is waiting for her. I have one last question: why did you defend Trump? She splutters in disbelief. I am not pro-Trump! she almost shouts in reply. People should read what I wrote, she adds, then: But I am not talking about that. But she looks at me again and says: Really? Do people think that of me? I point out that she has been off Twitter for a few days. Christ! she replies. Im a Conservative. I am not a Trumpian Republican … apart from anything I think he is not very bright. With that she scoops up her things, gives me a hug and scurries out of the bar in pursuit of the photographer.

Susan Hills From the Heart is published by Chatto & Windus. To order a copy for 9.34 (RRP 10.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/susan-hill-i-am-not-pro-trump-really-do-people-think-that-of-me/

[lettuce-seize-the-day]

this is just a sad rambling because i have no one to sad ramble to and because my journal has had almost identical entries over the past few weeks and i need a new medium of venting.

recently i have become obsessed with the book the perks of being a wallflower. i have read it twice this week and will probably read it at least one more time before returning it to the library. idk man. everything just really sucks. the part where he has no friends and is like “i wish god or my sister or sam or my mom or just someone would tell me what is wrong with me in a way that makes sense so i can stop being like this” is honestly all i can think about. idk man just, the fact that someone else at some point had to feel this shitty and be this completely alone and to end up successful and tell a beautiful story like that is just so important to me. but the thing that sucks is that this book character is kind of the only person that understands me and is willing to spend time with me. because he lives in a book. that i carry in my backpack. like theres no choice. its a fucking book. but its all i fucking have. and it feels pathetic, but at the same time i feel blessed to have something at all.

like when i first read it in middle school and i had to bring in a permission slip from my mum because it had the word fuck in it as well as some gay characters, i knew it was a really important book because there was just something so very real about it but i was too young to really understand. and i read it again freshman year because i was a freshman and it was appropriate and i picked up a lot of things that i didnt the first time. and at some point last year i read it and the same thing happened because there is just so much to it that you find something new every time you read it, you really do. and now im reading it because the parts where he has absolutely no friends and no one wants to talk to him and he feels like he should just stop existing? thats me. thats all i fucking feel.

i mean you guys know how much i loved theatre and how it gave me a sense of purpose and made me glad that my suicide attempts were unsuccessful. and now? now i wish i could quit the musical. i said it. if i could go back to january me, who was preparing for my audition, i would tell myself not to audition. its not fun at all and i dont have any fucking friends. do you have any idea how fucking lonely it is to be in an activity like theatre, in a musical as huge a cast and crew as the little mermaid, and still not have any ffriends? you feel like a rock in a stream. everyone is all around you and you just stand still and watch them because you dont know what else to do.

and i know its all my fault because i dont know how to make or keep a goddamned friend and i know that everyone else is pretty or thin or talented or smart or funny or has a good personality or they just have something going for them and theyre not socially awkward or mentally ill or terribly bookish or only friends with the school librarian or just dont have a fucking tumblr account so i know that i am the only one to blame but i dont know how to stop being like this and the shitty thing is that at least charlie had someone to write his letters to. i dont have anyone to write anonymous letters to. i wish i did. i wish i could be completely anonymous to someone and have someone that cared about me at all but all i have is this freaking keyboard and this stupid blog and my stupid beautiful cats. and all of these things are great (except this fucking blog. fuck this blog) and im grateful for them but jesus they are the only fucking things i HAVE and its PATHETIC and i KNOW IM THE PROBLEM HERE but i just dont know what to do differently so that i can make a fucking friend. i dont know. i dont know. like is it BECAUSE im fat? is it BECAUSE im an idiot? is it BECAUSE im mentally ill? like because i know plenty of people that are one or all of these things and people still care about them. i just wish i knew what was wrong with me. i really do. i dont know how much longer i can go without a friend.

[viralhottopics]

Susan Hill: I am not pro-Trump! Really? Do people think that of me?

The novelist caused a stir this week by accusing a bookshop of anti-Trump censorship. Even Michael Gove waded in. But shed rather talk about her new book, and leaving her husband of 40 years for a woman

Susan Hill barrels around the corner to our table, which is tucked away in a noisy alcove of the bar at the Covent Garden hotel in London. She looks pleased to see me, if a little apprehensive. That is not surprising: this week, she set off a storm of outrage that had her running for cover as much from her publishers, Chatto & Windus, as from the keyboard critics who piled in on social media.

In an article in the Spectator, she announced that she had pulled out of an event because the bookshop concerned was promoting anti-Trump authors. It was not: the Book Hive in Norwich, which outed itself as the target for Hills ire, was merely the conduit for novels about totalitarianism donated by a local reading group as gifts for customers. The books included George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four and Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale.

