The devil makes work for idle hands...

There are times when I wish I led a simpler life, when I wish I wasn't creatively inclined with a bundle of interests...  There wouldn't be so much warring for my attention, I wouldn't constantly feel like I was failing to do something in a scramble to get other things finished...

But I guess life would then be dull!

Right at this very moment it is 6:59am and I'm sitting on a battered sofa in my living room, feeling all my thoughts spinning around inside my head like a hurricane; full of leaves, autumn mists, past, future and present.  The cat is trying to climb chair backs and staring at me like I'm sitting in the wrong place and maybe I am.  I don't have to work today - I should be in bed...

But there's things to do; props to be made, raffle tickets to fold, train times to check, taxi numbers to find, emails to be written, editing to be done, scripts to be drafted, washing up filling the sink and a brand new laminator to be played with.  All of which could be ample distractions from each other and writing this and doing the things that really are important or essential...  But I feel like I'm at the brain train station, watching high speed thoughts rush by and not sure quite which route to take.  There's decisions to be made and I'm just not sure I'm the right person to be making them...

Enough rambling...

Those of you who know me know that I'm about to take part in a Rockband charity event on Sunday 15th November - I and seven other gamers are doing the endless setlist from Rockband 2, with no breaks, no pauses and no fails and an additional setlist to bring it up to a round hundred, to raise money for The Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust, the UK's leading brain tumour research and support charity.  Even switching out with each other to make sure we don't get motion sickness, we'll all be doing at least four hours play each, in public, including singing...

To find out more about this event or to sponsor us visit www.justgiving.com/Cheesemint

More about Cheesemint next post, right now I'm off to write to do lists or maybe go back to bed.  Do 'to do' lists count as writing practice?...

Owned...

My house is full of stuff.  Or rather, our house, mine, the husband's and the cat's.  It's an Aladdin's cave of colour and texture, a tapestry created by years lived the same place and a multitude of things bought.  There was a short story/novella I read a few years ago which equated a character's living space with the inside of an oyster shell, being lined over the years with things considered beautiful.  A thickening of the walls by stuff, slowly making the space within smaller.  I think it was The Pigeon by Patrick Suskind.

When we first bought our house, before we moved in, every room echoed.  It sounded like a big, lonely, soul-less space.  It's strange to think that all our furniture, clothes, DVDs, games, music, books, comics and clutter have taken that echo away.  It's made our house sound like it has a soul.

But Tyler Durden doesn't like stuff, he said that the things you own, end up owning you.  The things we own certainly restrict our choices; a mortgage does necessitate a full time job rather than a career as a drifting surfer - not a dream that I have by the way.  Our recreational time is shaped by the things you choose to own.  On days off I have an abundance of choices of which book I read, which DVD I watch, which game I play, which of the computers I use to write on - although to be fair, there are two which I don't think could be used as anything other than doorstops.

But there are things that I have that have little function and some of them are there because they are beautiful and some are there because they are a memory made solid.   They are things given or found, bought and in a few instances stolen, that embody a place or person, usually gone or too far away to be part of daily life.  They are objects that make my heart ache or my memory sharpen when I look at them.  They are memorabilia from the life that has shaped me.

If something were to happen to them, I would mourn their loss, but life would go on.  But I can't deny that they show me who I am.

They own me.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad one.

I have an idea about writing a series of entries detailing these reflections of my soul, the memories that they evoke, with a photograph.  I'm not sure if I want to do this so that I can understand their hold over me and decide if its healthy; or if it's in case I lose them, so I have a memory recorded.

I guess that's what a lot of writing is - remembered memories.  Emotions and thoughts scrawled across paper and screens so that we can remember, even when time and tides have erased all but a lingering whisper of faces and places.

A way to remember who we are and share that with others.

If we are owned, maybe it's because we choose to be and we choose to remember who we are even when the world that shaped us has gone.

Minutiae

Somebody once said that the Devil was in the details and as writers we're always looking for the little things that concrete the reality of our writing.  But how far can you go?  Where's the fine line between appropriate attention to detail and OCD?

I'm sitting in my usual coffee house, in my usual seat, by the window on the first floor, overlooking the market.  It feels like the first day of Autumn; the sky is a flat mist grey and the awnings of the market look subdued, like off-season deck chairs.  The people walking below have slumped shoulders, heavy bags, yawns splitting their faces wide open.

