A Quickie

Just a quick one before I head off out into the gale that is currently battering the South East of the UK - okay, maybe it isn't a gale, but it's certainly very windy.

I've been thinking about changes and how our lives develop over time...the old thing of 'what if?' Not always a good thing to consider as you can so easily wind up feeling full of remorse and regret - If only I hadn't eaten that last doughnut! If only I'd walked instead of taken the bus!

Recently I've been teaching a bit and one of the problems some of my students have come up against is distance. Not how far they need to go to get to classes or to the pub, but how easy it is to put distance between them and their readers in their writing. I think often we keep the entire world at arms length - as children we are shielded by our parents (hopefully) from the worst that life has to offer and as parents we do the shielding. As childless adults we often protect ourselves from the outside world and avoid unpleasant experiences. Self-preservation and protection. Not a bad idea.

But what if it's stopping you from experiencing life?

What if your fear of the unknown because it might be nasty, is preventing you from having some amazing life-affirming experiences?

As I write this I'm reminded that I wrote about this subject months ago - clearly it's still something that bothers me - it's my personal bee in my blogging bonnet.

You know what? Switch this PC off and go out - go into your life, do something, anything but mostly something which scares you a little but will make you feel alive.

That's what I'm off to do.

Bibliophilia

No real secret about me – my love of books. It’s something I share with many of my closest friends and in many ways marks out individuals with whom I’m more likely to spend time.

Descartes said “I think therefore I am” for me I would alter that to “I read therefore I think”. In my opinion reading is an active pursuit not a passive one – when I read I am the author’s audience. I am the screen upon which the author’s imagination can project its images – yet they are always my images. Have you ever seen a film of a book you’ve read? Then you’ll know what I mean – you watch and think to yourself, ‘But that’s not how it was’ or ‘That’s not how they looked’. Reading is an active pursuit because one needs to conjure up the images in ones head – the author suggests them but the reader makes them real, fleshes them out in their head. Readers are also active in piecing together the clues left in the plot – even when the story isn’t a mystery or crime novel. All stories are mysteries – what will happen next? How will things turn out? Will it end happily? As readers we are constantly watching for clues and signs – even when we think we’re not. I could go on at length now about semiotics – film semiotics in particular is a love of mine. It reminds me of crossword puzzles – something in truth I’m lousy at – but the semiotics of a film – the why and how, the grammar and language of film – that gives me a perverse kick. Likewise the critical examination of a good book is something I have come to appreciate over the years.

But it’s not just what’s contained between those cardboard leaves but the actual bookishness of the book itself – its form, its smell – the promise of far off lands, other times, other lives, new ideas, new adventures, new people – all those things and the weight, the smooth page under my fingertip, the small file filled up in my head once I’ve finished the story.

Is it any wonder I once made an art installation of a book repository – a storage room full of shelves and on each shelf row after row of neat piled shoe boxes – each with details printed on the outside of a book I had read, the main or most resonating character for me and the age at which I was when I read it. Small children’s shoe boxes for “What Katy Did Next”, “Ballet Shoes” and an entire shelf devoted to Enid Blyton. One thing I forgot until the piece was being shown was a dark corner where I could have shoved all the Jackie Colllins and Danielle Steele boxes so they would have been almost out of view, my shame nearly hidden…

And then today I came across this wonderful bookcase/staircase – if ever I have the opportunity to design a staircase I want one of these!

And you can see more details of the staircase here.

Anger.

Anger is a strange emotion and one that thankfully, I don’t often experience. Right now though, I’m extremely angry.

I’ve had the last few days in a real oasis of calm and relaxation – good company and doing things I enjoy like getting out and about, talking and all the usual stuff that we do as our Leisure Pursuits. Today though my return to normality has been blighted constantly: first of all a horrendous traffic jam on the M25 which saw 10 mile tailbacks (it could have been 100 miles – it certainly felt like it) so my journey was not just doubled but actually near on quadrupled. The weather was beautiful and I was stuck in a car. Then I got home to a letter – a large bill actually for something unavoidable but equally something which I’ve been pushed into you might say – it’s too personal to go into but suffice to say after opening the letter I was ready to express my feelings in the strongest terms possible. Then I had to pick up my children from a match they were playing against another school. Firstly I had forgotten all about this until I reached their school and saw they were not there (yes I know - go on call me a bad mother!). I dashed to the other school and fortunately made it just in time to pick them up – the only redeeming feature of the day actually as I’m so often late.

Now this evening the kids wouldn’t go to bed, the house is so noisy I can hardly hear myself think (and that’s not just the kids, but that’s another story entirely) and to cap it all off the internet has gone down so I can’t even check my email.

All the calmness and serenity I picked up over the weekend is entirely ruined. I’m angry.

Unfortunately anger is one of those emotions which really harms the person experiencing it and also has a detrimental effect on those around you too. It’s an unpleasant emotion in every way. I don’t like being angry and I can’t see how it can be a healthy emotion to experience. Right now I could willingly go and kick or thump nine bells out of something (not someone – no matter how tempting that may be) and I can see that kick boxing would be a great sport to take up were one regularly troubled by anger.

Maybe when the bloody internet gets back up and running I’ll start to look for a kickboxing class I can take.

Writing

Just a quick one as I really ought to be sleeping now as I'm teaching tomorrow, but I have that nagging itch to write.

No idea what to write about this evening....I've written a short piece of erotica-lite for b3ta today in reply to another poster's request. It was fun to put myself into another character's mindset for a short while and reminded me just why I enjoy writing fiction so much. I do find though that I tend to write in two ways or rather, two styles - one which is rather distant and quick, almost journalistic and therefore Tells the story rather than Showing it. The other style I take is my favourite but far harder to do - that of Showing the story - avoiding adverbs, using lots of active verbs and rich description, really allowing the reader to inhabit the scene for themselves. It's more demanding to write, requires a real crafting of a story and a high level of skill which is hard (for me) to maintain. Often Showing a story can result in a filmic piece of writing - my aim most of the time as I want to put the pictures right into the readers' heads. However, when writing something short or with a short deadline then I fall back onto the journalistic style - quick and snappy and hopefully throw in a more crafted line here and there.

I need to get back to writing. Proper writing.

Must start thinking about plots and ideas for writing.

Perhaps I'll even post some of them here....