I'm staggered and on a second high, but I'll come to that shortly.
Out-Spoken
On 27th November I went along to another Out-Spoken event. This time it was back in its usual place, the Purcell Room. I had no idea who the poets or musicians were, but that's part of the fun. There is usually a surprise.
The first poet was Haia Mohammed from Gaza. Oh my, what a story she related of her life in Gaza, and when she read her poetry, you could have heard a pin drop. She moved people to tears, and she received a standing ovation. The room was filled with chants of Free Palestine. Wow, amazing. I bought her book.
Haia Mohammed
Other poets included Ozifa Benson and Luke Kennard. I really liked Luke's poetry. Using the story of Jonah and the Whale, but updated, this was a witty rendition of different parts of the story. I might have to check his poetry out. He's won lots of prizes, yet I'd never heard of him.
Ozifa Benson
Luke Kennard
Shanteh
Musicians were Karim Kamar (classical pianist who I've seen a few times there), Jared Nandra who played boogie-woogie and Shanteh, whose loop pedal I was fascinated with.
So an interesting evening.
Tinsel Street
I seem to have started a fad. Most people who have bought my book (people I met) began reading in on 28th November when the book starts. All the chapters start on a date. I've been told by various people that they are hooked and can't wait to see what happens to the characters. That is so pleasing. When you send a book (or any writing) out into the world, you never know how it will be received. Will they get you and what you are saying? Will they like the characters? Which ones will they prefer? Tinsel Street is my baby. I spent five years on it, and I love my characters. They have become my friends, and I would quite like to know what happens to them next. So, there may well be a sequel. When is another matter. I've neglected other parts of my writing this year to get the 'Lawnmower' book and Tinsel Street published, but it has been worth it.
I found out yesterday that I have sold 75% of the print run of Tinsel Street! I cannot believe it. My goals are always low. I prefer it that way, so I am gobsmacked that this has happened. People are saying lovely things (please say them in reviews!) and the new box of books I ordered has diminished, and I think I shall be left with three spares.
A new box of books arrives
My penfriend in Switzerland who works in a book shop (she is also a crime writer), has asked her colleague if she would order one of my books for the English table. She's ordered three!
I have a quote up on Troubador's website about my experience with them as my publisher. They have been great and so supportive.
I was given a few gifts at my book launch by friends. Each one was beautiful, lovely flowers, beautiful words and a bag that made me laugh out loud. Thanks. You've all been fantastic.
It's not too late to buy a book while stocks last! But out of all this, it is so nice to know people like my stories. This was always my aim. I've never sought big money (ha, likely chance anyway). I only ever wanted to share my stories with people and for them to take them to heart. I'm never going to be a bestseller writer, but I don't care. Small goals!
The first Out-Spoken of the year took place on Thursday, an evening of poetry and music. I had no idea who would be performing, but there is always something to like, and there are books available to buy during the internal and afterwards.
Compare for the evening was Toby Campion, as award-winning poet, playwright and facilitator. He also read some of his own poetry after the interval, and I'd love to read more of it, but I'd already maxed out on two poetry books on the night!
Tony Campion
First up was Amy Acre, who runs Bad Betty Press. She read from her book Mothersong about growing up and being a mother and being a woman. She was followed by William Letford, whose reading from his dystopian book of poetry and diary entries was both funny and thoughtful. His humour caught me and made me want to know more, so I bought his book. The first music came from Amethyst, a soul/jazz trio, though one member couldn't make the show. While it's not my kind of music, Amethyst herself had a very good voice.
Amy Acre
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William (Billy) Letford
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Amethyst
After the interval, and Toby's poems, he introduced Karim Karmal. I'm not sure I have the spelling right as his name wasn't on the sheet we were given when we arrived. He is a composer and I'm sure I've seen him play in a past Out-Spoken event. The piece he played was lovely, very calming and beautiful.
Karim
Then it was the turn of Nick Laird, and Irish writer who read a personal poem about the death of his father during covid, and all the trauma of not being able to visit the hospital and saying goodbye via video His other poem was about he and his sister clearing the house.
The final performance was from Yaw Evans, a composer, electronic musician and DJ from South London. He played synthesizer. I tried to get a photo, but he was hidden behind his equipment and all I could see was the top of his head. Even at the end, he exited too quickly for me to take a photo.
It was a good evening with a lot of laughter. These events are a good way to keep up to date with what is being written in the poetry world and to hear it read. It's a place to come across poets that are new to me. Very inspiring.
I'm at that stage of not writing but thinking about what to do next. I don't write much in December usually because I have so many other things going on, like a final concert I'm singing in on Sunday and other singing events I'm attending. Music and writing are in my blood, but I've been thinking more about music lately because my background is set in music (see what I did there?).
I've just finished reading the book Bermondsey Boy by Tommy Steele. I found this copy in a charity shop recently and I dived on it. Why is this book so important to me? Well, I'll tell you. My maternal granddad was a piano tuner back in the day and he (at least once) tuned Tommy Steele's piano. They were also born in the same area, Bermondsey, if years apart. According to my nana, my granddad maintained that Tommy Steele was friendly and had no airs and graces, unlike some of his other clients who thought a lot of themselves.
My granddad played piano in pubs and the story goes that customers bought him beer and lined the glasses up on top of the piano. Everyday, my granddad would cycle out to houses to tune pianos, whatever the weather. He'd fought in both world wars (the last in the Army Catering Corps - he made lovely brandy snaps!). I was only ten years old when he died. My memories of him are building a greenhouse with my dad and the last days when his bed was brought downstairs to the front room. My dad knocked a hole through the wall to the back room, so the television could be moved in for him and the aerial work! I remember me and my brother sitting on his bed with a sketch pad and a blue box of Rowney crayons. My granddad took to drawing while in bed. He copied pictures that were hanging on the wall. He was good too, and I still have those coloured drawings.
