Perspective

Looking Up

Last week I went to a university open day with my youngest son. We wandered round among fine old victorian and edwardian architecture and I listened to the excitement in his voice as he planned and hoped that this is where he will be come September. He has the desire, and the enthusiasm and the ability, He just needs the grades. 

In amongst all the red brick grandeur there are one or two concrete and brick boxes. Not so pretty to look at at first glance - but if you look up, you'll be amazed at what you can see. 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/look-up

Look Up

Murder, muses and mayhem; just another week of culture...

This week has been a bit of a cultural marathon.

Tuesday took me to The Royalty Theatre in Sunderland to see their production of Amanda Whittington's "The Thrill of Love" - the story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK.

Wednesday was Writers' Group at the library -  this week using signs as prompts. Since most of the signs I had hurriedly printed off were the Danger! Warning! type, it's perhaps hardly surprising that they inspired a surfeit of dead bodies...It's fair to say the bloodthirsty members of the group were in their element! Hopefully they will tidy up the blood and limbs and send me some samples for the group blog. (hint, hint writing group people!) Prompts are strange beasts. Sometimes they lead you to the
obvious, and other times they lead you a dance bringing you out somewhere unexpected. I thought I was writing a story about high jinx in the chemistry lab but ended up going in a completely different direction with a poem inspired by the growth in a petrie dish.

Thursday brought more drama with a visit to Arts Centre Washington for "Odyssey" - Theatre Ad Infinitum's fabulous dramatic re-telling of the legend. It had seductive nymphs, blinded cyclops, jealous gods and, of course, a great hall filled with blood and dead bodies... Quite a week so far.
Saturday will hopefully see me at The Blacklight Engine Room in Middlesbrough. I have no idea whether there will be dead bodies involved in that, but it is compered by a guy called Morbid...


You can read my review of The Thrill of Love here.

Find out what else is on at Arts Centre Washington .

Read more from the Hartlepool Writers' Group at The forms of things unknown .

Comments always welcome.

Creepy Crawlies

The past week I seem to have developed a magnetic personality for creatures with more than four legs. It began with a spider clinging to my car, looking as if it had been caught in a room with David Banner and some gamma rays. I am reliably informed this is a female green (no,really?) orb weaver spider. Quite common, actually.




 Next up, no more than two days later, this chap...who was cheeky enough to be inside the car! Yikes! Fortunately I didn't spot him until the end of the journey as I was parking the car, so no spider induced traffic calamity. This one is a harvester spider, apparently. He wasn't too keen on being ushered to the outside of the car. Perhaps for this reason he made a re-appearence a day later...crawling up my jeans leg. It may not have been the same one...perhaps he sent his big brother round to sort me out? Either way, this one was also encouraged to take a turn in the fresh air!


In the meantime at work, I have been keeping a spidery weather eye on two large black spider legs that are currently protruding out of a crack in the window frame near my desk. They have been there for a week, unmoving. Past experience has taught me not to be complacent. Just because they haven't moved doesn't mean they won't. I know one morning I will come to work and the legs will have disappeared and somwhere a rather large black spider will be lurking...

This is not the end of the creepy crawlie saga - I have also had a shield bug incident - but it was at this point that I felt inspired to pen a spidery flash...herewith shared!

Spider Humour
Spiders have a fiendish sense of humour. They lay in wait and jump out, "Boo!" Or creep up, unawares, as you watch TV in the dark. A sudden RAWR!!" in the flickering light of "Aliens III". But the best ones play the long game, hiding in a crevice in the window sill, just the tip of a black leg in view. There for days, unmoving. You convince yourself it is no threat. Then, one day, gone.

A new year resolution thingy...

I realise that this comes a little late - everyone else was doing the obligatory "see out the old, ring in the new" blog post back in January. The really eager beavers were doing it in December. I've never really been one to follow the herd, I wave a token placard now and then just to keep people happy (I have noticed people get a bit edgy if you appear to be deliberately wandering in a different direction to everyone else). But although I didn't choose to wave my New Year Resolution placard at new year, I had actually made one, a resolution I mean, not a placard! And not just my usual "I will put on half a stone and keep it" or "I will clean my windows more than twice in 2014". I made a proper, serious New Year Resolution. And aye, there's the rub. It was a serious one. And it was important to me. So I didn't sing and shout about it. But I did get on and do it and what's more, I got on and did it like the eager beavers, way back in December.  I had been dithering about joining a new writing project. I was not sure I was either A. good enough or B. Hartlepuddlian enough, to take part.  As I dithered, checking up on Facebook and Twitter (as you do) just in case some great event was errupting that needed my immediate and close attention, one of those auspicicious things happened. A tweet about a Creative Writing Workshop popped up in my Twitter stream. And then it popped up on Google. It was local too. I got the distinct feeling someone was trying to tell me something. I mentioned it to a friend who quite simply said, go for it. (He did have to say it quite simply several times, for which steadfast commitment to curing my ditheriness I am very grateful.) And so my NYR was formed. I would do something for me in 2014, and that something would be to take this writing lark seriously. I booked the workshop and I resolved to go to the first meeting of The Heugh Battery Writers Group. 
There'll be more on the Heugh later I'm sure, but first Shepherd's Dene!



Last Sunday I had a whole day of writing. Me. The tea maker. The not really a writer who was bullied coerced persuaded to join in by the guys in the library writing group. Imagine that. To say I was daunted would be putting it mildly, but I found myself in a beautiful setting with a bunch of lovely, and equally daunted people, plus two of the friendliest, most undaunting workshop leaders I have ever come across - Rachel Cochrane and Helene Dolder . 
Plus, it all began with coffee and cookies so, you know it was bound to be fine.

