Belated Birthday Story

I have only posted one of my stories on here and thought it was about time I put another one up. It's one of the pieces of flash fiction I performed at The Primrose Inn in Leeds on Sunday. The Primrose was a good night and a fair few people came down to support me so a big thank you to them and to Paul for inviting me!

I will be doing a set there again on 23rd Jan and was also asked to do something extremely exciting (but I'm keeping that one under my favourite brown hat... for now).

Here it is:

BUILDING CASTLES

You mapped it all out - our house in the country, you tinkling on the piano, me nurturing stories till dusk, the waterfights in the wild flower garden with our three kids. We window-shopped for retro wedding outfits we might one day wear. There were Christmas cards to the two of us. We even invested in an orthopaedic mattress, 'This is important, for the future,' you said.

I came to see it all as you did, grafted my dreams onto yours. I touched the heads of our children – grubby, tousled and happy, heard the rush of air as you pressed those piano keys, inhaled the mahogany furniture, the Victorian rose bush you said we'd grow.

Then - as we curled up on my sofa - you placed your hand on my tummy and rubbed round and round, 'You could have my baby.' Round and round you rubbed. And left me.

And now, when I think of those words, of your round and round hand, I know that moment was real, that and the seeds you helped me to plant.

Comments are welcome.

Leeds City Art Gallery

I was delighted to find that a film of a project I worked on at Mabgate Resource Centre around ten da Vinci sketches is currently on show at Leeds City Art Gallery. Thanks to Simon Bradley who shot and edited the footage (though I helped a bit with compilation).
It was great to see my name in big letters in such a highly respected institution.

Landfill

I have been invited to join Landfill, a writers' collective. The others in the group are experienced and skilled in writing for theatre. They are also witty, funny and all round good guys.

We are putting on a night of dark comic sketches, theatre sketches and flash fiction at Seven in Chapel Allerton on 28th November and if all goes well, there will be more to come. Please see our myspace page, which is still under development, for further details.

Overcome Obstacles to Writing

Here are a few of the solutions I promised. Try them and let me know what you think:

A solution for writers experiencing lack of motivation

Collect some motivational statements about writing or about creativity or perserverance. Two of mine are, ‘The writer cannot be a mere storyteller; he cannot be a mere teacher; he cannot merely x-ray society’s weaknesses, its ills, its perils. He or she must be actively involved in shaping its present and its future’ (Ken Saro Wiwa) and ‘Nommo’, which means the power of the word. Choose ones that speak directly to your needs or beliefs, and post them where you write. Use them to keep yourself writing.
Adapted from Jack Heffron, The Writer’s Idea Book

A solution for writers who have ‘nowhere to write’

Imagine you have a room of your own to write in. This may not be a room at all. It may be a wood, a beach or a busy train station. Write about what the ‘room’ would look, and feel and sound like. Read your piece back. Identify how the room or factors of it could be brought into reality.


A solution for writers who feel they have lost touch with their creativity

At the seventh stage of Rogerian therapy, the highest stage man is finally, 'a unity of flow, of motion' Write about a time when you have experienced unity of flow with your creativity, perhaps you felt as though you were surfing the crest of a wave, perhaps you felt like magma bubbling up from the earth’s crust. Describe the feeling. Explore the circumstances – the time of day, the location, your mood before beginning. Do you think any of these circumstances contributed to your achieving ‘unity of flow’? Create one or more of these circumstances the next time you write.

Obstacles to Writing

Last week I was exploring 'obstacles to writing' with two of my groups. I asked them to write a list of all the things that stand in the way of them writing. Here is mine:

Planning and preparing for workshops,
College work,
Tax returns and other administrative tasks,
Phonecalls,
Family duties,
Domestic duties,
Friends/social life,
Exercise,
Surfing the net,
Procrastination - 'when I've finished the washing-up and painted the kitchen and my son has finished high school, then I'll finish my second novel',
Tiredness/apathy,
My inner critic

Feel free to share your obstacles. Potential solutions coming soon.

Jacques Derrida - Fear of Writing

I haven't read any Derrida since uni but I found this on youtube and thought it was worth sharing. I fully comprehend Derrida's experience of the necessity of writing when in the moment of writing.