The musical element ran through us as my mum was a good singer and won a certificate a school. Her ambition had been to become an opera singer, but the war put paid to that. She felt thwarted and when I took an interest in music she didn't encourage me due to her own disappointment. So, though my mum could read music and play the piano (though we didn't have a piano), she never taught me. To be fair, I don't think I ever asked, but I did ask why we couldn't have a piano. No room, she said. Later in life she and my dad (ex-choir boy) joined a choral choir where my dad's sister also sang. As kids, me and brother got dragged along to concerts. The only concerts I loved were the Christmas ones.
My own interest in music was a pop with a little classical that I heard at home. Except musicals. I still hate musicals after listening to my mum's Oklahoma and South Pacific LPs so often! I began writing my own lyrics before I owned a guitar. I put simple tunes to them and they stayed in my head. At about 16 or 18, I bought my first guitar and taught myself the easy chords and then taped my songs, adding harmonies (via my brother's cassette player - the main melody playing through my music centre speakers).
At some stage I began writing poetry and then stories. But fourteen years ago I joined a community choir and found out what it was like to perform for the first time. Although I have left that choir, I am now with another. I've always been good at memorising words to songs as I used to play my records until I got them. My head has a filing cabinet full of lyrics I learned! I tried to teach myself to read music and even tried a class, but got lost in the jumble of linking notes. But give me a melody and I can harmonise easily.
But back to the Tommy Steele book. When I was reading I found that his grandfather and father grew up on the most notorious street in London where even the police were afraid to walk, and his grandmother was bookie's runner, which was illegal. The book is full of interesting stories that takes you right up to the time he quit being the rock star he had become. His aunt and uncles lived on the Neckinger Estate in Bermondsey which replaced the hovels on the street where my great granddad grew up. I've been there to look where they lived. There's not much left now, just an old leather factory (my great grandad was a book maker before becoming one of the first electricians!). This is also Oliver Twist country. You can tell I've been doing my family tree!
So, that's a little of my family history and why music is so important to me. I'm not sure where the writing came from, but maybe as a spin-off from lyric writing.
Back to today, my flash piece Everything in this house is edible has been published by Banshee Press. Oh, my name is on their website! I love the cover for this issue, and enjoy the mix of fiction and poetry. So proud of this one.
I am writing this before our sweet doggy starts his day and takes all my time away. There hasn't been much time for writing lately, and for two days I was pup sitting, and may have to do the same tomorrow morning.
Over the last year I have been busy submitting poetry and flash, and the odd short story. This has taken me away from the longer writing projects, and recently I realised how much I was missing it, or more to the point, I felt low and couldn't work out why. There were all sorts of reasons, but as I was searching for a poem on my laptop, I came across something I began at least a year ago, and temporarily lost (I couldn't remember what I called the file). Having found it, I decided that I would review it when I had time. This is the last part of aTrilogy in the making. Reading through it, I made some notes, which launched me back into one of the other parts to this Trilogy adding things and changing things, as the last part is linked more to the second (or it may be the first - not sure which order they will come out in yet!).
Progress is slow due to time constraints and getting myself into the right mindset. As you may know, I'm not really a plotter. I write, stop, and work out in my head what comes next. I have no ending and rely on instinct and hope that it will come right. It usually does. I believe in letting my characters lead me, and that happened to me this morning while writing a new scene. Roughly knowing what was to happen I began. As I was writing my main character led me back to the previous story and some dark scenes there. Not in any detail, just enough to whet the appetite of readers. I am really pleased with the way it went. There is a long way to go with this as writing is still slow and I am tending to review/edit as I go, which sometimes I do. Every piece of work I write is tackled differently. I'm not one for set ways.
The back end of last month a friend and I went to Outspoken again, at the Southbank, London. The poets were Alycia Pirmohamed, Will Harris and Sarah Howe. Musicians were Nino SGL (a rapper highly praised by Stormy and Oreglo, and fusion band incorporating jazz, rock and reggae. My favourite of the evening was Sarah Howe, and I loved her poem about her mum-in-law's laundry. I must admit I was mainly for the poets than the music, but each to their own.
The photos were taken in order of appearance - Alycia Pirmohamed, Will Harris, Nino SLG, Sarah Howe and Oreglo.
The evening before we went along to The Poetry Library in the Royal Festival Hall, London for an event entitled Non-Human Poetry. I think the best thing I can do with this is print what was said about it on the website:
The event presents a
performance-lecture from Fiona Glen and Nina Hanz, who have written on, to and
as mushrooms – pushing their writing to express how fungi spore, sprawl,
consume and bloom.
Glen and Hanz read from their recently
published pamphlet, Mycoglossia, and reflect on how their project
digests and recomposes cultural matter that surrounds it, like a mycelial web.
This is followed by Mara-Daria
Cojocaru, who presents poetry co-produced by humans and companion dogs.
Combining layers of human language with
visual and olfactory elements, Cojocaru presents a multi-species poems created
with her dogs, as well as eight additional dog-human teams.
Multi-species poetry can help humans
appreciate the ways in which their best animal friends perceive the world
differently, and can, in part, actually be read by dogs as well.
This was an interesting evening and very different to anything I'd been to before. I have attempted to write some poetry with Rue, but I don't think this will be something I'll be doing again! The presentation about mushrooms and fungi was certainly thought provoking, and reminded me of the books I've read on how trees and fungi interact in the wood wild web, and I have touched on it in my own poetry.
My submissions have slowed down this month, and while I am working on a couple of longer projects, I doubt I will be submitting as much. I am beginning to enjoy the feeling of writing something longer, something I can get my teeth into and become absorbed into the world of my characters.
