Thinking about the box

My contributions to the Cabbage Soup group have been a bit pathetic lately, so it's just as well I've got a couple of things published, in actual black and white, to show them next time. There's a review of Caroline Gourlay's poetry collection 'This Country' in Blithe Spirit 15/4 and an article called 'Haiku Lessons' in Yellow Moon 18.

We keep a box of things the Soup group members have had published and it's growing, slowly but surely. I find it's good to have evidence that I can sometimes produce actual finished product, for those times when I might be tempted to doubt it!

Estate agents again

It's good to find an estate agent you can trust. "Close to the city with two genuine double bedrooms" - there's a description that gives you confidence. It's clear that in some places at the end of the day* you could step into what you thought was a bedroom only to find it was a fake.

*I'm tired of seeing this phrase used when it means no such thing, so I thought I'd demonstrate how to use it properly.

I fail again and, pathetically, try to distract attention from it by going on about policemen and bicycles

So much for doing better this time. I failed again. I can't seem to concentrate on my exercises lately. When I sit down to do them I end up getting distracted and doing something else. Luckily other Cabbage Soupers are better organised and at least one of the interview plans may be put into action.

We're going to take a break from the book exercises over Christmas and the next meeting will be a 'favourite books' meeting. Mine will be Flann O'Brien's 'The Third Policeman.' The bit about the Atomic Theory (as applied to postmen and bicycles) bears any amount of re-reading. I've got through several copies of the book over the last 30 years or so, I just wear them out and they fall apart. I think my new favourites, the Harry Potter books, are going to suffer the same fate.

It might be fun to post a list of our favourite books here, once we've had that meeting.

The interview

After my poor attempt at the last exercise I feel shamed into trying harder for the next one. It's a tough one though: the interview. Given that most of the people I'd really like to interview are deceased, fictional or such miserable curmudgeons I'd be lucky to get a word out of them, let alone an interview, I think I'd better think of something more practical.

Non-fiction

Not only did I mess up the organisation of the latest Cabbage Soup meeting, I also left doing the exercise to the last minute, then circulated the wrong version of it!

Luckily the rest of the group are much more organised and came up with chapter headings and introductions to several non-fiction books that could all very well end up being written. One almost certainly will be, the authors of the others admitted to rather more doubts about finding the time, energy, and motivation to complete the job. One book had the potential to be written as a series of articles, which is an interesting approach, and maybe slightly less daunting.

More estate agents writing

There aren't many places on the market that can offer 'A bathroom with shower over bath and parking.' Just think of the convenience of it!

Disorganised and guilty

I'm feeling guilty. I'm supposed to be organising the Cabbage Soup group and I've totally failed to either circulate details of the next exercise or set a date for the next meeting! I ought to do these things immediately after each meeting, otherwise they have a tendency to get buried among all of life's 'to do's. I must do these things today.

In which inspiration strikes

I've been avoiding thinking about the next Cabbage Soup exercise. We're supposed to be writing chapter headings and an introduction to the non-fiction book we feel most qualified to write. The trouble is I'm not sure I know any subject well enough to write a book about it. Given lack of outstanding expertise perhaps the thing to do is to go for a subject area where there are lots of worthy but boring books published, and write one that's just a bit weirder? Hmn, I think I've just had an idea...

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I admit I know nothing about screenwriting or film-making, so it's entirely possible that I'm talking rubbish, but I think there are some basic bits of good advice that apply to all writing. One of these is not to switch genres in mid-plot without a very good reason.

In a film like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire surely there's enough to contend with in weaving together the threads of the various genres Rowling so skilfully plays with in her text - fantasy, coming of age, mystery, school story etc - without turning what should clearly be an action-adventure sequence into vaguely psychological blundering. The only explanation I can think of is that the over-blown dragon sequence used up so much of the special effects budget that they had to cut back on the maze. I found this particularly annoying as one of Rowling's greatest strengths is in giving abstract concepts solid form: think Dementors and Boggarts for depression and fear.

There are a few minor wrong notes - sadly Michael Gambon provides several - but what does work works so well that they're forgivable. The Death (she says, evasively, as if there's anyone left on the planet who doesn't know who dies) is handled sensitively, the teenage relationships are as excruciating as an unforgivable curse, evil personified is effectively creepy, and the overall tone of juxtaposed light and dark is just right.

I think I might have to go and see it again.

Free poetry!

