dark am i, yet lovely, a lily among thorns, majestic as stars in procession

dark am i, yet lovely, a lily among thorns, majestic as stars in procession
WHY DESTROY YOURSELF? WHY DIE BEFORE YOUR TIME? THE KEEPERS OF THE HOUSE TREMBLE. DESIRE IS NO LONGER STIRRED. DO NOT CONFORM ANY LONGER TO THE PATTERN OF THIS WORLD.

Thursday 24 October 2013

Finishing, Outlining, Drinking Pop


Recently, a little system has been discovered regarding getting small sessions of writing done. It’s all about location, device, time of day, and no more fukken Bic Fine longhand. It’s hard at the moment to imagine starting another book afresh from new. It’s sound advice to get crackin’ on the next as soon as the bottom line is starting to dry on your last but it’s also good advice to stop being a saddo and go get a life. The void can fast approach after a self-satisfied ending so it’s handy that other things needing to be done are already well underway and have been so for years. The beginning is not the hardest part but it requires big ideas and motivation. During other sticking points, you can draw on what you already have down in ink. 300 words a session now, in the last phase, is not at all too shabby. Little consistent building blocks, baby. 500+ is a bonus.

All the notes and outlining for this book amount to a couple of pages of A4. (Jeffrey ‘Loves Beaver’ Deaver spends up to nine months outlining before he writes a single word! Er, hello! Is he for real or what man? Imagine him prepping for a bodybuilding show? The winner would be cashing his cheque before ole Jeffrey had ironed his posing knickers! Too many twists define commercial tales. Too many twists, not enough risks, at least 500 pages, and twenny quotes of praise from periodicals you’ve never heard of in the front matter). Not hatin’, just sayin’. The best goal a book can achieve is to make the reader forget they are reading a book, agreed? An excess of formula is a constant reminder.

Where were we? Oh yeah. An essential trick is the spider graph. Learned this during high school revision. A couple of these with half a dozen words jotted around one keyword in a cloud in the middle can produce enough gas to charge through a whole fat chapter. Following a direction feels safe. Knowing exactly where you are and where you’re going does too. It’s when you detour into pure sentence-by-sentence make-it-up-as-you-go-along scenes when the surprises appear. Your imagination burps up some random nuggets. The good news is that there’s no such thing as a wrong turn. Not sober, anyway.

If you don’t surprise yourself you can’t expect to surprise anyone else. All writers are making up the same stuff. Lots of geezers are thinking the same thoughts. Loads of folk say today’s pop scene is dire. They slate the performers. Now that’s propa negative hatin’ coz there’s no appreciation or respect. Have you seen any recent pop videos lately? Like, dude. They’re sick. Too many shots, too many costume changes, too much eyelash fluttering, but artistically and visually, they’re kinda hard to beat. Think of a good idea right now on the spot and the pop vids are probably ahead of you. The choreography and cinematography in some of them are truly ill.  We’re all in a collective consciousness, big fish and small fish alike, a network of backbones all linked. Most have got internet access, but their modems ain’t on...so to speak…as in Smart TV, Thick Owner. Get me blood? It’s a race to get the best ideas first.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

Another Dreadful Day Tomorrow

Simple photo. No spicing up, no text, no nothing. Let’s see what winter has in store for us all then shall we. Here in Google's digital realm all the elements are electric. Never forget the second half of a sentence from Fred the Weatherman one evening. He described the night’s conditions as normal, sleet or rain etc, but he finished with, “…and another dreadful day tomorra.” So, for example, “We’ve got rain and sleet in the east, and another dreadful day tomorra.” That was it then. He concluded the weather report with those final words. It was one of those isolated statements you often hear when you’re channel hopping. And another dreadful day tomorra.  

Wednesday 9 October 2013