This is not writing related, but it is creative. I took part in another virtual choir project run by ex-Euphonix Musical Director, Ben, and the video is now available on YouTube. Fifty singers make up the virtual choir and the song was also heard first on TEDx-Bath Countdown on Saturday night, though no video and only a snatch of it. TEDx-Bath is a series of speakers promoting environmental change in these times of climate uncertainties, and the song speaks about how each one of us must be the change for the future. It's a simple song, but was quite difficult in the recording as there are so many parts. Still, Ben has made us sound great. I am at the top left singing the higher parts.
I must thank my son for helping me with setting up for recording. His patience was stretched, to say the least! He tells me I need a microphone as the quality on the laptop is not good enough. I ended up recording it on my Tablet, then needed my son's help to transfer it to my laptop as it was easier to email it from there. I played it to him this morning so he could see all the hassle I gave him was worth it.
I have a new sub-folder in my writing folder. This one is called New Poems 2020, and I'm really pleased. In the last two weeks I have been struggling with lockdown. Just when things seem to be easing, my tunnel has appeared longer.
I've tried to work out why I feel this way. These are the conclusion I have come to:
Because I don't do Zoom I suppose I feel more isolated from my friends
Although some restrictions have eased they haven't benefitted me. Those with cars can now drive out to places. Without a car I rely on public transport, which we are told to avoid. Therefore, I feel I am missing out.
The things that I most want to do are still unavailable - museums, art galleries, historic houses.
The weather can change how I feel
Being outside really helps me. It is where I relax and find peace, so walking is high on my agenda. But I have exhausted the nearest green spaces. To find others I have to walk several miles before I can embrace the green. For a while I was in a dark place but there is now talk of how museums might operate, so I keep up to date with that waiting for the green light. That's a lot of green!
My one, no two life saving things right now is poetry and art, oh and music - that's three, and this line is starting to sound like a Monty Python sketch!
I had written a couple of new poems and realised I missed writing my one-a-day-poem-for-a-year. This time I'm not purposely setting out a commitment to write everyday for a year. Just to try and write something each day, but no pressure to do so. Luckily, I have hit one of those rare writing splurges. Some of the poems have been quite desparate 'lockdown' poems, but others not. I have been reading The Forward Book of Poetry 2019 and the Brotherton Prize Anthology of Poetry (judged by Simon Armatage). Here I have found inspiration (as well as wondering what some poems were actually about!). I am now reading Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose poetry style I find intriguing and sometimes try to emulate. I already have twenty-five new poems in my new folder (that shocked me when I went to count them). Of course, some won't see the light of day, some are personal and some were just fun to write. But I am pleased with quite a few, and I have time to spend going over them, so they are not such raw first drafts.
Art-wise I spent an hour yesterday morning drawing a plan of the park where I jog to show the progress I have made since I first began running back in March. And I also made paper girls to support #ListenToGirls for World Refugee Day on Saturday. Art comes in all shapes and sizes whether it is a not-to-scale park map, paper girls or a pen and ink drawing. I have to say I loved drawing the map!
Music is with me constantly. Right now I'm listening to a YouTube Mix, and I mostly write to music. I listen to music while I iron (singing and dancing with an iron can be tricky!). Oh, and I finished my online songwriting course. I learned a lot, especially how much a technophobe I am. Lots of other students recorded their songs with professional sounding music software. I was struggling with Audacity just to record voice and a badly played guitar! But other students were very kind to me. I am now considering which free music software to download to use at my leisure. They all look so complicated and I'm dithering. The one everyone raves about is GarageBand, but I don't have a Mac or Ipad, so it is of no use to me.
So, there we have it, a mixed bag. Keep writing. Keep reading (another life-saver - that's four things!)
Here is my song (words and music by me). Hope this link works. Sorry about the low sound.
I've been so busy in the last couple of days that I have barely watched the news, which I think is probably good for me. I seem to have set off into my own little world. I rise early. This is the second morning I've been up around 5.30am because the light wakes me. I come down for my first mug of tea and my son's pet rats are climbing up the cages for their treat of the morning. They are most often waiting for me! I chat to them - I'll talk to anything - flowers, trees, myself, and then, if it is not my morning for jogging, I read before coming on to my laptop. Maybe I will do my poem of the day or work on my novella before stopping for breakfast around 8-8.30am. After that I usually get dressed. If it's a shopping morning I go out into the crazy world of social distancing and shop where I can. Yesterday, I finally got into Waitrose and stocked up on my regular washing power (cruelty free) and such like. I also got into Wilco. It really was my day.
A slight diversion coming here. It has been difficult to keep up my pledges to ditch plastics since lockdown. Nearly everything comes covered in plastic and I've had to revert to using fabric softener because I have difficulty getting the large white vinegar bottles I've been using. Still, I have managed to stick to cruelty free versions at least, but I have ordered online for my washing up liquid from Natural Collection. I found they stock quite a range of food and since stocks at Holland & Barratt are dwindling I've ordered soya chunks and tins of braised Tofu. My son tried ordering from H&B's online store but both times only received part orders. It has been very disappointing. For us veggies and almost vegans it has been hard to source everything we need. The smaller local shops have little choice even in everyday stuff sometimes. So, I have had to make some compromises, but cruelty free products I will not compromise on.
I have been binge watching art programmes including Grayson Perry's Art Club which is great fun. Last week he was talking about portraits and I did this one of Boris Johnson. I think drawing faces is the hardest thing, and it must be decades since I've attempted one. There was one tip that artist Maggie Hamblin offered about art in last night's programme - draw every day. Sounds like writer's advice. There are great similarities between art and writing, I feel.