While I'm wittering on about poetry I ought to mention the Poetry Library's excellent site where they put the archives of poetry magazines. It's a good way of getting an idea which might actually be worth subscribing to and/or submitting work to.

Virtual poet

As Cabbage Soup is working on poetry at the moment I thought I'd mention this new bit of technological wizardry. It's very clever stuff, but the idea of a poet reading his work aloud 52 years after his death strikes me as a bit weird. Mind you, some that are still alive fit that description...

Today's shock headline

The BBC says the Internet is being used for creative purposes! Well, you don't say. This is news?

Terse verse

Shhh... Cabbage Soup is writing poetry. Actually that's not why I've been quiet this week - I've just been busy - but I've still been writing my usual seven poems a week over on miso soup so I'm feeling better prepared for this exercise than most of the others.

Note: The other exercises, I mean, not the other members of Cabbage Soup. They all seem to be having fun writing poetry, some have already been circulated - ahead of the deadline!

Inspiration

Who inspires you, and why? For me there has been one consistent source of inspiration over several decades.

George Ivan (aka Van) Morrison: The Man himself. Why? I think it's the perfect balance he's achieved betwen practicality and mysticism, craftsmanship and creativity. The fact that he has a gift to look squarely at the mundane and see it clearly, but also to see the marvellous shining right through it, and to communicate that vision to those who can't see it for themselves. That, and the fact that he's the greatest alchemist since Albus Dumbledore. That's why. Oh, and because he wrote my favourite song - In the Garden from No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (which pretty much sums up my attitude to writing too, come to think of it.)

Why am I saying this now? I'm going to see him play live soon - a rare treat - and in preparation I've been playing my CDs and thinking about the nature of inspiration.

Lively, controversial and other adjectives

I think the next Cabbage Soup meeting - on Monday - could be lively. We've got a controversial subject coming up next.

What, exactly, is or is not an adjective? I thought I knew. But after reading these seven pages I'm no longer certain that I do! The assignment is to write 300 words of description without adjectives and then (and this is the fun bit) add just one.

New Writing - The lost house by Jane Dudley

The lost house

Remnants of the old crofting communities are still to be found - nestled among the humps and hollows of these windswept glens. To pick your way over the rough ground here is to stumble upon old histories sinking slowly back into the earth.

One such ruin lies above the shores of a small loch where a whisky-brown burn chuckles past the remains of an old sheepstead, just to leeward. Abandoned long ago, only the crumbled outer walls of the croft remain – the bare bones of a home. A doorway gapes like a lost tooth, the fallen lintel long since buried in an angry carpet of briar and nettles. In the vestige of a chimney breast, tongues of bracken sprout where peat-fires once burned.

A carrion crow calls harshly, like a petulant ghost.

There was a living, of sorts, to be had here once. But that was before the horsemen came. The sour earth yielded oats, potatoes and turnips, while scattered sheep and shaggy cattle grazed around. This squat little house of thick stone walls and low thatched roof, had shielded generations. Then the glens were emptied and the final dwellers scattered to the margins of life: to a storm-wracked coast, the drumming of the Atlantic and the call of unknown continents.

New Writing - Home by Alison Williams

It was a square house, with four windows and a door, like a child's crayon drawing. The upper windows were open and gauzy white curtains lifted and fell back with each breath of wind.

A man carrying a faded rucksack was passing the house when he noticed the door was ajar. He looked around and, seeing no-one, he walked up to it, knocked, hesitated, and then gave it a nudge. The door swung open to reveal a room full of light. On each of the four walls was a tall, wide mirror. Walking in he found himself surrounded by his own, surprisingly grimy, image at every turn. He bent his head and shuffled back towards the door. It must have been the wind that blew it shut.

That was when the colours began to swirl in the mirrors, flame colours, reds and ambers, with flashes of blue, streaming out into the room where the figure of a girl formed. She was dark-eyed and slight, and reminded the man of pictures of elves in a book he'd read as a child. He gazed at her, and she stared back at him.

He was a homeless man: no-one would miss him.

We are what we do.

Don't just sit there reading this blog do something. Mind you, I'll be expecting you to let me know what you've done, once you've done it.

NaNoWriMo

Oh dear. I'm resisting as hard as I can, but I just might get dragged into this madness. Protesting loudly all the while that it's an excellent excuse to write a load of utter rubbish. (Since when did I need an excuse? You may well ask.)

House

The house exercise prompted me to go image googling for inspiration. This one has to be my favourite.It may not be handy for the town centre, but it definitiely benefits from wabi-sabi.