Yet it fascinates me that the consequences of writing something subversive ironically become a concern only when he is in that liminal state between sleep and wakefulness. The 'vigilance' he refers to is - for me - his inner critic, the censor. Isn't the world lucky this vigilance comes to Derrida at that point rather than in the moment of writing?

Sometimes mine invokes fear in me even before the moment of writing. My concerns tend not to be as grand as Derrida's. Questions that plague me are 'Will this piece shock members of my family too much?', 'Is it too personal?', 'Will my readers believe this narrator (who kills or steals or sleeps with someone else's husband) is really me?' and the common one, 'Is this a load of rubbish?' Often these criticisms come afterwards, not in my half-sleep but in the penetrating light of day. Usually the 'load of rubbish' one and the readers believing the narrator is really me are right. The others tend to be moral dilemmas, not in the writing but in the desseminating. Should I publish this if its publication could cause a heart attack in my father? Generally, I believe that in writing the things that move me, in putting them out THERE, I am being true to myself and to my readers but there are some stories I will not share because I don't feel they are mine to share.

One of the reasons I write

Once upon a time there was a quiet young girl called Becky. Becky played away her youngest years with her best friend Snogglepuss. Snogglepuss had purple skin with yellow spots and a fluff of blue hair. He was even taller than a grown-up and had a beautifully crooked nose. Snogglepuss lived in a hole in the big old oak tree at the bottom of Becky’s garden. For many happy years the two friends climbed trees, played Tig, and made up stories about faraway lands.

Then one day, someone (she can’t remember who) told Becky that Snogglepuss was an imaginary friend. Becky felt very cross that Snogglepuss had kept his imaginariness a secret for all these years and ran to the bottom of the garden to find him.

There he was, in his favourite place, sitting with his back pressed-up against the ancient oak. “Hello,” he said in his funny party whistle voice, like nothing at all had changed.

That made Becky even crosser and she shook her fists all the way from her eyebrows to the tops of her thighs. Her face swelled up like a red balloon and she took a really big deep breath. “You are not real, you are not real, you are not real,” she shouted (because she’d heard that saying it three times gets rid of fairies and thought it might work with imaginary friends too). And, right before her eyes, Snogglepuss faded, spot by spot, until he disappeared altogether.

A few days passed when every time she thought about Snogglepuss, she felt angry. But after a few weeks, Becky forgot that she was cross. Becky was bigger now and didn’t have time to waste being angry with imaginary friends. In fact after a few weeks, Becky didn’t think much about her friend at all and soon Snogglepuss slipped out of her thoughts altogether.

Now Becky was bigger, she had friends who were little girls like her, not enormous purple friends with strange noses. Now Becky was bigger, she talked to her friends on the phone about important things like ballet and football results. Now Becky was bigger, she and her friends went to each other’s houses and dressed up in their mums’ going out clothes.

But then one day Mummy shouted at her, really loud so it hurt her ears. More than anything, Becky wanted to cuddle Snogglepuss and tell him how mean her mother had been. She wanted him to pull silly faces until he made her laugh. She didn’t want to talk to her silly giggling friends in their silly high heels. She wanted her friend Snogglepuss.

Becky ran away from Mummy’s angry face, tears splashing her cheeks, to the bottom of the garden. She reached the big old oak and looked around…

But of course Snogglepuss wasn’t there. She had sent him away. She had made him disappear. And who knew where he was now? How could she have been so horrid? Poor, poor Snogglepuss. Becky sat at the bottom of the tree and sobbed. Snogglepuss wasn’t there and what was worse, she knew in her heart she would never see him again.

AS WITH ALL STORIES, THERE ARE ALTERNATIVE ENDINGS TO THIS TALE. HERE IS ONE OF THEM:

But as Becky sat there, eyes tight shut with crying, she heard a tiny little sound.

“Hello,” someone said, in a funny party whistle voice.

“You are real, you are real, you are real,” Becky cried and before her eyes, Snogglepuss appeared spot by spot, until his fluff of blue hair grazed the branch above him.

Snogglepuss flung his arms around her and, in that moment, Becky knew he was her very best friend of all.

Nature or Cultivation

I found this beautiful shed at the edge of the wood in Hebden Bridge and it reminded me of the nature-nurture debate with regards to writing. Is good writing something you can cultivate or is it something that is either present in your nature or not?