Hill sits down with a thump. She is a small woman who wears her peppered hair cut short. How are you? I ask. Although in emails the day before she was adamant that the Book Hive debacle is off the agenda, she seems relieved by the question. One small article and the world went mad, she says, clutching at a necklace of oversized turquoise beads. Have they got nothing else to worry about?

It sounds disingenuous. I look the 75-year-old writer of The Woman in Black in the eye; she returns my gaze steadily. No, she says, to my unasked question: surely someone who has written more than 30 books, from ghost stories to crime novels, short-story collections and literary novels, cannot be naive to the impact of an article in a national magazine denouncing an independent bookseller? She drums her fingers on the metal table. I dont want to talk about that, because this is not about that and the publishers will kill me, she snaps back. In an instant she adds: Frankly, the less oxygen you give it Her initial bluster disappears with a sigh, like air from a balloon. Its all about nothing. Has nothing happened in the world that people go crazy?

The spat has shaken her, however, and although she has told me she will not talk about it, she alludes to it throughout the interview with shoulder shrugs, sighs and comments. Before we part, she says of the Book Hive proprietor, Henry Layte: If he rang up and said, will you come and talk to us, of course I would. Only if he said he wanted me to. I wouldnt want to walk in there uninvited. She adds hastily: I dont suppose he would let me in his shop.

But she has not invited me to London to talk about that, she insists. She wants to talk about her new novel, From the Heart. A slight tale of 211 pages, it is a coming-of-age story set in the early 1960s. Olive Piper is an awkward and bookish teenager whose escape from home is blighted by an unplanned pregnancy and then a doomed love affair with another woman. It is written in the Whitbread winners characteristically pared-down style not a word wasted which adds great impact to the books two big reveals.

And there is one particular aspect of the novel Hill particularly wishes to talk about: Pipers love affair with another woman, because it has parallels with her own life. The unexpected happened to me: I fell in love with another woman who fell in love with me. The woman is screenwriter and producer Barbara Machin, creator of Waking the Dead, for whom Hill left her husband of almost 40 years, the respected Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells, six years ago.

Taking a sip of ginger beer with lots of ice, she begins to say more, but her words are drowned out by the clatter of empty champagne bottles being upended into an ice bucket at the bar, followed by the loud rasp of the cappuccino machine. She throws a sharp look at the barman and we wait in silence until the noise subsides. The love affair with Machin bloomed over drinks in Cotswold pubs, where the two would meet to discuss the screenwriters adaptation of Hills Serrailler series for ITV. We had met in Cheltenham because I was doing some gigs at the festival, Hill recalls. Although she regarded her future lover as a very nice woman when they met, she says she was just shellshocked at the gradual dawning of a love affair.

She says it was her first adventure into same-sex relationships apart from a crush shared with other girls on a geography teacher at her Scarborough convent school. She got married and we were all devastated. For a moment her voice, from which Yorkshire has long since been scooped out, becomes wistful. It absolutely never crossed my mind that I had any attraction for women or was attracted to women, she adds. Three years before marrying Stanley, her heart was broken when her fiance, David Lepine, the organist at Coventry Cathedral, died suddenly of a heart attack in 1972. He was the love of my life, she says, and insists that throughout her long and happy marriage she never had an inkling that she might not be straight.

You fall in love with the person, she says, with another twist of the beads. That person could be the same sex or the opposite sex, but you fall for that person. And I felt very much that [Barbara] was somebody whom I liked. Machin was very warm and attractive, she continues, then laughs. The woman thing, I thought, Heavens! Her eyes pop at the idea.

Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

As she speaks, I become aware how Hill has softened her appearance since I last saw her, 10 years ago. Back then she dressed like a Gloucestershire landowners wife, in brogues and Barbour. Today she wears coordinated bright colours: a long-sleeved cotton top matches the beads, and a bright red handbag on the floor beside her matches a red undershirt only visible at the neck. The ensemble suggests a confidence about her appearance that I havent seen before.

In a trade in which the cliche is to be a Hampstead liberal, Hill stands out for her forthright support of the Conservative party, of which she is a member. And while other writers will not be surprised to hear that she is a party member, they will be surprised by her claim that, Im not very rightwing. I certainly wouldnt be Ukip or anything. That may be true, but some of her closest and most vocal supporters number among the most vociferous elements of the libertarian right. Asked where she places herself in the political firmament, she replies: Theresa May. Trouble is, I dont know any of them any more. She does know Michael Gove, however, who stepped into the row over the Book Hive with a tweet that said: Susan Hill is a brilliant writer and her detractors are illiberal bigots.