Pencil and charcoal
Another project I have become involved with is a music one. An ex-musical director of the choir I sing with is forming a virtual choir for a mental health charity and was asking people to record themselves singing the song he posted up via YouTube and email it to him. He will then stitch all the parts together and the finished video will be posted on YouTube around the 18th May. So, a lot of Sunday afternoon I was upstairs in the bedroom learning the song (it only has four lines) and getting used to using the camera on my laptop (yes, I had to ask one of my kids to help me with that...oh the shame!). It took rather a lot of takes to get it right, but it is now with Ben and he is happy with it. When it appears on YouTube I will share it with you.
Still, on the subject of music, I have started an online course with FutureLearn about songwriting. Several years ago I took one with Coursera, but this one feels a lot different and I am enjoying it. I got so caught up in it that I completed the first week in one day. The theme this week is home/place. There are playlists, videos and advice. My first set of lyrics weren't that great, though I was pleased with the chorus. I decided to have a second attempt. I'd hoped to save the chorus but I ended up with something different. I'm more pleased with these as they offer a better nostalgic feel. I began my writing adventures as a young teen writing lyrics, so I am going back to my roots here.
And still more about music, watching Ben working with mixers and loops on his YouTube channel is making me itch to have a go, though I have no idea where to start. I've been looking at tutorials for Audacity, which I had on my old laptop for the Coursera course. Back in my day..oh eons ago...I devised my own way of recording two tracks by using my brother's cassette recorder for a first voice and guitar. Then I'd play the track through my stereo and harmonise with myself and sometimes add a basic rhythm using the body of my guitar (though I also had some drum tracks on cassette I would also use at times). When I bought Dan Morgan's book on guitar it was this method he suggested. In those days mixing decks weren't widely available unless you worked in a studio and the internet and music software was a thing of the future.
You may be able to tell that I am a little excited by all this, but then I've always been fascinated by musical things. I enjoy watching musicians warm up, I want to know where the leads go and why, what they do. The equipment looks daunting but I would love to know how it all works. I know that if I'd been born later I'd have been into all this big time by now. Now, if I could just overcome my fear of Zoom!
I hadn't intended to go to the Imperial War Museum yesterday, but I was a little early for the Morley College Winter Fair, so I nipped over the road just to kill some time. I ended up spending about an hour there taking in the free exhibition Culture Under Attack, which is split into three sections - Art in Exile (the choosing of which art works in museums and galleries to store away during World War II), What Remains (why culture and heritage is attacked during war) and Rebel Sounds (how musicians used music to resist and speak out against war and oppression).
I found these exhibitions really interesting. The first thing of note was whose paintings were saved. Mainly William Orpen as he was highly thought of. Paul Nash (a favourite of mine) had just three paintings saved (his prestige is higher these days and it was admitted that more of his work would be saved now!). What's in a name one might ask!
I'm sure we all remember seeing artifacts and historic buildings being smashed by Isis. I still remember how that made me feel. This was what was looked at in What Remains along with other war destruction like Dresden in WWII. History and culture are important. It's where we come from, our roots and can leave us devastated at the sheer mindless destruction. At the end of each exhibition is a chance for visitors to vote on different questions, like is it important that buildings should be restored? Even...would you die to save a building? When you vote you get to see the percentage of people who agree or do not agree with you. It's a nice interactive task.
In the Rebel Sounds exhibition there are videos and info about various conflicts and the part music played to rebel. From the Hot Club in Frankfurt during the war, The Undertones (Teenage Kicks) from Belfast in the Troubles, Public Enemy and a group from Africa. The Taliban banned music but people still listened despite the consequences of being beaten. I certainly remember when my hubby and I were in Belfast our guide talked about the Punk era in Belfast. Our guide was friends with the DJ Terri Hooley (featured in the exhibition). Punk was a backlash to the Troubles.
The room where you can sit and listen to four tracks is great. It has the sound of the stylus making contact with vinyl (you can't beat it). The bass notes vibrate through the benches so you really feel the music! I loved it. I did my voting in the end room and I heard Teenage Kicks playing again next door, and yes I did do a little dance (I love that song and I have it on vinyl). It probably gave the CCTV security guy something to smile about! I just can't keep still when music is playing.
What does this have to do with writing? Well, certainly a lot of poetry was written during the wars. Like the war artists I'm sure some was censored. Many paintings were rejected because they didn't want the folks back home to see what war was really like (not good for morale). Poets and painters told it like it was. It was their way of expressing their emotions. Sometimes writing poetry is the only way you can do that. It's cathartic.
Anyway, this turned out to be a nice little diversion yesterday. A good hour well spent. The exhibition is on until 5th January if I've whetted your appetite.
Me with fellow students on presentation of our Diocesan Certificate in Biblical & Theological Studies, Southwark Cathedral, 2008
Have you noticed how one thing leads to another? In my fifties I took up learning again, and basically I haven't stopped since! Taking one short course with the Open University led to more until I took a first year degree course in Humanities. Doors to other interests then beckoned.
I left school at fifteen without any qualifications. To be honest I never enjoyed school and couldn't wait to get out. I was one of those kids who never seemed to fit in and, I always maintain, was a late developer. My childhood was very sheltered and that didn't help with making friends. I guess I turned inward. My only interest in school was sport, art and RE (Religious Studies). Already a pattern was forming. My brush with writing was a good one in primary school. My teacher told my parents I could write about anything. In secondary I was told people don't write like that. That dented my confidence and I then felt angry because I'd based my story on life with writer's imagination. I never found my teachers particularly encouraging which further ate into my confidence. Let's just say that school haunted me for years to come.