This all seems like appropriate attention, I'm not dwelling on a list of every bloom sold on the flower stall, or describing everything that the man sitting on the bench below is wearing...  Although I like the way he stares off into his thoughts as he struggles to zip up his jacket, a cigarette dangling between his fingers.

But the things that mesmerise me, that make me pause; the way the milk blossoms and billows through the tea when I first pour it in, like a fast growing coral, pale against a mineral brown sea...  The way one lone white feather flutters on the pavement in the breeze of everyone's footsteps...  The way that the woman on the phone behind me has perfect hair except for a couple of loose strands, standing out from her head in a half circle of gold that glints in the light...

I feel I teeter on the brink of over-description constantly, because of the tiny things that catch my eye - shiny, silver details clamouring for the magpie mind.  It would be so easy to fall into that cloud world of heat and motion in that grande Earl Grey, or to sit by the market and watch the passage of that feather as it attempts to touch the passers-by with its simple beauty.

The film of the plastic bag in "American Beauty" captivates me, I see the beauty in the disposable, the shape of the wind in that dancing plastic.

But do we get lost in those moments?  Does it take us away from ourselves for a brief respite, a reminder of the gloriousness of the overlooked, the minutiae of our lives?  Or do we lose connection with each other whilst we are absorbed in the details?

I don't know, but I love the way my tea blossoms and the dance of that feather and I wish there were more opportunity to write about these things without losing track of the bigger picture.

With a little help from my friends...

Today has been a productive day.

With a little help from my regular Sunday night Rock Band crew, who have been waiting to read the novel I've been working on for-ever, I was placed in the situation where I had to provide them with some of it to read, by today, under pain of mockery or Chinese burns.

I am pleased to say that I handed over the prologue to Matt and Adam this evening with a list of music that kept me company whilst I wrote, or that fit with the tale...

Here's the list, expect the words next week...

The Last Man - Clint Mansell

Darkest Days - Stabbing Westward

Waiting For The Night - Depeche Mode

Crawling - Linkin Park

Disposable Teens - Marilyn Manson

Chinese Burn - Curve

Burn - Nine Inch Nails

Greedly Fly - Bush

The Noose - Perfect Circle

The Kill - 30 Seconds To Mars

Prayers For Rain - The Cure

Something I Can Never Have - Nine Inch Nails

A Beautiful Lie - 30 Seconds To Mars

I Put A Spell On You - Marilyn Manson

Ich Will - Rammstein

Get Your Gun - Marilyn Manson

Bodies - Drowning Pool

From Yesterday - 30 Seconds To Mars

Pet - Perfect Circle

Famous Last Words - My Chemical Romance

Broken Bones - Howling Bells

Blood - Editors

Low Happening - Howling Bells

Teardrop - Massive Attack

Haunted - Evanescence

Haunting Me - Stabbing Westward

Every Day Is Exactly The Same - Nine Inch Nails

The Trick Is To Keep Breathing - Garbage

Diving into unfamiliar waters...

Today's post is a poem.  This is rare for me, I don't generally write poetry, I find it incredibly hard when every word has so much weight and importance, when one wrong adjective can buckle the structure and bring all that emotion and thought crashing down.  (Although some writers I know say it should be the same case with prose, but if you're telling a story, shouldn't  the pace, flow and cadence come naturally?  You can over-think some times, I can certainly over-write and I kinda think life's too short...)

But I love the way poetry works, the way an entire piece can be a Polaroid of emotion, a parable, a metaphor and a riddle of meanings.  Poetry allows you to cloak your intent in deep, dark waters, so that on first reading it can seem like a summer's day but it has this edge, a promise of a storm, an unnoticed broken rung on a ladder, something big moving in the darkness of the lake...  Poetry is like stealth-prose, usually smaller, sleeker and full of surprises.  Good poetry anyway.

I don't often write poetry, but I find that sometimes its size and nature is ideal for emotional writing.  It can allow you to write about a subject without feeling the burn of the fire, without diving so deep that you suddenly find you can't breathe...

This is quite raw, I've not worked on it much, but the moment it captures feels true...

The Empty Chair

This chair;

worn and old but comfortable,

the wooden skin polished and varnish thin;

though I sit in it,

it waits for you.

Outside, the blue sky chases clouds,

bird's flight casts shadows.

The wind changes and I know

you're out chasing feathers in it;

following the seasons

from marsh to wood,

from sea to snow.

I can see your glasses pushed up,

high on your head, above binoculars,

Your hair ruffled like crows.

