August 11, 2013 · 1:26 pm

On Publishing

Publishing

I’ve been thinking more and more about publishing recently; which is strange since I currently have nothing anywhere near publication standards. Yet it seems to be something that needs to always be on your mind as a writer. The entire purpose of writing is to get your work out there and get people reading it. So it seems to stand to logic that how you go about getting your work out there needs to be of central importance. There is a wealth of articles suggesting the best or easiest or newest ways of getting your work published. The general consensus is to self-publish or publish as an e-book.  But where has the physical hardback book gone?

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August 8, 2013 · 2:17 pm

Loss

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Huddled in the doorway, Jane’s eyes glance across the street towards me, as –

 

‘How can you say you’ve never had a girlfriend?’ she said, that first morning as she rolled over onto her side. She ran her fingers across my chest making little circles.

‘I just haven’t. You know the way girls are –’

‘What does that mean?’ She playfully gripped my chest hairs.

I must have drifted off because as my vision focused her soft blue eyes were searching mine.

‘Where did you go?’

‘They just can’t be…nobody can be trusted.’ I wriggled free and walked towards the bathroom. She slid between me and the door; her smile now distant.  

‘I can.’ She whispered as she pressed her lips against mine.

 

– she pushes him away from her embrace.

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August 6, 2013 · 4:50 pm

The Polite Big Brother?

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The panopticonic eye looms over the streetscape, simultaneously recording and judging the every move of the unfazed masses. Thecamera stands like a moral voyeur ready to pounce on the first sign of civil disobedience. The tagline ‘we’re watching out for you’ plastered across posters and signs. The strategically placed ‘out for’ carefully injected to pacify the historically-forgetful public. Are we to feel placated by the false sense of security? Relieved by Big Brother’s more gentle politically correct rejuvenation? Or do we simply have more pressing issues then our lost sense of privacy?

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August 3, 2013 · 2:01 pm

Going Nowhere

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It never ceases to amaze me how people can stay in one place their entire lives and be perfectly content.  I was told about a man who passed away a few weeks ago. He went to school, trained and worked his entire life in essentially one building. The thing that amazes me is how happy – I was told – this man was with what he got from life.

The world is full of different types of people, which is the essence of humanity and the reason it’s possible for us all to occupy this increasingly small planet. That said it seems so strange to me that people could live perfectly happy lives without ever having lived in more than one town, village, even house for that matter. How can this be all they need to live perfectly content lives?

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July 30, 2013 · 8:24 pm

Milton: The Writer as a Dairy Cow?

Cow

John Milton – after going blind in his later years – was heard to have walked around the house muttering ‘I want to be milked. I want to be milked.’ Though this seems like a symptom of dementia; it was in fact his way of describing his frustration to write when his squire was late to transcribe what he said. However, even with this qualification, the analogy does seem rather ludicrous at first glance. Can the act of writing really be described as the release a cow gains from being milked?

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July 26, 2013 · 4:11 pm

Hopeless Faith

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ACT I

 

A large crucifix hangs at the back of the stage. A long wooden bench stretches across the stage. A simple alter stands between the bench & the crucifix. A priest enters. He is a crouched-over old man with short, balding white hair and big Coke-Bottle glasses. He walks across the stage, blesses himself, genuflects and then sits on the bench facing the crucifix.

PRIEST: Good evening my Lord. I hope this day finds you well indeed like all the others.

[Takes out a napkin and wipes some sweat from his brow.]

PRIEST: This hot weather is not for the old I fear. It creeps into the blood and seems to accumulate there. It’s days like these that you miss those blissful days of youth. Those days when one could embrace the warmth in one’s heart without being overwhelmed by it. Ah, but sure those days are long gone from us now.

[His face curls into a boyish smile, and he supresses a giggle]

PRIEST: Mind you, the past did catch up to me today, all told. Well not so much ‘caught up’ more like found me again. I –

[A creak is heard, not unlike a door opening. PRIEST looks around checking for people.]

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July 22, 2013 · 8:54 pm

Writing: Daydreams & Childish Play?

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Freud asserts that ‘a piece of creative writing, like a daydream, is a continuation of, and a substitute for, what was once the play of childhood.’ Is that what the writer is doing when she write? Playing a game? In some ways, I have to agree.  The writer – like the child – gives into her imaginative side and allows herself to roam free from this world and into the ‘worlds’ of her own mind. I know myself that my own sanity at times relies on the fact that I do write.

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July 19, 2013 · 6:05 pm

The Unattainable Joy of Childhood

happiness

Why is it impossible to reach the level of uncontrollable excitement and happiness that we took for granted as children? I had a class recently of children – who are younger than the teenagers I usually teach – and I was amazed and astonished with the level of joy that children can gain from the simplest of stimuli.

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July 17, 2013 · 5:58 pm

The Writer’s World: An Inky Mist?

Does life become more or less meaningful if the world and everyone in it are possible fictional subject matter? Since setting up this blog I’ve been thinking more than ever about this question. As a writer you instinctively go through life looking for inspiration in the world around you. It’s a natural process and one that you don’t get a choice in. Well that’s the way that it is for me anyway. Everyone I meet is a potential character and everything I see could have a place in my fiction.

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July 9, 2013 · 4:05 pm

British Health & Safety: ‘Sorry, I can’t help you because I might get sued!’

British Health & Safety

I’m not sure how or when the proverbial health & safety snowball was nudged off the top of Everest. However, what is clear is that it is now careening its way across Britain. I’m sure that – like any poison worth its salt – it has been a slow and largely untraceable development. I am more astute then most in documenting the change given my short ‘working holiday’ visits to England with yearly gaps in between. I have spent the majority of the last few years in Second & Third World, so returns to the First World are always met with utter confusion. The Blame-Someone-Else culture is by no means a British phenomenon, rather a First World one.

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