Years later a work colleague described me as intelligent and I was floored. Me? Really? But it got me thinking. By then I was an avid reader and learning things for myself, but it wasn't until years after I'd married and had two kids that my curiosity led me to the OU. It felt right to choose a course entitled Words and Music. I loved it. I'd never been taught like this before. I took other short courses until I plucked up the courage to take on a full year course in Humanities. I drooled over the books that came in the post and then panicked as I looked at what I'd be learning. There were tutorials to attend in London which meant I had to participate in a class situation. That freaked me out. I was a sit at the back, don't speak person. Yet gradually I found myself making comments. It was like I was slowly flowering. That year I tackled things I thought I would hate like Medea (Greek play). I ended up going to see a performance on my own a few years later. It was a modern take and I adored it. Other subjects included art history, religion, philosophy (which I did hate and nearly gave up the whole course as it reduced me to a wreck!). We looked at architecture, more specifically the Colosseum in Rome.(I've still yet to visit it). We were advised to watch Gladiator, not a film I'd choose as I hate violent films, but I fell in love with it, and as for the music from it.....We also studied poetry and music. The assignments were tough. I'd never written one in my life before, though we had plenty of help with that. I didn't excel, no Distinction, but I did get a Pass. We had the choice of sitting the exam at the centre or at home. I chose home because I could relax there. We had strict time constraints, and I guess they trusted us. There were four choices in the exam - philosophy (no way!), art, poetry and music. I chose art and music and got my highest mark for music. I gained a Certificate in Humanities. This was a big achievement for me.
After that year I did consider going on and almost signed up to take a second year course in religion, but I wavered and did nothing. Instead I ended up studying for a Certificate in Biblical & Theological Studies with Southwark Cathedral. I'd never have had the courage to do that had I not studied with the OU first because I had assignments to write for that too, and yes I proudly got my Certificate and was presented with it at a special 'do' in the cathedral. This was my graduation.
Everything goes back to that OU course. I went on to take courses at Morley College in art history, music and poetry and online courses in Forensics (all branches), which I have loved. My science and maths is complete shit (sorry) but I love the subjects, stuff to do with the law interests me, and I took more art history courses. I found that certain people from the past follow me around and crop up in other studies, I guess because of certain eras I particularly like. I'd say anything from the 1800's onwards in art. People like Tom Paine, Darwin, William Morris and the whole pre-Raphaelite group and related artists and The Bloomsbury Group crop time and time again.
What does all this have to do with writing, you may ask. Well, I notice when I write art and music creep in somewhere. I use what I have learned, not necessarily on purpose. It just gets into my writing. I have written a few stories based on religious people (a vicar, a,n organist and a nun - sounds like the start of a joke there). One of the first stories I ever wrote when I was in my teens, the main character was a struggling artist! Food seems to feed in (sorry about the pun....no I'm not!) to some stories, and last year I became fascinated by the Frost Fairs in London back in the day. I've been doing some research on them, bought books set in those times and last December went with my hubby on a Thames Cruise to learn all about the time of Frost Fairs. I'd written one story that features a brief glimpse at one such fair, and it sparked the imagination, and now am considering a series which spans the past and the future. I do this for me really, no one else.
Learning has increased my confidence. I'm not the person I was. I still struggle with the whole confidence and social thing. I'm an extrovert trapped inside an introvert! That's how I often feel. But the learning thing? I do that because I want to know things. I'm basically nosy! It's never been about gaining a degree. I think it was about proving something to myself.
I only found out about NaBloPoMo yesterday through a post by poet Josephine Corcoran. I've never heard of this November challenge before, where you write a blog post every day for the month. Last year I took part in NaNoWriMon and that was pretty wild! I ended up with a 50,000 word draft of a novel (still unedited!).
Well, I'm always up for a challenge, so here goes. You will find a slightly different content here for November, more perhaps an overlap of what I write about on my other blog. I have no idea what's coming! Anyway, to start off I thought about an A-Z post, not only about writing but other aspects of my life. Here is the first half. Hope you enjoy it.
See M - for music
A – is for articles. I have only written one article that
I’ve been paid for. The editor liked the idea but wanted me to interview people
and supply photos. The article was about vegetarianism
and faith. I’m a shy person and interviewing people I don’t know is terrifying
for me. I nearly chickened out but asked a Priest at my church for advice and he gave me
the names of two people to contact – So I did my interviews (one I did by
phone) and got my photos. The third person I interviewed was a friend of mine
(much easier). I remember I was paid £45 for it. A lot of hard work and stress.
B – is for books. As an avid reader I get through between
50-60 books a year on average. I read all genres but during the last eighteen
months I’ve been drawn to crime novels. I particularly enjoy books by Andrea
Camillia and Elly Griffiths.
C – is for cold. I hate the cold and since I was a child I
have suffered from chilblains. When I get too cold my brain seems to stop
functioning. The cold makes me miserable!
D – is for dawn. Considering I used to hate early rising I
am quite an early bird now. Before I married I used to lay in bed until at
least 8am (11am on a weekends). When I had children that all changed! Although
my two sons went to a local primary school, when they attended secondary school
I had to get up at 6.30am to make sure they were out of the house by 7.30am.
Nowadays I still get up around 6am to 7am. No one else is up. It’s my time to
read or write. Often I’m at the laptop between 7-7.30am and have 1,000 words
written by breakfast time (if I’m lucky). I love watching the sky change
colour, the sun come up, hearing the birds. These things often prompt a poem.
E – is for escape. I love my days out and I’m happy to go
alone if no one is free or not interested in a particular exhibition I want to
see. I adore London and I’m always amazed how many green spaces there are,
hidden parks and hidden spaces. I love seeking them out. Occasionally I’ll take
myself off on a retreat. I can be quite antisocial at times. Even at home I
need my space. Unfortunately I don’t have a room of my own to escape to and it
could be a long wait for one of the kids to leave home!