Essex Serpent writer and Norfolk-based novelist Sarah Perry bit back at Gove with a tweet saying: 1. Nobody queries for a second her genius, MICHAEL. 2. Disagreeing is not detracting, MICHAEL. 3. It is not bigoted to disagree, MICHAEL. This was on top of comments directed at Hill by the likes of the Father Ted creator, Graham Linehan, who tweeted: Ha! Even fonder of my local bookshop now. What a stupid crank Susan Hill is. Hill will not answer questions about Goves involvement, but their friendship is strong Hill has defended the would-be Tory leader on threads posted about him on Facebook. What she will say is that her support for May and Gove is firmly tied to their stance on Brexit.

Again, it is an unusual stance to take among novelists, who last year were overwhelmingly in favour of remain. Why does she want to leave the EU? Her response becomes less coherent than anything else she has said in our interview: I voted to leave because … I am old enough to remember very clearly the last referendum … I am not sure about this … but watching over the years more and more rules coming to us from an unelected body … I dont mean just the stupid things to do with health and safety, but taking away every countrys individual national decisions … Her words fade out. When I challenge her about the truth of this, she shrugs and replies: Anyway, I just think Brussels costs so much money. Like her criticism of the Book Hive, it seems as much about supposition as information.

Hill is also a devout Christian, a high Anglican, but doesnt see any contradiction with coming out as gay. I long ago gave over any anxieties about that, she says with a wave of ringless fingers. The break up of the marriage has been very amicable, she insists. There have been no harsh words. Wells, she says, is happy to be queen bee in Stratford-upon-Avon, and there are no plans to divorce. The marriage, she believes, would have ended anyway. You do pull apart. Once your children leave home, you either become a tighter unit or you become the opposite, and that happened to us. Her daughters, Jessica and Clemency, although shocked at first, have settled into a good relationship with Barb, as Hill refers to her new partner.

But the parallels between the writer and Olive are not just about sexuality. Born in 1942, Hill would have been Olives contemporary. Both were awkward teenagers, whose bookish demeanour masked a shoot-from-the-lip habit that speaks first and asks questions later. Hill blames her inability to watch her words upon her Yorkshire childhood. In Yorkshire they will say what they think and people will say, How rude! But it isnt meant to be. It is meant to be just straightforward.

Straightforward it may be, but forthright criticism of friends on Facebook has left wounds. She somehow feels she has the right to take people down a peg, one such victim confided. She can be cantankerous, says another, yet she inspires powerful loyalty.

She looks genuinely shocked when I say this to her. Kindness is important to her and the idea that she has left friends smarting after voicing her opinions on social media stings. I dont think I write many unkind things … I try really hard … she says, all bluster gone. That she is kind is attested by many women who have received her support given quietly and without fuss when their relationships have turned abusive and they have needed to escape.

Hill herself has been calloused by painful experiences in her life. As well as the death of Lepine, she had several miscarriages after the birth of her first daughter, the novelist Jess Rushton, and lost her second child, Imogen, five weeks after she was born. A hand-painted box given to her at the time by the writer Bel Mooney remains a treasured possession. However you lose a child, she says, all sorts of people come out of the woodwork and, even if the circumstances are different, tell you that it happened to them. It is a real human bond.

Like Olive in her novel, Hill was told by her mother from an early age that she was not attractive. It still pains her. When your mother says: Oh, no one will ever look at you, a plain face like that, you believe it, dont you? she says, the confidence punched from her face by the recollection. In the book, Olives schoolfriend Margaret Reid is the pretty girl who was seen in town with her boyfriend, Hill says, admitting that such girls were granted a confidence about life that she never had.

The photographer interrupts us. Its time to take her picture, and her partner is waiting for her. I have one last question: why did you defend Trump? She splutters in disbelief. I am not pro-Trump! she almost shouts in reply. People should read what I wrote, she adds, then: But I am not talking about that. But she looks at me again and says: Really? Do people think that of me? I point out that she has been off Twitter for a few days. Christ! she replies. Im a Conservative. I am not a Trumpian Republican … apart from anything I think he is not very bright. With that she scoops up her things, gives me a hug and scurries out of the bar in pursuit of the photographer.

Susan Hills From the Heart is published by Chatto & Windus. To order a copy for 9.34 (RRP 10.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99.

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from Susan Hill: I am not pro-Trump! Really? Do people think that of me?