The Enemies Project: North by North West Poetry Tour

Biiig news! It's barely more than a week away now, and Blogtastic is proud to announce the upcoming collaboration between myself and Laura Tickle. I've been saying for a while [in fact, it's on my blog bio thingy on this very site] how I'm open for collaboration with other artists, and my prayers have been answered. I'm extremely happy - and even luckier - to be given the chance to be a part of The Enemies Project, a massive and wide-reaching organism that has swallowed up most of the world and showcased a lot of talent across many disciplines in a [successful] bid to examine artists' creative interrelationships. I really enjoyed the one I went to a couple of years back at the Fly and the Loaf, and to perform at one is huge for me.

The process has been cool, y'know. Sort of different and sort of the same with respect to what I was thinking it'd be like. It's really exciting, I find, as there's a pleasant pressure to the whole thing. Might go into that more at a later date, might not. Right now, it's just important that you remember the date: 19th January 2017. You should also remember the venue [Edge Hill Arts Centre], and the time [1800hrs]. It would be great to see you there :) There are other dates as well, so here's a re-link to the North by Northwest Tour so you can check them out - hopefully I'll be at the Liverpool one :) http://www.theenemiesproject.com/northwest/

Here's a link to Laura's piece that appeared on Pages [more links to some of her other work in that post]: http://robertsheppard.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/25-edge-hill-poets-laura-tickle.html

Here's a vibrant flash fiction she wrote for Calum Kerr's Flash Flood, 'Carry Him Safely': http://flashfloodjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/carry-him-safely-by-laura-tickle.html

Steven Fowler already has a collection of collaborations published with Penned in the Margins [sold out at this link, but free sample available: http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2013/09/enemies-2/], any other Enemies related stuff just check the link I've already given you.

And as for other poets and their works - Google it! I've not got time to go into it all, I've got poetry to do :D

NaNoWriMoWeUp3

Day Fifteen: 746. Just can't muster any more effort. I'm in such a bad habit at the minute with staying up all night watching YouTube videos and generally not sleeping, so by now I'm way too tired to reach my goal. Never mind, though. I'll get there.

Day Sixteen: 2,939. I'm happy to be writing at a more reasonable time today. Could be better, like, but there's tomorrow for that.
   Felt really bad about the fundamental quality of all that I've written so far, especially with respect to 'show don't tell', one of the most basic basics of writing. I've actually been scared when I think of how useless it all is.
   But I'm trying to stop such thoughts. Not only have there been some passages I'm proud of, but I could well be over-exaggerating the bad bits and, plus, there's the vital component of editing yet to come. I know I'm not great at editing, but this is a good chance to get going. No-one said this has to be a masterpiece. Come on! Enjoy!

Day Seventeen: 277. Started well-ish, y'know. Found myself an hour before the footy.
   But then a sneezing fit struck. Then I had a headache. Then the screen started making my eyes bounce. So I stopped.
   The footy was good entertainment, and thankfully a drama-free testament to humanity's resilience in the face of intolerance. Feel somehow guilty that England won, though...
   Then, I got so drunk that I had a hole in my memory and absolutely no hope of carrying on writing.

Day Eighteen: 0. I felt so shit that I didn't want to get out of bed, or even live, and I answered the question 'what's the point?' with 'NO!'.

Day Nineteen: 2,430. Climbing the mountain back to 'normality'. Not bad stuff. A bit 'all over the place' in places, but then some places had good parts.

Day Twenty: 534. I was very lucky to have a replenishing social engagement. Although it left me short on writing time, I penned some stuff on the bus on the way in, and even got an early bus back with the plan of doing more later. Alas, I was too tired by the time I got home, but I'm satisfied with the dedication there :-)

Day Twenty-One: Nice to get support from Aunty S who's been keeping up with the blog during this period :-)
   A light has flickered on that's probably about as strong as a candle on the Morecambe seafront, but since I'm recording it here, there'll be a reminder in the future. I've spent a lot of time worrying about how inferior this draft is and will be, but, though I've already touched on how it'll be good editing practice, it's also going to give me impetus to move even further [whether that's in terms of word count, re-forming or whatever], to really get to the end of a novel [because fifty-thousand words is an arbitrary aim, not necessarily a natural end]. Now I'm over half way, this thought is even more exciting than when I'd started it in the first place.
   Also, I've had more people asking about NaNoWriMo itself, its 'proper' aims and customs, so I'm going to address that briefly. Basically, I'd advise you to forget about the idea of the 'proper' way, because the best way is your way. I didn't sign up on NaNoWriMo.org, I'm not going to get a certificate of completion [which is, however controversially, a major focus for some of the people undertaking this challenge], but I am going to complete my purpose. My purpose for NaNoWriMo was to generate material, to experiment with application, to look at the possibility of spirit. I was never going to be bothered about being under fifty-thousand words, because even one-thousand would've been something I could either use directly, put in a drawer for later and/or learn from.
   So if you do have questions, first off ask yourself. What do you want? What do you think it's all about? What will the audience [however futuristic] think?
   Peace, love and light, folks!

Scenes: Number 23

It's late in the evening. The street is dark and foggy. The sparse streetlights merely illuminate the fog, not the pavement you walk on. Work was okay today, just long and boring. You really want to get home and crack open a bottle of something alcoholic.

You turn onto the road you live on and from all the way down the street a strange sound throbs through the air. It booms, low and persistent. Your smart shoes clip and clop, high and precise noises, but the booming smothers all. What the hell is it?

The bright lights of the BP garage ahead just about cut through the fog. Iit's very thick if it can dull the usually sun-like power of that place. As you breathe in you notice a smell. Something burning, or at least burnt. It's almost barbecuey, even a little bit like weed, neither one nor the other. The smell seems to fade though, replaced by the feeling of your ears vibrating.

You're nearly home now. You can see your front door and you're walking towards it. You look left towards the petrol station where the booms are coming from.

It's chavs having a mini-rave on the forecourt.