F – is for fun. My father was the joker in our house and I
think I have inherited his humour. He could see the funny side of anything,
even in dire situations. He made us all laugh. I also enjoy making others laugh
and my humour comes out in my writing. Lately, I have been pushing the
boundaries on that in a particular novel I am writing. It’s like the shackles
have come off and I’m just going for it. I still love the comedy I grew up with
– Monty Python, Dave Allen, Dad’s Army, Fawlty Towers and ‘allo ‘allo.
G – is for growth. Each day there is the capacity to learn
something new and add it to experience. I am capable of much more now than I
was a year ago, and last year more capable than the year before. I learn
something and that leads me into new areas. Knowledge and experience grow and
all that adds to my ‘life portfolio’ – such a help when I write.
H – is for holidays. I love getting away from everything. I
am particularly drawn to places by water, whether that is a river or the sea. I
have rather a passion for Italy since visiting Sorrento a few years ago. It has
to be up there as one of the best holidays. Iceland was also pretty great. I
have rather a long list of countries I want to visit but I still love the UK.
There are many places I haven’t been to. So many places, so little time!
I – is for ideas. I have an ideas book. This is relatively a
new idea (the book). I write odd things down. Names are one. If I come across a
name I like or think of I write it down. This is because I’m not good at
thinking of names when I think of characters. If I’m not careful I end up using
the same names in what I write! Quite often I sit at the laptop trying to think
of a name and stare at objects in the room – names on books, bits of paper,
objects or I google names! One of my characters got his name from a packet of
seeds my eyes made contact with! In this book also I write bits of dreams that
might develop into some writing. Ideas come from everywhere – poetry often comes from something I see through the window or while walking, maybe read about or are personal
memories. My fiction often comes through dreams or ‘night thinking’.
J - is for Justice. I grew up with ideas others had no time
for. Justice for me is for everyone whatever race or religion they are. This
also extends to justice for animals and the planet. I try my best to buy things
that do not harm animals, the planet or people. I thank my maternal grandmother
for this. She set me thinking when I was a child about the cruelty of circuses. There was no
stopping me after that. Sometimes my views make me unpopular. There are things
I will not do or take part in because I feel they are morally wrong.
K – is for Kids. I’m very proud of my kids. I may moan about
them but I’d fight for them and I love them. Both are now in their twenties. They
are very different. One is sporty and independent; happy to holiday alone, he
also cooks…adventurously, and goes out underdressed in winter (at least I don’t
say ‘are you wearing a vest?’ like my mum used to!). My other son is a computer
geek; he’s my tech-mate and is caring and thoughtful (apart from when he
doesn’t bring his plates and mugs back and puts all his washing out in one go!)
We often have great conversations.
L – is for learning. As my regular readers will know I am
always signing up for new courses, often online ones through Coursera or
FutureLearn. They are free and so well put together. I’ve learnt so much over
the years. I hated school and left at the age of fifteen with no qualifications.
I have studied short courses and a certificate course with the Open University
and it’s like I cannot stop now! I see something that interests me and I sign
up. Most courses sit under the umbrella of ‘humanities’ but I also have a
strange passion for early history and forensics! I’m sure there is more to
come.
M – is for music which I am addicted to (I am listening to
an ATB Chillout Mix from YouTube as I type this). I grew up with music. My
parents (and aunt) sang in a choral society (my dad was a choir boy too), my
grandfather played piano in a pub and worked as a piano tuner to some famous
people including Tommy Steele. My mother wanted to be an opera singer and she
went to the same school as Petula Clarke (some claims to fame!). I play guitar
badly (self taught) and keyboards even more badly, don’t really read music,
though I took some basic lessons last year (another thing to follow up
sometime). I have two guitars – acoustic and electric, began writing songs
before my teens and have an awful lot of cassettes full of my efforts! I also had
dreams of working as a sound engineer. Still, I’ve been singing in a community
choir for the last seven years and love it. I especially love performing, and as
long as I know the tune of a song I can work out harmonies for myself. Too long
without music and I start getting grumpy! I use playlists when I write,
sometimes the same ones over and over again (Trance mixes - I’m a huge Shane Collins
fan).
♫ Best of Progressive House Sessions ♫ - Sounds from Above Vol 14 (Shane Collins)
Had my usual problem this morning when trying to submit a competition entry - I went to pay and was told my card provider had not authorized the payment. Do they see me coming or what? My heart sunk. I'd already submitted the story and PayPal was the only option for payment.
Panicking (I should be used to this by now as I've had the lot from internet crashes to the 'non-payment' message mid submission) I called PayPal, after I'd checked my card was still valid and trawled around their site to see if it was something I'd done. No, it was my credit card company. So I had to phone them. Both these calls had stupid non-human messages like 'say in a few words what you are calling about'. My requests were not recognised! By this time I was growing angry and as there was no actual person on the line, quite abusive! On ringing my credit card company I gave up and just said something they would understand and hoped they could transfer me if necessary. Luckily, I seemed to be through to the right department. They insisted there was nothing wrong - huh? Well, why were they refusing payment? They looked again. They said PayPal had a 'no pounds' transaction. What? I was supposed to be paying £8. I had light-bulb moment and said I'd probably been timed out of the transaction because I'd been stuck in the system so long. I made them wait while I found the website which then directed me once more to PayPal and I signed in. This time when I pressed 'pay' it went through.
I said to the lady - I don't know what you did but thank you. She stayed annoying calm throughout the whole thing and when I said goodbye she said to keep smiling! I said I'd try. I was exhausted after that. I think I deserve to win the competition after all the hassle and if I don't, I'll want to know why!
