It's Nice

To see poets being poets.

Patricia Farrell and Andrew Taylor Reading

I'm so excited for this. I may be more excited for this than I'd be if Steven Gerrard offered to suck my toes. This coming Saturday it is. I've heard both Patricia Farrell and Andrew Taylor reading before, and they're both great. It's an interesting mix as well, in the sense that they're quite different, so it'll be nice to seem 'em together.

Anyways, I'm rambling on. The event is being held in The Ship and Mitre, Liverpool (133 Dale Street, L3 2JH). Saturday 23rd of this month, 1400-1600hrs. Hope to see you there, you'll like it I'm sure.

If you want to read a bit about the poets and their work, as well as more info on the event, check out Robert Sheppard's blog Pages.

Here be The Ship and Mitre's site, looks like a cool place (and not just because of the real ale and rum). It doesn't actually have the details of the event (that I can see) but you've got the link to Pages for that.

The poets are also mentioned on the writing group Written Inc's page here.

Ta-ra!

Honestly Lacerated Love-Bites

Taunt wraith-like sabotage,
Ungodliest bonehead ponce.
Beef hot death-bed hen,
Suck off homiest sprung rhythm.
Good! Inconstant, burbling,
Warm disenchanted dungeons –
The pedophile up her legend.
Tidy convivial wrencher cheapens
Useful capricious sedition.
Fool! So true, fury.
Hallowedly nauseate slick vanity,
Innovate. Outlast tube.
Moth-eaten, thrashes hotter –
Shhh! I am wise, if offend,
Mightiest, meriting blooding.
Witch watch, grow plot,
The exact, pottiest lush.
Adore hot stuff (of hung thug),
Duteously, honour devotee,
Ship. And spit. In Satanist,
Faultily idle by cow hand,
Suffocate or armpit.

Enchant, five hack thug!

Ha ha! Bed-wetting atheist –

Evildoer of fearful moron.

I’m the handsome wages.

'Pundit'

From the Latin pundo, pundare, punditi, punditum meaning 'to make bad jokes'.

Not Chewing Gum

Just read David Shrigley's Red Book. I think it's appropriate to say 'read', I mean it is a collection of cartoons* essentially. It's not the first time I've been Shrigleyfied, but this is the first of his work that I've bought.

I guess there's two things you need to know about it:

1. It deals with a lot of existential angst
2. It is funny

There's also a kind of poetry in there, visual poetry to be specific.

It's good stuff. It encouraged me to get back to cartooning immediately, after so much thinking and not acting. I occasionally look back over my old cartoons. Many of them are cringey, like, totally cringey.

Now I fear much less.




*'Visual art', if you want to be all poncey about it...

Me Me Me

Sorry: this is going to be all about me again. I hate whining, but talking about myself inevitably turns into some kind of whine or moan (just a thought, how about 'whoan' as a word? A cross between a whine and a moan. No? Okay...). Then again I have been talking about recent changes in my writing and I hope they've been useful to you. I reiterate that hope today.

As I've said before, I feel like my writing stamina has improved since my relatively long blog-a-day stint last month. My impetus to write, however, seems to obey its own rules. One day I feel like I've got nothing, am never going to have anything and should give up the idea of being a writer, then the next day I write a couple of bits of fiction and some other none fiction. The day after may be more of an ideas day than a writing one. Today it has been reasonably hard.

I think forcing yourself to do things when you don't want to is  pretty easy. In terms of writing anyway... In terms of my diet, it's far too easy to over-eat and most of the time, love or money wouldn't be enough to get me out on a jog, for example. But anyway, when writing, I've taken the message that it's okay to write shit, as long as you're writing (ta Chris Beckett), and I don't feel writer's block when working on a new piece.

HERE IS THE MOAN: I'm still so annoyed at myself that I can't finish things. Can't or won't, I don't really know (hmm, seems like we could've done with another contraction in that sentence...). I'd say of all the ideas I've ever had, I've probably started a third of them? Maybe a bit more. Then of that third, I've probably finished... blimey... I can't decide if it's more like a fifth or a tenth... Well, at best, of the overall number I finish around a thirtieth of all the ideas I have. I don't think that's a reliable figure at all, but I'm trying. It's terrible though - I drive my writing snowplow into the avalanche, make a decent dent, and then just stop. Later on, start work on another avalanche, make decent headway again then stop. A year later, so many first drafts have been started then just been ignored...

Part of this is due to confidence. I tell myself some things aren't worth further work, when maybe they are. Also, I get so excited about new projects, so older ones just naturally fall by the wayside. It's stupid though, I'm being all 'high and mighty' about writing more, but it's like making a meal. Sure it's great if you make loads of different dishes, but if you don't finish them then you've really wasted a lot of (good?) stuff. Bah, I dunno, I'm just not in a great mood... Again taking some advice from Chris, he says stories can have a long gestation period (twenty years, in the case of one of his), so maybe I shouldn't worry so much. It's hard to take good advice to heart, though, when negative emotion soaks in easier than red wine on a white carpet.

It could all be part of my process. Maybe it's part of yours? Since there are no definite yeses here, however, if you don't mind I'll just assume the worst and go drink and cry and whoan into the wind.

Newness!

I know how eager you bloggish folk are for new and exciting things, be they posts, products or plans for world domination. Well, I'm sure you'll all remember the features I use to have on this blog. Oh yes, there was 'interesting word of the day', 'song stuck in my head of the day' and, who could forget, my 'rate-a-wank' service. Neither of them have been particularly successful, admittedly, but my NEW thingummy is going to be brilliant.

You ready?

It's my 'their babies would be awesome' feature. First up:




Bradley Cooper et Jeff Bridges



Also:

Megan Fox, Kristen Stewart et Steve Buscemi

 

Good stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.

 

Peace out!