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....

The Book Thief

I know, I know, it's been ages again since I wrote anything here. I have no excuse except that I've started this new job (I mentioned it in the previous post - it's temporary and only a few hours each week, but as it's an academic job it's demanding and I'm enjoying it).

I'm reading a great book at the moment - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It's a story set during World War Two in Germany. It tells the tale of an ordinary German family living in Munich who hide a young Jewish man. It's very much a cross between the Diary of Anne Frank and the film, The Pianist. It's also unusually told by Death. This morning I was sitting in a cafe reading a chapter over a coffee and it had me in tears with the following moving passage....


"On June 23 1942, there was a group of French Jews in a German prison, on Polish soil....



Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their French words. I watched their love-visions and freed them from their fear.

I took them all away, and if ever there was a time I needed distraction, this was it. In complete desolation, I looked at the world above. I watched the sky as it turned from silver to grey to the colour of rain. Even the clouds tried to look the other way.
Sometimes, I imagined how everything appeared above those clouds, knowing without question that the sun was blond, and the endless atmosphere was a giant blue eye.



They were French, they were Jews, and they were you."

Yes, I know it's very sentimental but personally I adore sentiment and strong feelings in writing - I want to feel the heartbreak of the characters or their passion, their fear, their joy - I'm not happy to simply read a clinical or cynical take on events. In fact in my opinion this writing isn't sentimental at all, but instead the huge events taking place are handled very gently without overblown baroque outpourings.

If only I could write that way myself...unfortunately I tend towards the baroque at all times in my writing.

Happy New Year

January is a depressing month I think. It's the depths of winter and here in the South of England we get wind, rain and grey, grey skies. It's cold and damp. No snow, no startling blue skies just turgid miserable weather.

I feel unbelievably tired - I'm getting a good 7-8 hours each night, I'm exercising regularly (climbing at least twice or three times a week and even some cycling in there too) yet I feel that I could retire to bed for the next month or so. Hibernation looks inviting.

Despite all my feelings of sloth I'm actually going through a really good period in my life right now - new friendships and relationships have developed, a new job has been started - even if it is temporary and with very few hours, nonetheless, it's an area in which I wanted to work. So things are good right now, much better than they've been for a long time.

Yet.

If you can imagine the slightly dreamy way you can sometimes feel when you've had a couple of drinks...no drunkenness but a sort of heightened awareness and increased sensitivity. That's sort of how I feel right now - a bit spaced out I guess, and tired.

Maybe it's because a good deal of my life is beginning to finally settle. I do feel a little like a giant snow-globe - I've spent the last year being picked up and shaken frantically and now, finally, everything is settling and becoming clear. No wonder I feel tired...and very probably a little seasick.

Alternatively I could simply be coming down with a cold.

Beautiful Music

I've just received a message from Dan with a link to the Cocteau Twins song Pur in it, so I shall embed it here for all to see...although it is with subtitles because it's impossible to hear what she's singing about. This is very much like listening to poetry - ignore what the words actually mean and just listen to the sounds her voice make - the words are pretty poor sadly but Elizabeth Fraser's voice is sublime. Interestingly according to her Wiki entry she suffered a nervous breakdown during the production of the album Four Calendar Cafe on which Pur appears. I guess that goes to prove that behind most great talents there hides a sadness and so often that sadness is some sort of mental illness. That said I'm sure there are plenty of talent people out there who are not the tortured genius, but that doesn't fit into our Victorian view of the artist.

Anyway, I'm rambling again...

Pur



And while I'm at it have some Sigur Ros - this band seem like the natural successors to the Cocteau Twins and even better when it comes to their videos. This one, Glosoli, is a beautiful film aside from the music.

Glosoli



I suppose I really ought to finish this off with a bit of Portishead, but it *is* still early (ish) and as much as I love Portishead they can be a bit depressing...beautiful, but depressing. I get the feeling that were I to be a teenager now I would probably be wearing far too much black make up and long black clothes.

Roo, if you're reading this no comments on our teenage years thanks!