Just sending out stories is nerve wracking enough. It's difficult to find a competition that accepts longer stories (I must learn to write to certain lengths!). This one of mine is just over 9,000 words and the limit is 10,000. I was so excited to find somewhere to submit to and the story was ready to go, apart from a title. I've mulled over a title for three days before I found one I was happy with. Titles for stories are as difficult as finding title for poems.
While all this was going on with PayPal and my credit card company, the guinea pigs were having a set-to in the cage behind me and I even shouted at them. I immediately felt guilty because one of them only had an operation yesterday and I'd had the job of medicating her earlier, which is always a bit of trial. She must be feeling better to argue with her cage-mate, which she often does.
I need calm. I need music. Which is why I'm plugged into a Trance mix on YouTube right now still trying to find my sanity! Thank God for music.
Last night I went for a walk through poetry from Homer to
Carol Ann Duffy care of the group LiTTLe MACHiNe at Rhythm& Muse at The Ram Jam Club in Kingston. The group, who set poetry to music,
performed their show Epic in two sets.
We skipped through 3,000 years of poetry
history in sixty minutes which included drama and comedy! Some highlights – an extract
from Gilgamesh and Chaucer, Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley and the war poets
(Seigfried Sasson and Wilfred Owen). They were brilliant performers, both in musicianship and
personality.
The group tour around the country (do check out their
website) the visual backdrop to their show includes pictures of the poets and
the words to the poems.
Rachel Rose Reid
The evening was part of Kingston Connections Festival of Stories and included two
poets from the floor as well as Rachel Rose Reid who is writer-in-residence at
the Charles Dickens Museum in London Rachel has performed stories and songs for
Billy Bragg, Southbank Centre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Last night she
told stories from Africa, about Woody Guthrie and about London and Charles
Dickens, somehow managing to slide between the old and new worlds. She has a
lovely voice and recites her poetry and stories from memory. Rachel keeps you
listening (and sometimes participating) because you did not want to miss a
word. The stories were funny and poignant and she is an excellent performer,
knowing how to instantly engage her audience.
The evening was brilliant – a combination of poetry,
stories and music that stay with you on your way home.
(The Ram Jam Club is an intimate setting behind The Grey
Horse Pub in Kingston. Comfy seating, a
glass of something from the bar and there you are, up personal with the performers
– just how I like it.)
Well, I wasn't on the Pighog Pamphlet longlist this morning when it was announced. I'd been waiting since last week when I knew a decision had been made but I didn't hold out much hope. They'd had 600 entries and about 35 were longlisted. This was only the second pamphlet competition I'd ever entered but I did work very hard on this one and felt a bit happier with the way the process had gone. The way I look at it now is that ten good poems are ready to be released for submission elsewhere. In fact I have news of one poem in that set that I cannot reveal at the moment - sworn to secrecy. All will be revealed soon.
What I should be doing now is typing out this mornings piece of my story (novel??. Instead I'm flitting between Facebook and Twitter....oh the shame of it! Anyway, the excuses are running out and I am going to type it now...yes, really. I have my music at the ready.....a trance sequence, 20014 mix lasting nearly three hours and no adverts! Trance is what I listen to when typing up my pieces because it is fast and vibrant and keeps me going. I sometimes write to music but depending on what I am doing it can be a distraction in which case I switch it off. I write in silence with the current story but I hate typing up so music keeps the boredom levels low. So here we go.........
Some posts ago I mentioned that I started my creative life off through songwriting. Life is strange because as it happens a friend who knows how I continually enjoy learning recommended the website coursera to me. It's an American site but all the courses are free and taught through video lectures, quizzes and assignments. I decided to take a look. There are a multitude of subjects, several I fancied but some were twenty weeks long and I didn't want to commit to that right now, especially when I hadn't done anything with them before and wasn't sure how much time I would need to study. Then up popped a course in songwriting over six weeks. I read all the blurb and on impulse I signed up!
I am now attempting my second assignment (week two) and evaluating the first assignment of five fellow students (anonymously). I am doing it not to form a career in songwriting but for pleasure. However, I am also finding it useful for my writing because a lot of the techniques in songwriting are similar to techniques for poetry. There are chances for students to upload a song and I will need help with that (enter IT techie son from stage right!).
I have found with this course that I have had to unlearn some of my methods of lyric writing. That's been hard. I always studied songs and then use my instinct, but one thing I have got right is song structure which I've been using since I was eighteen. Week two has been very informative and this morning I have written a verse and chorus! Maybe I'll even be tempted to did out my guitar again.
(this is in response to a prompt from the writesofluid website)
I have decided to take the July challenge from the www.writesofluid.com website and today's prompt is what I write.
Those of you who have been following me for a while will know that I write mainly poetry but it hasn't always been the case and bear with me if some of what follows you have read before in another post.
When I first began my creativity with words I wrote little songs (around 10 years of age into teenage years). I made up songs in my head and memorised them until I bought my first guitar at 16 or 18 (I forget) and began working out how to play the tunes and then taped them onto cassette! I have to say at this stage that my bibles for guitar playing were Alfred's Chord Fingerline Dictionary and my hero Dan Morgan whose book Guitar cost me 30p (full price!). I still have these books and it was Dan Morgan who gave me the idea of multiple recordings - very basic......playing the first recording back through the hi-fi and using a second cassette recorder to record a harmony or other instrument. By 'eck did I have fun with that. I cannot tell you how many hours I spent in my bedroom with my brother's Sony mono cassette recorder so I could add some harmony to the songs I wrote (somewhere along the way I upgraded to a stereo recorder). Sad person or what? Ah but fun!
I used to write with some of my penpals and I'd always have to do the tunes as no one else could so I put others' lyrics to music. It was great fun and I even sent a few out......one went to Mickey Most. I always got nice 'compliments slips' back with my tape.
