Writing Like A Rock God

On Friday I gave a reading of my short story Count DireLife (which you can read here) to a small audience from various artistic backgrounds. Though the venue was huge and the microphone hissy, I came away with a great feeling of achievement, a little applause, then a little more as the MC encouraged it and a compliment or two not so much about my story but about my delivery and confidence.

I feel as though I underwent an initiation process, rather like the journey a band might take. The band starts playing small venues, their friends attend, sometimes the drummers Dad will come, there will be a few old blokes at the bar and maybe the girl who runs the cloak room will step away from the coats and take a look too. I wonder how lonely the lead singer must feel when he or she says “Thankyou.” to the sound of their lover and the old bloke clapping.

I wonder how many bands just play that one gig and give up. I doubt there are many. They will have written their songs, practiced their set, thought about their costume and given it their all. Which is what I did.

And then I had a moment of crisis. What if no one really wants to read my words?

Though Friday was the first time I ever read my work aloud among strangers, I have shown my work to others with varying degrees of success. I’ve had people tell me they loved my work, they find it too flowery, that it was evocative, that I have a beautiful way with words, that there was simply too much detail, that it was depressing and very unusual.

I just want people to read it, and to appreciate it.

I’ve never had any one yell at me to get off the stage, or throw plastic cups since they stopped serving bottles. I had a pleasant response, the only coughing came from me, I met a nice group of people who I hope to see again and most of all I had fun.

What would the rock god do next? Having secured a venue they would sneak through town at night and post flyers advertising their next gig. And so it would go on, until the band has a following and finally a manager, who has contacts and knows people and is often over bearing and one day you know they might make it. And maybe they might not. They will have had a load of fun, a stack of stories to tell and by the time they have hit mid forty their sex god pose will have been perfected to a state of imperfection.

So let’s hope my debut with the squeaky microphone in a fabulous venue is the beginning of my gigging career. As I will be reading I don’t need to practice my pout, but I just may have to mix up some paste and get posting flyers all over town.

When A Writer Writes

I am going to a cultural event on Friday, where I shall mingle with other creative types. I will be attending in my capacity as a writer. I have even asked to give a reading of a short story which is yet to be completed.

According to somewhat disturbing advice published regularly on the internet, a writer is someone who writes every day. I hope those hosting this event do not require evidence of such dedication to the craft, though I tried it for about three weeks and this is what happened:

I wrote a short story about why cleaning is a waste of time (I think I wrote it on the lap top and now I can’t find it.) When I find it I intend to use it as an experiment on social media (watch this space)

I completed Chapter 9

Chapter nine haunted me for months; I could not move it on in the manner required. Once complete I should have been able to tackle Chapter 10, which is also written, but needs editing, but I had intended to write every day. I assumed that meant writing something new.

I wrote an incomplete story about beings that live in the walls and feed off emotion; they are getting bored because everyone is very much the same.

The idea had been sitting around in my head for some time and was based on the notion that we are all living pretty much the same lives. It was unfinished because the day ran out and I was trying to write every day.

I wrote a story about a 14 year pregnancy

Still only in draft format, the landscape was previously styled for a story about a puppeteer rapist.

In response to a competition brief (now closed) I wrote a story about Spring Suicides

Currently as a third draft this was inspired by a review of The Babadook, it’s really about the relationship between the mother and son, the Spring Suicides were supposed to be about the Mother character coming to terms with her loss, the story was to hold the theme together.

I wrote about the discovery of a fairy in a dystopian future (incomplete)

This was in response to the election results; it’s about when the majority makes a bad decision.

For the cultural event I have a story about a woman who disappears, ceases to exist, and reforms elsewhere, in the steam of a hot coffee, the cheese of lasagna. This came from a concept I tried to weave into a novel five years ago, I got quite a way in and then abandoned it.

The point is that a writer does not have to write every day, a writer has to edit, to think, to read, to re-visit, to let it sit or run on as required and then to propagate. I might be at the propagation stage.  The story of the disappearing woman is taking root; it needs to be ready for planting by Friday.

  

Four things to expect at your first craft fair.

In the run up to Christmas I sewed two little felt birds. At the time I was pleased with them and made some more, I stylized them, I experimented and I ended up with a beautiful collection. I joined some online crafting groups and then Sunday 31^st May I did my first ever craft fair!

I booked a pitch, organised public liability insurance, painted twigs and ordered paper bags. The day before the fair we had something of a cottage industry going; Dad was helping my husband with the doweling for the mobiles, Mum was involved in cutting out the price tags and threading and I was sewing, sewing, sewing.

I packed everything up and Sunday morning Dad drove us to Devonport Park.

My Pitch before the Gazebo

Over the day I sold two things; one to my mother and one to a little girl. With the money earned my son bought plastic toys from the stall next door. Husband and I spent most of the day standing, cold, concerned that the Gazebo would blow away; and I made a loss!

Me and Mum at the stall (she is colour coordinated!)

