Posts Tagged "Uncategorized"
Writing Workshop: Everything
Welcome back to the Wednesday Writing Workshop link-up! At the bottom of this post you’ll find the widget to post the link to your workshop posts. But first, I guess it’s my turn! And as usual on a Tuesday night I find myself simultaneously trying to do my workshop post and my coursework at the same time and trying to find some ingenious way of combining the two. This week my work is all about character creation. So I’ve chosen prompt #3 – write a piece of fiction based on a song you love, or in my case, create a character inspired by a song you love…
________________________________________
The girl sits chewing her lip anxiously. Periodically she lowers her fingers to the keyboard, pausing hesitantly, perhaps tapping out a few tentative words before hitting the delete button. Sighing, she gives up and lifts her hands, putting her thumb to her mouth and stroking her upper lip with her index finger: an echo of a movement she has performed countless times over the last 27 years and a habit she is no closer to breaking despite now being married, and a mother, and old enough to know better.
In the last 48 hours she has run through the usual range of her emotional spectrum. Hyperactive, manic energy and enthusiasm to be quickly followed by withdrawal, anxiety, and lethargy, making even herself dizzy at the speed at which her mood can change. As usual she wonders what prompts such extremes of emotion in such a short space of time. Was it the weather? The planetary alignment of the day? The quality of her sleep last night (or the lack of it?).
Right now she is deep within the throws of creative angst; a familiar feeling of late, and probably the reason for her low mood today. Words have been building all day, circling round and round but with no outlet as time and space to write have been in short supply. And now as she sits, with all the time and space a free evening could allow, they will not come: drowned out by the far louder voices of the insecurities and nagging self-doubt that lurk in her cerebral spaces. She gives in to their clamour, an introspective mood and little or no viable output inevitable on this dark, cold evening; fatigue pulling at her eyes and her thinking.
She knows she can write, proud of her forays into the field. Yet simultaneously she is haunted by the feeling she is kidding herself, that even trying is both laughable and futile. This ambivalence is so typical of every other area of her life. The way she feels about her appearance, her spirituality, her understanding of politics: everything. She wishes she were beautiful and stylish and yet is scornful of vanity and shopping addictions. She sees meaning in everything and yet doubts there is a spiritual source outside of our own creations. She is drawn to liberal thought yet frustrated by its passivity. She has a capacity for deep thinking and intelligent debate and yet is overwhelmed by it. She is motivated by kindness, by the need to do good, and yet has little patience for people or things outside her own little world. She exists in a constant state of flux, pulled by the competing and conflicting parts of her self: positive and negative; wise and immature; confident and insecure; proud and ashamed; witty and dumb-struck; altruistic and self-absorbed. Never one thing, but everything all at once.
Her thoughts stray to the man in the front room. Her husband, patiently indulging her need for peace and solitude tonight, as he does most every day. She wonders how he sees her, if he understands this conflict that is so deep and intrinsic to her make-up. How can he when she understands it so little herself? And yet: his quiet patience, his ability to discern her mood without her needing to verablise, at times when she is quite incapable of it; a reassuring touch and stroke of her hair when she is feeling overwhelmed and withdrawn, and his good humour when she needs to pour out all the stored-up thoughts and feelings of her day in one long stream of verbal diarrhoea. These things tell her that he does.
Next week, they will celebrate an anniversary. A decade since they met and fell in love. A decade in which they have both grown and changed yet somehow stayed the same, somehow expanding and contracting their personalities, their individual journeys, in a way in so that they still fit together.
Sat, now with a rapidly filling screen in front of her, inspiration flowing at last, the girl thanks the stars that she has this one rock to cling to. That if she cannot know or understand herself, at least there is a man to love her through it. To take the light and dark, the ups and the downs – everything. To see them all, to love her despite of them and, most importantly, to still be here, not letting go.
….
Ok, so this wasn’t a made up character. This was me – did you guess? But hell, autobiographical techinques for character creation was the first point in my course book tonight so I went with that… Hey! At least I wrote something! Believe me, that is an achievement tonight. It was inspired by one of my favourite songs, ‘Everything’ by Alanis Morissette, which must have been, I believe, written about me and about Ant and perfectly describes my feelings about our relationship. Give it a listen.
________________________________________
So now it’s your turn! What prompt did you choose?
1. Write about an over-heard conversation. We could even make this one a bit of a research project. Get eaves-dropping people!
- Inspired by Rosie Scribble’s brilliant post Overheard
2. Tell us about the worst Christmas present(s) you were ever bought, and what you’d prefer this year.
- Inspired by Zooarchaeologist’s Things I specifically don’t want for Christmas
3. Write a piece of fiction based on a song you love.
- A most excellent suggestion made by the lovely Kelly at A Place of my Own
4. Tell us about something surprising that arrived in the post.
- Inspired by Dulwich Divorcee’s Surprises in the Post and this week’s disruptive postal strikes.