While I was busy making....er.....music (by then I had a Casio keyboard but am a hopeless player!) I also wrote a few poems. They mainly rhymed and were quite simple. I did get one published in a teenage magazine but they left out one of the lines grrrr! I also began writing stories which for some reason always swung towards science fiction (perhaps a diet of Dr. Who and the original Stark Trek series was to blame). I still have these stories written in exercise books which sometimes I take a look at for the nostalgia!
Someone then said 'give up the songwriting and write poems but I didn't want to. I loved writing songs but was hampered by my ability not to be able to play more complex chords and I didn't write or read music. I was influenced by The Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel and the Everly Brothers because of their harmonies which I listened to and learnt, finding that I could work out harmonies for my own songs. I loved listening to Karen Carpenter sing.
Eventually when I married and had kids the songwriting stopped as did the guitar playing and the dreadful keyboard attempts. The guitar came out maybe once a year perhaps to play song Carols at Christmas and to teach my kids that classic line from Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple.
At some point I began writing poetry again. When my father died it was poetry that expressed all my feelings. It helped me. Things went from there. I wrote more and began looking into where I might get it published. I fell for the 'vanity press' for a while but I began to learn. I went to a few workshops, had a few poems published in small press magazines, joined a class, went to an open mic session (no I didn't read - I went to see what it was like). I am still learning, networking, blogging, getting into all this new technology stuff and enjoying myself.
I haven't written a song for 15 or so years maybe. I have written a few short stories and I am beginning to challenge myself with flash fiction. I can't imagine a time when I won't write something. When I've been down and thought of giving up (and I have many times) I find that something will get inside my head and I have to write it down. I still get disappointed, have days when I won't write while I get over the stages of emotion that a rejection has on me but I come back to it. There seems to be nothing I can do about it.
So what I write these days is mainly poetry. I play with forms but write mainly free-verse. I write about anything that interests me. Recently a lot of darker stuff has been coming out! I begin to see a pattern in what I write but I often need prompts to kick start the creative process. Yesterday I was doing an exercise where I had to write a poem about another world that had rules but I was not to actually state what they were. It should be possible to work it out from the poem. Not easy but I found myself warming to the subject and could see a story developing rather than a poem (er...it's a bit sci-fi, surprise, surprise!). I never know where my writing will lead. Sometimes it will start as one thing and develop into something else. That's the exciting part and I have to learn to let that go where it wants.
I also have a toe in flash fiction. I will stir the waters and see where it leads!
If you are a writer reading this how did you get started? Please comment.
Finally, my poem Bluebells has been published in Openings 30 - The Poetry Society of the Open University. This is their 2013 anthology. It arrived in the post today and there I am on page 11.
Join me for the relaunch
of my writing career under my newBuddhist name Satya RobynToday, Friday
the 10th of May, tell me what gets you up in the morning and share some
writing or a photo or some art called ‘What I Live For’ http://www.satyarobyn.com/?p=154
This is the
challenge! In January I took part in
writing Small Stones with Satya and hundreds of others on a dedicated Facebook
page. So here is my contribution for
today.
What I live for/gets me out of bed:
My life revolves around
books, writing and music and has since I can remember. At 10 years old a teacher told my mum that I
could write about anything! A surprise to me, but there you go. Other’s opinions do affect me and when I was at secondary school (which I
hated) a teacher had a go at me for my writing and said ‘people don’t write
like that/do those things’. I knew she
was wrong but I didn’t have the confidence to tell her and my self-esteem
dropped (I was about 14 years old).
However, in my late teens I started writing again and haven’t stopped. I began with stories, then songs, to
poetry. Now I write mainly poetry (which
has been published in small press magazines) but still dabble in other writing
(blogging included!).
Learning only became an
obsession after I left school at 15. I’d
come to books late, joined my local library and discovered a huge new world and
I’m still exploring! Without a book to
read I get restless. I really do get
withdrawal symptoms.
Music was my first
love. I grew up with it and as I’ve got
older I have expanded my horizons. There
is nothing I would dismiss and my range is diverse. Music has the ability to set moods, change
them, give me energy, it helps me write sometimes and I love to sing, dance and
when I have time, play guitar. I even
have tapes of songs I wrote when I was in my 20’s.
These three things make me
happy. I learn from them all and they
give me so much pleasure. Maybe sometimes they are also my comfort blanket!
Books that ‘got me into reading’:
Gerald Durrell’s books
The Lion, The Witch and
The Wardrobe.
The Borrowers
Writing -The
first stories I wrote were based on science fiction. I still find I veer in that direction but
then I love sci-fi. My poetry in those days all rhymed
(that’s how it had to be wasn’t it!). I
wrote my first songs in my early teens (maybe earlier) – wrote down the lyrics
and the melody was in my head! Bought my
first guitar at 18 and self-taught (still not great but it’s fun) and worked
out how to record two tracks without a recording studio! I still have my original guitar but when I
reached 50 years old I treated myself to an electric!
Music – the first
record I bought/was given (vinyl 45) was The
Locomotion by Little Eva. I still
have it along with all my other vinyl. I
listen to anything from classical to rock, trance and r&b. My favourite song is God Only Knows by The Beach Boys.
I learnt to harmonize from them and the The Everly Brothers and these
days I sing in a Community Choir.
All these creative parts of me are important. They have grown with me, have expressed my feelings, reassured me that I am not alone and have brought so much to my life that I cannot imagine my life without these creative outlets. There is always something new to explore and to share. I've literally just written what's below to express how I feel about all this. Have a fantastic day everyone and go and indulge yourselves in what makes you get out of bed in the morning.
What I Live For
I live for the word
in book, or my head
for rhythm and music,
a tune or lines said.
I live for the sharing
of stories and song
imbed myself fully
in what's going on.
I live to express,
to learn and to grow
and the way that I do it
is all that I know.