I learned a great deal and I had a great time so here are my look outs if you are doing your own show:

There may be equipment you don’t understand

While the table supplied folded out with ease the Gazebo was a different matter and resulted in a sort of family krypton factor. Four adults and one child attempted to open out the spider like construction and then strap on the covering; we had two walls with windows. We spoke to The Man and got a back wall, which we thought was the roof. We figured it wasn’t the roof when it didn’t fit. Eventually we had all the components and had constructed our shop! Exciting stuff!

Your Products might not sell.

I had a good level of interest but didn’t sell. I need cost cutters; goods that are fast and inexpensive to make that will enable me to lower the cost of my more time consuming products. I also need to supply much more information about what they are, who they are for and the skills involved in making them. I am now considering a photo wall of construction techniques.

You will be required to mingle.

I spent most of the day talking to anyone that showed interest in my products. This meant that I spent a lot of the day smiling. I was in the fresh air and I was part of a community. All day there was music from the band stand, there was a refreshments tent and lots of happy happy dogs. Later in the day the sun came out and there were families. I talked to the stall holders. My son made friends with a family selling Egyptian foods and he and their boy played all day long. 

It will probably feel good

I went home feeling I had really achieved something and I slept like a baby. I’m not disappointed by my lack of sales; I’m encouraged by how much I enjoyed myself. I am keen to try out my new ideas and I am excited to be doing it again soon.

It Doesn’t have to be hard

I sat among white roses and sewed 

When I was a little kid, adults tried to shield me from worrying topics of discussion. They applied techniques:

1: discussing the matter when I was in bed.

2: mouthing significant elements when I was around.

3: suddenly talking in Greek

I know about the first technique because a school friend overheard her parents in conversation about nuclear weapons and loyally fed back to me the following day.  She was very worried, and I have remained worried ever since.

Mouthing significant elements was a thing my Nan did. She died when I was seven. I am now forty four and I can still remember the frustration of having a whole word just mouthed out. A word of course that I was unfamiliar with, a word whose gravity I would not understand.

The third technique was the most frustrating of all, I would be keenly following a conversation about nothing in particular between mum and her sister and the moment it got juicy it went ..Greek.

When I was a kid I wanted to be involved. I wanted to partake in conversations. I wanted to listen and join in. Even if sometimes I was frightened by the discussion. Which I never was because they used those techniques, unless they were talking about ghosts, in which case they seemed to totally forget that there was a kid with an “Overactive Imagination” in the room.

Consequently I try to be open when discussing around my son. It seems kids very much want their opinion to be respected in the adult realm. I can't remember what we were discussing, but it was with great conviction that my boy said,  

“But if you work hard and try it will be Okay?”

There was maybe a minute of silence before my husband and I replied;In unison

“No.”

Working hard has nothing to do with success.

It's a lie that has been sold to us, the devil makes work for idle hands and all that. Working hard simply exhausts you. Working hard is miserable.

I believe it is quite feasible to be happy and successful without working hard. Though you might need to adjust your aspirations a little. Surely it is better to be  happy with who you are and what you have, than to work hard in order to get more stuff.

Yesterday I sat among white roses and sewed, pretty things for my craft show.

https://andyartisand.carbonmade.com/

My husband painted adorable creature cards in the room next door. I had the radio on. I was not working hard. None of it was hard.

Even my real job isn't hard anymore. It used to be. But that story is for another time.

Who told the kid its hard?

Did he stay up late and eavesdrop? Could he read the shapes of silent words? Has my mother been teaching him Greek?

There is no reason why work should be hard.

It just needs to feel good.

Big Bad Blog

To cook a fine meal takes love and care and even then it doesn’t always come out right, to sew a pair of curtains is quite straight forward, but you need care and concentration or you will make a mess. It’s the same with a blog.

My blog spiel at the top there says this is my take on life as a writer, a mother a wife and a lecturer. I thought it would be boring to exclusively blog about writing, which is basically just pressing buttons on a keyboard, in the right order, the sort of order that can be often impossible to find and on occasion makes me feel a bit like I’m Leonard Cohen writing Hallelujah!

As for writing about being a mother and wife, well that’s just reflections on my family life. Most of all I like my blog posts to be topical, I also like them to be positive and ideally of some interest to others. Therefore I was thrilled last week to have dredged up something positive to say about the election results and consequently to blog about.

You can read the mess I made of it here.

And this is where I think I went wrong.

I hurried.

I have set myself the target of posting every Tuesday and I left it rather last minute to write the post. Remember when Ed Milliband set himself a target of not using notes? He made a mess of it too.

I added too many ingredients.

At the time I was pleased to have included the following culturally significant references in the post:

Jazz, Rock and Roll, Glam Rock, Punk, Disco, Country, German Expressionism, The Bauhaus, Franz Kafka, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Picasso, Martin Scorsese movies.
And demonstrate my broad understanding of world events; The Great War, The Deep Depression and the rise of Fascism.

I made a literary bad.