5. Share with us a story of loss, if this is something that you feel comfortable doing. And you can interpret this any way you like.
- Inspired by me, after my sad goodbye this week.
Leave your name and the URL to your post in the MckLinky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) andleave me a comment to let me know you’ve taken part. If you have the time it would be great if you could try and read and comment on at least two other entries. And be kind! It’s supposed to be a bit of fun – we’re not looking for the next Booker Prize winner here!
If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve still got today! Or just wait till next week, when there’ll be five brand new prompts to get you thinking.
This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop over in the U.S.
A final 2p
There was a bit of an explosion yesterday amongst the Blogging Community and Twitterverse. Discussion about commercialism in blogging, about reviews and advertising, and about a competitive element to the whole business that seems to be springing up and leaving people feeling uncomfortable. I littered my two pennies worth in the comments of most of the various blogs in involved, in fact if you want to go and track them all down there would probably be enough to buy you a sandwich or something. I’m really hoping today we can move on to other things, and in a moment I’m going to post my usual Wednesday Writing workshop, but before I do I need to clarify some things.
1. Reviews. I love reviews. Hell, I deputy edit a toy review site, how could I not? But for THIS blog I’ve chosen not to include reviews. The reason? No moral superiority it’s just a matter of integrity and aesthetics. Firstly I think I’m just finding my rhythm here and am not the writing the sort of blog where reveiws would ‘fit’ – I think it would just interrupt the flow and muddy the waters. Second – so far I have only been offered pretty crap stuff to review on here. If I was to start reviewing every weird and wonderful pitch that got thrown at me my blog would loose it’s soul very fast. But if, one day in the future, I was offered something really pertinent to this blog or me and my family? I would review it. Of course I would. So no judgement from me.
2. Competition. Yes, I do feel that Blogging takes on a competitive edge sometimes. Too much preoccupation about what makes you look good and perceived status, the number of pitches you’re getting, or the number of exciting opportunities. And I don’t like the bitterness from those that don’t get these things and the sense of entitlement that they should. But. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being proud of your blog, of wanting to improve it or wanting to promote and increase the number of people that read it.
The answer to the competitive vibe isn’t some kind of insincere holier-than-thou attitude where you pretend not to care what anyone thinks. So yes, you will see me continue to plug posts and features, to talk with pride about my blog. But you will also see my comments continue to pop up across the Blogosphere, offering connection and support and encouragement to all of my fellow bloggers, no matter what their ranking or how ‘big’ their blog is.
And finally.
3. The Tots 100 Index. The index didn’t create the competitive spirit – bloggers did that. It’s intention was always about fun, about a way of finding new blogs to read, and a spirit of healthy competitiveness coupled with mutual encouragement. If people got a bit too obsessed with the figures then that was not the index’s fault. After all, it is voluntary and you could always opt out if it makes you feel uncomfortable.
There is also a person behind the index. A person who works extremely hard for no return. I can’t post a link to the index because, if you look, it’s not there anymore. I hope only temporarily. Because if that’s the only thing to come out of this debate I shall be very sad indeed.
Ok so that’s it. Moving on…
Read MoreStupid Search Terms
Very quick post for you today as I’m snowed under with various things this week. Actually, I was going to save this one for Thursday but I can’t wait till then – I need something to make me smile while I’m trying to get this stupid assignment finished tonight!
I always love hearing about all the weird and wonderful search terms that have lead people to your blog. I want you to pick the best few and leave them in the comments for us all to share…
My favourites from recently:
“why do I sleep on an angle?”
“gagging my sister”
“getting a set of balls”
“woman runner lobotomy”
…but I know these are rubbish in comparison to a lot of what you get!
So come on then? Check your stats and tell us your best ones!
Read MoreFeed Me
Evening all,
Bit of a Public Service Broadcast feel to this post I’m afraid (really I should be busy doing my own Writing Workshop but I got distracted, as usual. It’s bad that I can’t even focus on my own Workshop isn’t it? Ooh look a pretty light!)
Anyway, it has come to my notice that I have TWO RSS feeds for this old blog here, both of which have subscribers. It’s all getting very confusing…
So, dear reader, could you be a peach and do me a huge great big favour?
Could you make sure you’re subscribed to:
———–> This Feed <———–
If you’ve previously subscribed via a feedburner link, you’ll find you need to re-subscribe. The rest of you should find you’re already signed up and don’t need to worry and go ahead and tut at me for wasting your time. The feedburner link will be deleted at the end of the month so it’s really important that you’re all signed out on the right feed else you’ll miss out on all the random loveliness that I do so love bringing to your Google Reader.
Oh, and you… you there at the back. Yes YOU! You haven’t subscribed to my feed have you? Well, would you like to? I promise you at least 17 kinds of awesome and a virtual cake slice…
P.S. For all you plebs that don’t know what a feed is, it’s kind a like a live up-date of my site so you’ll get notified of all the latest posts instantaneously – kind of like a little present! But with more whining and self-angst. Fun!
Read More
