So I was inspired to write my Autumn sonnet and it is awaiting re-reading, re-writing and returning to in due course. On Saturday I met up with my Lapidus mates (www.Lapidus.org.uk) in York for a writing day which also took in a visit to the Quilt Museum for inspiration. Despite the cold blast of weather, it was wonderful to be writing creatively amongst fellow travellers. And I was fascinated to discover that "text", "textile" and "texture" all came from the same Latin root meaning to weave or construct.
Read Quirk on the Hill's blog for Sue's fabulous offering from the day. I've begun on another sonnet using the idea of a life as a patchwork. James Nash managed 63 sonnets to celebrate his 63rd birthday. Perhaps I will manage 50 to celebrate my 50th.
I have also started on my grand read through of my book on writing blocks - now called "Pathways Through Writing Blocks in the Academic Environment". Though each of the chapters has been read by an appropriate peer reviewer and I've already re-written them according to the feedback I've received, no-one has read the oeuvre from beginning to end. And let's be honest, who will again? In other publishing set-ups this would be an editor's job and I am feeling uncomfortable taking it on myself as author. A friend pointed out that this might have something to do with me for once having to trust myself and my instincts completely. Instead of bringing on board an "expert" to reassure me, I have to be the expert!
Wednesday
I am taking a break from book writing before I embark on the "great read through". I feel I need a distance of a few weeks to get the objectivity I require for this task.
So I've turned back to poetry, more specifically the newly published collection of sonnets "Some Things Matter" by James Nash (www.valleypressuk.com). I have written some sonnets in my time, but I am impressed and inspired by this volume to go back to the form. One technical aspect I've noticed in Nash's work is how simple his rhyming is. I'm not a great fan of rhyming, but may try to follow his example this time.
Another inspiration as I embark on my Autumn sonnet is Keats' "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness", no line could be more appropriate to the scene from my office window at this moment.
So I've turned back to poetry, more specifically the newly published collection of sonnets "Some Things Matter" by James Nash (www.valleypressuk.com). I have written some sonnets in my time, but I am impressed and inspired by this volume to go back to the form. One technical aspect I've noticed in Nash's work is how simple his rhyming is. I'm not a great fan of rhyming, but may try to follow his example this time.
Another inspiration as I embark on my Autumn sonnet is Keats' "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness", no line could be more appropriate to the scene from my office window at this moment.
Tuesday
Saturday found me at the Beverley literature festival and one of the events I attended was a discussion with Nick Papadimitriou (new book "Scarp. In Search of London's Outer Limits") and Leo Critchley (new book "Skimming Stones and other ways of being wild" with Rob Cowen). Both were interested in their own individual fashion with re-connecting themselves with nature and the wild through writing, and inviting their readers to do like-wise.
Papadimitriou called himself a "radical walker", explaining that he stomps a lot and is always angry. I liked his term, though not so much his rather limp definition. It put me in mind of the French flaneurs who walked in 18th century Paris to preserve the city of the common people with their words. Or the people who walked out of the industrial towns in this country in the 19th century to reclaim access to the wilds from landowners.
I wonder if I am a radical walker. I certainly walk and write. My walking inspires my writing. As I walk I make the conscious effort to notice my environment, to harness my senses, to get out of my head. By moving away from thought, thought is re-engaged, as lines come to me which I will then capture in my journal. The thoughts that come, however, often have the feel of coming from outside of me, unbidden. They are frequently more visceral, more of the moment, and less of the eternal irresolvable ruminating that I can get into. I believe that my radical walking inspires pieces which are more innovative and engaging.
And, yes, sometimes my radical walking is an effective way of stomping out my anger too!
Papadimitriou called himself a "radical walker", explaining that he stomps a lot and is always angry. I liked his term, though not so much his rather limp definition. It put me in mind of the French flaneurs who walked in 18th century Paris to preserve the city of the common people with their words. Or the people who walked out of the industrial towns in this country in the 19th century to reclaim access to the wilds from landowners.
I wonder if I am a radical walker. I certainly walk and write. My walking inspires my writing. As I walk I make the conscious effort to notice my environment, to harness my senses, to get out of my head. By moving away from thought, thought is re-engaged, as lines come to me which I will then capture in my journal. The thoughts that come, however, often have the feel of coming from outside of me, unbidden. They are frequently more visceral, more of the moment, and less of the eternal irresolvable ruminating that I can get into. I believe that my radical walking inspires pieces which are more innovative and engaging.
And, yes, sometimes my radical walking is an effective way of stomping out my anger too!
It was National Poetry Day last Thursday. BBC Breakfast celebrated it with some terrible rhyming guff. They also had Ian McMillan on (who else? If it's poetry invite IM on) who said that to rhyme was a deep seated instinct in humans. I disagree with him. It is rhythm and word sounds which touch us emotionally through reverberating with our own bodies' tick-tock. It doesn't have to be rhyme.Often-times the rhyme gets in the way.
Poetry is heightened language. It is the heart beat, the in-out of a breath. It is something that speaks to us and allows us to go, ugh, someone feels as I do, I feel connected. Yes, of course, there is room for things that make us laugh, that humorously play with rhyme, but these are ephemeral, they are passing. It is the poetry that speaks to our souls which has roots and staying power.