I know the dust bowl was in Oklahoma, I remember the men kicking it with their feet and going in doors again muttering. But the land of milk and honey; California was so strong in my mind, perhaps because of the current drought, perhaps because it was for the Joad family so full of promise, that I put the turtle there and made myself look like an idiot.

The message was lost.

There was such a tangle of ideas that my overall message was lost. It was not clear if I were saying the Tories were the villains (which I am) or Labour was (because they were in during the seventies). My big idea, the one that gave me some level of pleasure to put together; that there may be a significant cultural movement coming our way. Well that was lost.

So I suppose it’s a bit like cooking a meal, plan ahead, do your research, carefully select your ingredients, take it slow, and check the seasoning.  If you have any other suggestions as to how I can better the blog please leave a comment.

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Art in the Apocalypse

I wondered will it be like the seventies again, when we were poor? Then I remembered that we are still poor. Will I need to get in a supply of candles for the power cuts? We will have big snow once more and will there be a massive drought? 

Will students come to class each day to announce that their Dad had just been made redundant ( they already have been)? Will there be bomb scares? And riots? Will popular music become stark raving bonkers (Glam Rock, Punk, Disco, Country Ballard’s)?

Apart from the fact that I like candle light, I could find nothing positive in the election results. In a smouldering despair I began to write the darkest piece of work I have ever crafted. It will soon be complete and I will share with those that dare to read it. Saturday there was a call for writers on the theme of The Apocalyptic, HA. I laughed a bitter laugh, THIS IS THE Apocalypse. I did get that down. I even decided to move to Germany instead, whilst we can still move freely in the EU. 

My husband lived there, it looks nice, it’s also where we find German Expressionism and I especially like that, I like its darkness. German Expressionism was an artistic revolutionary response to the horrors; the rise of Fascism, the war the Apocalypse. 

http://www.moma.org/explore/collection/ge/

Brilliant art can sprout from disillusionment even despair; consider the raw genius of pessimism in Franz Kafa’s The Trial, the knowing innocence of Huckleberry Finn borne in America’s Deep Depression and of course the harsh beauty of that turtle trying to turn himself the right way up, in the burning heat, in the dust bowl of California through the craft of John Steinbeck. Let’s not forget tragedy and catastrophe has not only given birth to powerful words and images (I’m thinking here of Picasso’s Guernica.) But also to moving images, The Deer Hunter and Taxi Driver are two striking works of cinematography conceived in an unimaginable hell.

 

What of the music? Jazz as medicine to fight the horrors of the Great War, followed, by Rock and Roll as the defiant drug of the young, un-dead and free, and Punk Rock;  the ultimate musical rebellion.

What would happen if we were to bring these art forms together like they did in another German artistic movement; The Bauhaus? What if we enabled viewers to participate and even shape the narrative of that art form? We would have computer games. What shape will they now take? What will terrified independent developers do with this art form? Yes this situation is terrifying. How will the art community respond, what revolution can we expect? Because there will be one, perhaps not on the streets and maybe it won’t be televised but viewed on Twitch.

They said the election was going to be interesting, it wasn’t, I felt like a lobster being slowly brought to the boil. The interesting things, the hopeful things, they will come from the people and from their art.

Leaving The Politics Out.

A while back I found a list of short story competitions; more often than not they come with a theme, as this one did. I responded to the theme and decided to go for a horror genre. That’s horror in the loosest sense of the word.

Though I knew there was much wrong with the first draft, I still felt I had something. I sent the story to Mum and Dad for feedback: it was too long, meandering and about too many things.

I am now on the third draft, and having introduced a Doctor character I feel things are improving. Incidentally I have now missed the deadline for entry. The problem with the story is that I want it to be about many things. My story is about a single mother journalist investigating the suicides of three teenage girls. There is a story behind the suicides, and this is where the genre of Supernatural Horror comes in, but the bigger story is about how these suicides affect the journalist and her son. If it wasn't about many things it would end up being about nothing.

Whilst crafting this short story I have also been pondering the structure of a lecture I am soon to give on Personal Branding and Identity. When it comes to PR I am personally doing it all wrong. According to the PR people I most definitely should Not be filling my twitter feed with political statements and pleas that Lord Grenville Janner be brought to trial. Please sign the petition which you can find here.

Attempting Brand Identity

In PR terms, I should have a clear identity: Dark Fiction. Ideally I should have a defined image; this is mostly based on my hair. I should blog regularly (top marks there then) yet I suppose I should be blogging about Dark Fictional things, which I don’t. This is because as stated in a previous blog post “Which Me is Me.” I am not a character in a piece of fiction with clear motivations; I am a character with motivations that are often contradictory and difficult for others to understand.

My politics, my atheism, my being a mother, a lecturer and a writer are all massively intertwined.

So when I read a twitter post to a young singer song writer suggesting she “stick to music and keep the politics out of it.” I wondered what kind of music she would make if she left the politics out of it. What kind of songs would she write if part of her belief system was exempt? What stories would writers tell? In the end you would create art about one thing, when of course art is about many things and how they intertwine.