Your stillness and silence

making you part of the earth.

I can hear your key in the door,

The dog barking and your shout,

"Get out you stupid dog!"

The waxed jacket slides from your shoulders,

with a scent of trees, pepper and tobacco.

The chair creaks as you sit and reach for the paper.

We are the all singing, all dancing, crap of the world...

I'm sitting in the usual seat, the usual place and feeling very aware of the fact that I haven't written or blogged for a while.  Has the novelty worn off?  Am I in a creative wasteland?  Did someone steal my typing fingers while I was asleep?

I'm relieved to report that none of the above are appropriate, it's just been a couple of long weeks and there's a couple more ahead.

There are times when I want to write everything down, record these days in a way more reliable than memory.  Snag the moments in a butterfly net of words and keep them trapped forever, so that it's there to experience even after I'm gone.  No matter how good or bad I feel I write, there's probably no one else who will write exactly like me, who will live this exact life, who will see through these green-grey eyes...

Then there are days when I want to just get through to the end, ideally intact, with low body counts and no trips to the medical centre.

Writing is largely about communicating, about making a connection through shared experiences and emotions.  About letting even one other person know that you've felt the same, whether it be elation, delerium, ennui or boredom.  It's also about entertainment, watching created worlds spiral into Hell or greatness with an intimate audience, others who will grin and say, “Yeah, I was there when Highgrave burned...  That was a night to remember!”

But sometimes you don't want to remember, you don't want to share.  It's too tedious or painful for one person to endure, let alone to share it around.  Sometimes the cut goes too deep and those are the wounds that you keep to yourself, quietly picking at them in the darkness of 3am when you can't sleep.

There are times when it may seem that I'm not writing.  Sometimes it's because life has legitimately gotten in the way.  Sometimes it's because I'm being lazy – no surprise there, it's the whole reason I started this blog.

Sometimes it's not that I'm not writing, it's just that it's nothing I want to share.

By the way, for those who missed it, this blog entry was titled after Tyler Durden from Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club.

Wrapped in plastic...

Yesterday on the train returning from London, I saw a long white bundle lying in the ditch next to the train lines.  It looked like it was wrapped in twisted plastic or fabric, or that the material had bound itself tighter around the matter inside as it rolled down the weed thick slope.  The train was moving fast and I was tired, so it could have just been a row of white plastic bags from weeding the line, or illegally dumped rubbish...

But for a while there, I thought I was looking at Laura Palmer...

My heart rate picked up and my mouth went dry.  I craned my head to look back at the fast receding bundle glowing unbelievably bright in the pre-storm sunshine, my brain tripping over itself with thoughts of the emergency brake and policemen.

As the train turned the corner, a hill budding between me and that bundle, inside my mind - inside that vast book lined library of everything I've ever learnt and forgotten, every image I've ever seen and every experience I've ever had – the logical Twistedwitch snorted and turned the page of her newspaper, staring over the top of her glasses at the Twistedwitch of Imagination as she climbs on a bookcase to stare nervously out of the window.

“You know it's just rubbish bags...”

“What?”

“It's not a body.”

“You don't know that!  It could be a murdered prostitute or a love triangle gone wrong!”

“Do they ever go right?”

“What?”

Closing her paper, Logic sighs and stares at Imagination until she climbs down from her wobbling perch.  Imagination walks backwards down the library towards Logic, her eyes on that window, her feet coming closer to tangling with every reluctant step.

“It wasn't a body, it was too visible a place to leave it and forensic science is too good to chance a murder victim being found.”

“Maybe...”

Logic opens her paper again and goes back to reading the psychological dissemination of the dead poet.  Without looking she nods towards one of the other windows.

“Go look out of the window, we're going past a wood.”

Imagination runs through the clouds of glowing dust motes and scrambles up the books piled against the wall to press her face against the window.

“Oh my God!  There's something moving beneath the trees!  It's wolves!  No, it's the wild hunt!  Wait...it's zombies!”

Logic shakes her head and for one moment feels sorry for the lone deer that raised it's head at the wrong time.  She rustles the paper and turns the page.  Behind her the Twistedwitch of Creativity steps out from the shadows, a heavy book in hand.  Her eyes dart feverishly from Logic to Imagination and the hand holding the book raises.  It's a heavy book and it should give Imagination a few hours of unfettered wildness.

This is how my mind works.  This is why I never get anything done.  Damn my over-thinking mind.