Stuff and Nonsense

I'm not sure what to write about today but I have the itch to write. I think since finishing off the first draft of the novel I've not wanted to even attempt to write in any form at all. I've just about managed to reply to peoples' emails and that's been pretty much it for me. Now however the need is returning and it *is* a need - as tangible as hunger or thirst. You know how some days you're just desperate to get outside and take a huge deep lungful of fresh air because sitting inside feels like being underwater - suffocating, slow moving, turgid. That's how I feel about writing some of the time. Other times I have an idea I need to express fully and often I can only properly think in the written word - I need to see it in front of me - hearing it out loud just isn't enough, it needs to be set down, fixed, pinned down like a poor pathetic dissected frog in a biology lesson so I can understand precisely what it is.

I'm sure I've referenced this before, but recently I've been listening to a great deal of music I discovered when I was in my teens. I received a beautiful iPod for Christmas and now once again my head is full of the Cocteau Twins and the odd smattering of Japan amongst the contemporary stuff. It seems to me that regardless of what form it takes I'm a huge lover of beauty.

I also suspect that at the moment I'm rambling....

I'd really like to post some audio here too - ideally Pur by the Cocteau Twins or Nightporter by Japan, but sadly Pur isn't to be found on any of the usual sites that will allow linking *sigh*
If you get the chance do listen to these two lovely songs.

YES, I'VE DECIDED TO CHANGE HOW IT LOOKS!

As the New Year is approaching and I'll have been keeping this blog for a whole year, I fancied a change.

Hope you like it.

Festive Fitness

There are many, many things I want to put down in my blog at the moment so I anticipate a flurry of postings...I hope.
For now I'll just stick with what's at the front of my mind - most recent events. Sorry to say it's not something deeply interesting, no scandal or anything like that...rather about the state of my current fitness...

Those of you who know me in the real world will know that the last year or so has seen me return to who I was a long time ago.
Hang on.

*Tangent alert*

Aren't we always who we were, or who we are? Why does this happen? I seem to do this a lot - I'm my own person, independent, free-spirited, strong-willed and then I get involved with a man and over time the very person I was becomes the person that maybe he wanted, or not, but anyway, not 'me' anymore. Generally this coincides with me losing confidence, putting on weight and generally losing my way and losing me. The result is that I end the relationship, lose weight and find me again. I've done this all my life it seems. Perhaps now that I'm in my late thirties I just might be able to hang onto myself and not lose it again in the face of a relationship.

I always feel that I return to myself but is it 'me', the Old Me, or is it, as I suspect, a New Improved Me. I hope so because if by evolving my personality and in effect 'growing' (bit too new agey and touchy feely for me I suspect)then maybe I can be just like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day and eventually beat the constant round of self-fulfilling prophesies or maybe that's destinies....

Anyway, back to the original idea for this post....


So, my general fitness has pretty much returned to what it was some years ago. Oh god, it feels like years ago that I used to go to aerobics classes twice a week (actually, can you still go to aerobics classes? Or have they been superseded by Spinning classes or Boxercise or something else more fashionable?). I think I was doing aerobics twice a week (and clubbing all weekend) about fifteen years ago, so it was years ago. And around eleven years ago I used to cycle for miles - in fact I used to cycle over to a friend's parents' house some 6 or 7 miles away from me and then swim for a few hours (yes, that's why we went to the parents' house, POOL!). And I took part in a charity bike ride - borrowed a friend's road bike and was amazed at how fast and light it was compared to my lumpy ATB - thin tires are lovely when you're zipping down a main road.

Well, I've just come back from a very short bike ride - I've just checked it out on Google Maps and discovered I cycled the long distance of TWO whole British miles! To be fair to myself (read *excuse*) my bike does need more air in the tyres and it's a rather hilly so that's why I didn't go too far.

Okay, the real reason?

I got one mile up the road and thought I was going to be sick - I think the mint chocolates I ate before I left the house might have had something to do with it. So I turned around and came back - the return journey was no problem - all gently downhill except one short steep bit.

Now I climb maybe four times a week and have done pretty much since June, about three hours at a go. I do yoga regularly, I think nothing of taking long walks - about eight miles would be a fair sized one. So why on earth did a mile long cycle ride nearly kill me?

Why?

Because I'm unfit and I've eaten too much chocolate over the last couple of days.

Ah well, never mind, that's the festive season for you.

Now I'm going to take a shower, have a glass or two of mulled wine, some lovely baked ham, sausage rolls and maybe a slice of Christmas cake AND chocolate yule log.

To hell with diets, I'll simply get back on the bike again tomorrow and try to kill myself again.