Ideas

Hi ya. I hope that this is reaching you well. All is good with me at the moment. I was tempted to use pornography and drugs last night, but I remembered that I don’t own any pornography. I would have had to have waited until the loop shop opened today to buy some nice new novelty interracial content (£50 for 3 DVDs) but in the end I simply couldn’t be arsed. I thought of the Blood of Christ instead.

Great news. I think I’ve got the first inclins of an idea for a new book. It will be about psychosis, my passion when it comes to literature. I’ve finally got something to rival Nicholas Royle’s passion. He gets excited about “The Nocturne,” in writing, it makes him hard and erect and pulsing at the tip. He’s all about his writers at Nightjar Press describing the night. I’m exactly the same about psychosis. If I’m reading a book and it gets all psychosis-y, I’ll say out aloud, “Psychosis is here!”

If I’m wrong about that Nick, I apologise, but it’s what you said to me in my own psychosis on one occasion. I talk to everyone on my ‘awareness radar’ in psychosis, it’s great at times. Nobody is off limits. Politicians, celebrities off the telly, friends and family, everybody. I like Nick’s Nightjar photographic covers and simple fonts. The fact that he tutors creative writers makes me jealous, because he’s got an eclectic mixing pot of ideas from fresh up-and-coming students to glean from. Incidentally, I enjoy being jealous these days, it’s a spurring healthy jealousy which inspires me. The more jealous I am, the better. I’ve being doodling for Art Till Death, and if I see someone else doing a nice pattern apart from me, I instantly get healthily jealous. It’s artistically-driven, and nothing like the material jealousy I get when I see a fellow gangsta cruising in a Lambo or something.

Right, these ideas then. I’ve got five different psychosis conditions, and that makes a possible five different characters. Or do you think I should stick them all into one person? I’m not going to share the actualities of the ideas because an internet troll might steal them. No, I don’t really care about theft really, it’s sheer flattery, but it’s just nice to keep some writing away from the blog, and saved for a novella. Blogging isn’t fiction, is it, and my true devotion in writing is to the purpose of creating worlds, of formulating landscapes full of fascinating characters…the fiction. If you are interested in my fiction then there’s nothing stopping me from publishing a whole full novella right here; after all, it’s not as if it’s going to get published anywhere else, is it?

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I really want to share! The ideas came from talking to a man with painted fingernails in Fiona’s mental health drop-in clinic earlier today. I thought he was weird because he had purple painted fingernails but in hindsight I owe him a pint of something cold and alcoholic because he’s just handed me my next book on a silver platter. It’s a great gift for the writer, it really is. If you were to think of a psychosis condition out of the blue (apart from the telly talking to you), it’s quite hard to do, but this guy has just donated 5 (yes 5!) conditions to me via just several minutes of chatting to him. So thanks a lot, Nick (he’s called Nick as well), I really am indebted. I just hope I can find the stamina from somewhere to really run with these five ideas and gut out 15,000 words from them. But that’s the challenge of being a grand champion wordsmith and master storyteller. If I get into the zone, two hours in the library, five days a week, and keep clean throughout, I’ll pray to God that he can help me get it done. It’s been so long now between books (I’ve only just now done the back matter to Headswap, it goes into print in the next week or so), that I was starting to get a bit worried. There was nothing on the burner, nowt in development, I was even pondering the possibility of ending my career. Seriously! I had no ideas. Now how glad am I that I didn’t use last night!  So I could meet Nick today. Thanks buddy! I’ve always been a big believer in the following quote: “Life is about the people you haven’t met yet.” We don’t know who is around the corner, do we?

I ought to thank Gary from my old Hearing Voices Group also. He gave me the idea for “The Frame.” This is a device, that, when strapped into it, gives you every psychotic condition in existence. Have I mentioned this at the blogspot before? I can’t recall. You may think that I am not original with ideas because I take them from other people, but it’s all about where I take that initial idea from there, once inherited. Usually, once inherited, I twist and turn and shake it out of all recognition, which then evolves into further fantastical ideas. They breed each other. Plus, don’t forget this also, that you can’t “patent” an idea. They don’t belong to anybody apart from the people who portray them best. Thanks for now. Over ‘n’ out.

 

Staying Creative

Staying creative can be hard with the tossernet, phone, TV and radio always out to distract you. Sometimes all you wanna do is cuddle up in front of the gas fire with Hugh Jackman on the box, or have a duvet day with the curtains drawn, or catapult some dogshit walkers with ice cubes, or whatever floats your boat, and that’s dandy. You may dry up like a prune and take up to a whole year off from any innovative production at all, but you know you’ll return to your craft, your calling, eventually, don’t cha? Don't cha though...?

Fulltime writers have my utterest most respect. To be immersed in words even part time, four hours a day, is enviable. That’s a goal of mine, e-vent-u-ally, to be a part time writer. Perhaps more than a goal. Perhaps a salvation. There are dudes out there doing a lot more too, for laughs. Any more than 8 hours and you are basically tapping into a collective subconscious with a pen in your hand. Remote viewing is the psychic term. There’s no disputing the most prolific author in the world, however. That has to be Richard Laymon. He’s so practised at churning out books, he’s been doing it even after his death. Now that’s what I call prolific.

Imagination is one thing, but work ethic is another entirely. A good case of the  latter is rarer. Together, they forge a formidable combination. Authors like Jeffrey Deaver and John Grisham who have had previous careers in law have took to the novel business like ducks to water. Our Jeffers stands at the island in his kitchen and works through his 8 month outlines on his feet! Is it 8 months he spends on an outline? Don’t hold me to it, but I can’t be too far off ya know.

Steve King [I keep mentioning this guy’s name! Does he need all this free advertising? Not in the slightest. Does he deserve it? Abso-bloody-lutely], says he would shoot himself if he had to write full time. It would be overkill. And in the words of Lorenzo Quinn, the best sculptor in the world, for me, “It is the sum of one’s talents that makes the artist.” Did you know Steve King plays guitar in a band? I’d be very surprised if all writers were not good at something else as well. Everyone is good at something, but no one is good at everything.

Stagnation in one area of your creative wellspring can easily be solved with some diversifying flirtations with another of your passions. Clive Barker, originally of Liverpool, says that he finds the world of paint a glorious polar opposite after toiling with the grammatical rigidities of the alphabet. To cast aside those troublesome 26 letters and pick up a paintbrush, while still remaining in your creative element, is indeed a universe apart. Like a sportsman, in a way, leaving the field for the pool, or the decathlete, swapping one event for another. Like those Jacks of all Trades you may have met in your working life at one point; we all know that kind of guy who has built his own house...the one whose van looks like a D.I.Y store exploded in the back of it? That's right, the one with the leather tool belt and Gore Tex work boots! We are 'remote viewing' together here now see, a ha! I picture one called Barry, who does renovations, and pays double on Bank Holiday weekends. See ya.

Remember, a change is like a rest.

unfurl like cards in freefall