The day was all about the senses and observation. I was slightly hindered by a hideous headcold - held in check with max strength flu capsules (shop's own brand though other well known makes are available) and by the fact that I rarely seem to notice anything much. I actually do find the kind of exercise where you have to look at things minutely really difficult. Self-conscious at the best of times the intensity of such observation almost paralyses me. I look at an object and see only that - it's a chair, it has legs, I can sit on it... I marvelled at the imagery that others in the group created from their various observances throughout the day. I found myself writing pagefuls of words, with maybe a phrase or a line here and there that stuck a chord. I was not put off by this, and that is perhaps the measure of the small progress I have made in three years, because I have learned that three good words can be the trigger for something more, so I have gathered my words like fallen leaves and will spread them out later and smooth their crumples and see what I can make of them. 

Location Location Location

During my usual desultory Saturday morning Facebook and Twitter trawl, I came across a last call tweet for submissions to a geo-writing project in Brighton. Not having heard of geo-writing before I followed the link and discovered an interesting idea, and better still, I didn't actually have to be in Brighton to join in (not that there's anything at all wrong about being in Brighton, but I am 350 miles north of it and unlikely to be able to pop down to find a prompt....)
My own writing has been languishing in the doldrums lately so I was surprised to sense a little inner flutter of interest as I read about the project. Location inspired writing is sort of what got me started (see my Flashing post). So I clicked on the prompt and amazingly the flutter turned into a steady pulse...the prompt had immediately prompted an idea. The resulting short has been sent off - with a little trepidation. The rules say I don't have to be in Brighton to join in, but it does seem a little bit cheeky. I'm not in the location, and if you know me at all or have read any more of my blog, you will know I don't actually consider myself to be a writer. Double cheek!
The geo writing project ends on the 30th Sept so you could still join in if you are quick....only 50-250 words.
I will post my little offering here shortly - cutting and pasting in the Blogger app on my phone would try the patience of a saint. In the meantime I'd like to say thanks to these guys for getting my meagre creative juices flowing again:
http://www.geo-writing.com/index.htm

The writing by other contributors can be read here http://www.geo-writing.com/writing.php


Post Script:
As promised here is my meagre offering.

LOCATION: Carden Park

PROMPT: A woman in her 80s is asking people whether they have seen the aliens

Have you seen them?
Have you seen them?
Over and over, she asked, her quavering voice rising in agitation. Arthritic fingers clutching anxiously at their sleeves, hands, bags.
You must have seen them?
They were meant to be here. Meant to be here.
Meant to take me with them this time.
Promised me.
Promised.

People saw her, heard her desperate pleading, gave her a wide birth, hoping to avoid any awkwardness. They had seen nothing. Shaking their heads and looking away, they scurried past, not wishing to become involved.
Doubtless someone would come for her soon.
Safely inside their cloaked ship the aliens watched and waited.

Looking for inspiration...

Something different for Hawksword - I have a guest blogger! Meet Richard (that's his Sunday name), who has leapt manfully into the breach to rescue my floundering blog from the doldrums it had fallen into, with appropriately enough, a little piece on inspiration! Take it away, Dickie...

My Creative Muse

When Denise asked me to write something for her blog I had to think long and hard (easy tiger) about what I would write because I knew I was going to have to prove to her that I can discuss subjects without the superfluous use of innuendo!

To those of you who don’t know me I am an aspiring author and when I’m not writing over at my blog Not A Domestic God , I’m bashing out the corrections of my debut novel, so when asked if I would write something by Denise, I began thinking about how I work, particularly with regard to my writing. There is a theme that runs through al of it, and it’s something that I have done since my time at University, and that is setting up office anywhere but my desk in my room, or home, I have even been known to sit with my laptop on my knee on a long bus journey. 

I was not always this way inclined, when I was younger, and there was all the initial excitement about JK Rowling, and the news reports showed those clips of her writing in a secluded corner of a café, I like many people I know thought ‘God what pretentious cow’, but here I am about ten years later doing exactly the same thing.  I have realised that while me and JK have completely different reasons for writing outside of the home, we both have valid enough reasons for doing so.

I don’t have a child; therefore I am unable to reason that I have to take a child out for a walk to be able to get her to sleep, and it is only when the said child is asleep that I can “carpe diem” and write my masterpiece.  In my case it is a fully conscious decision to write in café’s, pubs, and libraries (yes I go to libraries I love the smell of books, especially an old book). 

What I discovered from an early age was that at home there are many distractions; television, chores that need to be completed, reading and a mother who doesn't understand that to turn my writing from a hobby into an actual business I need to have time to write and not to be distracted by multiple requests for me to make coffee, and locate her various stationary or electrical goods.

I suppose the second reason I write elsewhere is that being able to watch people, affords me the luxury of ‘accidentally’ overhearing their conversation and observing their behaviour, which stimulates that niggling part of my brain that makes me ask What If?  In turn it is these questions that often prompts me to write.

When/if I start to find myself flagging what I do is pack my laptop into my backpack and move onto the next café, or walk around in the fresh air (if it’s not too rainy) and then return (hopefully to get to the seat near the socket) to the same café and carry on from where I left off.  

The world is an interesting place and I think in the future when I'm a huge glittering successful author (go ahead laugh) that I will call the world my muse. I find life intrinsically beautiful and interesting and it is from life that I draw my inspiration. As a writer I love to explore the relationships that humans form with each other. Sounds utter baloney doesn't it? Maybe it is, but I do find people fascinating.

I love hearing about other writers and the way they write, so if you want to you can either follow my blog (greatly appreciated) or follow me on Twitter @dickiebird123 .