Blog posts - page 41
Oak Tree Manor: Flash Fiction
17 May 2017 stories
Another story from a prompt at Terrible Minds. This week was a mash-up of genres. I got ‘Haunted House’ and ‘Body Horror’. Enjoy!
Everything is a story
10 May 2017 politics
One of the things reading a lot of fiction teaches you is that everything we rely on in the real world is made up. We are narrative beings and we rely on the power of stories to guide our everyday lives. Very little of our experiences and the systems we live in are based on cold facts. Most of the stories we tell ourselves do no have neat structures, with a beginning, a middle and an end, but are beliefs we hold that change how we view the world.
At the End of NaPoWriMo
03 May 2017 poetry
I wrote a bit about the process halfway through, but I’ve finally finished NaPoWriMo, where you write a poem every single day in April. I had foolishly thought the process would be relatively straightforward, but I was drastically wrong about that. Writing so many lines over so many days was a real challenge. It was difficult to keep motivated and continue writing.
Jerusalem, Ambition and the Power of Ideas
26 Apr 2017 book review
It’s taken me three and a half months, but I finally finished Alan Moore’s magnum opus Jerusalem. Made of a number of interlinked short stories set in Northampton, it tells the history of the town as well as the nature of life, death and time itself. It is ridiculously broad in its scope while remaining funny and down to earth, with a serious message about the abuse of the working class. The entire second book occurs whilst a child is choking on a sweet. Each chapter, especially in the last book, uses its own style. There’s an epic poem, a...
NaPoWriMo Halfway through
19 Apr 2017 poetry
For the month of April, I have tried to write a poem a day for NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month.) It’s been surprisingly difficult to find a different theme or story each day. Nevertheless, I feel the process has pushed me forward as a writer by sending me into unknown areas. It’s giving me much needed rigour and discipline. I consider myself to be an amateur, with less experience in poetry than in short stories or plays. I only started writing poetry again last year, and even then it was fairly occasional. Forcing myself to write a poem a day has...
Tourmaline: Flash Fiction
05 Apr 2017 stories
Flash fiction created in response to Chuck Wendig’s prompts. Enjoy!
My accidental novel: Thoughts on first drafts
29 Mar 2017 writing
I accidentally wrote a novel. Well, it certainly started that way. I started working on a short story in December, setting out a really basic outline and running with it. After about ten thousand words, I realised I had barely scratched the surface. Clearly, this short story was something more expansive. The story demanded a larger setting. So I continued on until finally, last weekend, I typed THE END. What was a short story has now turned into something approaching short novel length. I had very little idea what I was doing and even less of an idea on how I...
Jabberwocky Remixed
23 Mar 2017 poetry
Inspired by Poetry as Fuck and Imaginary Advice, I spent a morning remixing* Jabberwocky* by Lewis Carrol. Because…? I’m not really sure why. Anyway, here are the results. In this first one, I replaced words with common names. Weirdly, it still makes a sort of sense:
Distraction by Design: Observations on Television
22 Mar 2017 television
Over three years ago, I stopped watching TV. I didn’t have one in the house I was in, so I just stopped. At first, it was strange to not constantly have noise and visual distraction. But soon, I didn’t miss it. I preferred the silence and space to think, giving myself time to immerse myself in reading and writing. Television felt mind-numbing in comparison. I did not miss switching my brain off. In the same way as I occasionally need to disconnect from the internet to improve my attention, I never got another television because I found myself more...
The New Religion of Brexit
15 Mar 2017 politics
Finally, after 9 months of legal battles and back and forth in parliament, it looks like Article 50 is about to be triggered and the UK can start its negotiations with the EU. No going back from that point. It seems since the vote months ago that hard Brexit is now a religion, an unstoppable dogma that cannot be argued with. The UK is willing to sacrifice almost everything for the promised hard Brexit. Turn this island into a tax haven? Sure, why not. Public Services? Tories were getting rid of them anyway. Even the United Kingdom itself...