Here is my offering for the day:
I turned a corner,
chasing sunshine trapped in rain,
and caught a rainbow.
Poetry is heightened language. It is the heart beat, the in-out of a breath. It is something that speaks to us and allows us to go, ugh, someone feels as I do, I feel connected. Yes, of course, there is room for things that make us laugh, that humorously play with rhyme, but these are ephemeral, they are passing. It is the poetry that speaks to our souls which has roots and staying power.
Here is my offering for the day:
I turned a corner,
chasing sunshine trapped in rain,
and caught a rainbow.
Monday
While preparing my book on writing blocks in the academic environment, I came across something called the: “Matthew Effect (Matt. 25:29 ‘For unto everyone that hath, more shall be given…’) or the tendency for those who are already established to reap more citations and recognition from others who publish associated work.” (Boice, J. and Jones, F. (1984) Why Academicians Don’t Write. Journal of Higher Education, Vol 55(5), 567-582.)
It seems to work just as well in the non-academic market. Does JK Rowling really need so much media air-time to promote her new adult fiction or won't it fly off the shelves in any case?
Then I hear the author Sid Smith on Radio Four's Open Book bemoaning having to write novels. Well poor guy, to have the opportunity to sit with his characters and writing for months on end without interruption in the almost certain knowledge that what he produces will be published. I weep for him!
I wonder if he listened to himself afterwards and realised how ungrateful and arrogant he sounded to those who dream of such a pergatory?
It seems to work just as well in the non-academic market. Does JK Rowling really need so much media air-time to promote her new adult fiction or won't it fly off the shelves in any case?
Then I hear the author Sid Smith on Radio Four's Open Book bemoaning having to write novels. Well poor guy, to have the opportunity to sit with his characters and writing for months on end without interruption in the almost certain knowledge that what he produces will be published. I weep for him!
I wonder if he listened to himself afterwards and realised how ungrateful and arrogant he sounded to those who dream of such a pergatory?
Wednesday
I was listening to Radio Four's Saturday Live the other week when Edwina Curry came on claiming that, "Your diary never tells you you're wrong."
Perhaps not for the first time, Mrs Curry is misguided. For sure, my diary is a place I can write without fear of outside judgement, but it is also a place where my own judgement, my own sense of right and wrong, of fairness, writes. It is through writing that I gain clarity about when I have not done what I would have wanted to do, in the way that I would have wanted to do it, as well as about what I can do to rescue the situation.
Maybe Edwina thinks she is perfect and never slips up? What a shame that she seems to be eschewing a safe and kind way of reflecting on herself and learning from that reflection.
Perhaps not for the first time, Mrs Curry is misguided. For sure, my diary is a place I can write without fear of outside judgement, but it is also a place where my own judgement, my own sense of right and wrong, of fairness, writes. It is through writing that I gain clarity about when I have not done what I would have wanted to do, in the way that I would have wanted to do it, as well as about what I can do to rescue the situation.
Maybe Edwina thinks she is perfect and never slips up? What a shame that she seems to be eschewing a safe and kind way of reflecting on herself and learning from that reflection.
Tuesday
I have written about a creative process in my book on writing blocks - the idea being that understanding our own personal creative process can help us to feel less blocked. I borrowed heavily from the Gestalt cycle. There are two stages in the Gestalt cycle - "satisfaction" and "the fertile void" - which may not, at first, be obvious components for a creative process. And yet writers do talk about them without naming them as such, Kathleen Jamie in The Guardian on the 17th of August, does just that.
She describes finishing a book as like, "Falling out of a tree ... Your self dissolves, you feel you're falling. Language withers. It's not a good place to be, but it's probably necessary."
This is what I have characterised as the "fertile void". The time between creative projects when we are waiting for the next one to appear. It is a time for our "unconscious" to do its work behind the scenes and begin to latch onto what we want to explore subsequently. It is a time for us - our minds and our bodies - to rest, to recuperate, to indulge in re-creation.
Before the fertile void comes "satisfaction" when we need to take pride in what we have done and sit and admire it (and have supportive others do the same). Sometimes we move too quickly away from satisfaction - it feels arrogant, it feels wrong - and into critiquing. I cannot tell, of course, but I do wonder if Jamie's fertile void is so painful because she has circumvented the satisfaction phase and not allowed herself to enjoy the fruits of her labours.
She describes finishing a book as like, "Falling out of a tree ... Your self dissolves, you feel you're falling. Language withers. It's not a good place to be, but it's probably necessary."
This is what I have characterised as the "fertile void". The time between creative projects when we are waiting for the next one to appear. It is a time for our "unconscious" to do its work behind the scenes and begin to latch onto what we want to explore subsequently. It is a time for us - our minds and our bodies - to rest, to recuperate, to indulge in re-creation.
Before the fertile void comes "satisfaction" when we need to take pride in what we have done and sit and admire it (and have supportive others do the same). Sometimes we move too quickly away from satisfaction - it feels arrogant, it feels wrong - and into critiquing. I cannot tell, of course, but I do wonder if Jamie's fertile void is so painful because she has circumvented the satisfaction phase and not allowed herself to enjoy the fruits of her labours.
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