THOSE TWO AMAZING WORDS- THE END

 Blog time again and as promised I am writing about those two wonderful yet ambiguous words; The End.
As a writer I love to write the two words that signify the completion of a work . They add satisfaction, relief, pride and a general sense of well being. This may  last for a few minutes to hours, day, even weeks. How long the sense of accomplishment lasts depends on how well the finished work is received, or not.
But, consider the differing contexts in which the same two words can promote an entirely different emotional state. The end can describe the finality of a relationship, a job, the age of innocence, the destruction of an icon, the disbanding of a group, the loss of a friend to someone else, and the least desired meaning, the death of a person.  While most of these events would initiate some kind of sadness or despair, there could, depending on the specific trauma be a release of relief or sheer joy, particularly if the end brought in a new, happier phase of a person;s life. We can all think of a situation where the leaving of someone or something, the ending of a relationship, can enhance our own sense of freedom and well being. So, the context is all.
Where does this lead? It leads to the confirmation of the wonders of language, particularly the English language, which has around a million different words, although most of us use only a few thousand on an everyday basis. Most writers are well aware of the possibilities of how just two words, can be used to signify almost anything if the context is correct. There is, I believe, a problem looming when technology defines language as having a less important role in explaining a concept or feeling. It is so easy to underestimate the power of words if they are reduced to a few letters and not put within the context and/or emotional state for which they are intended. This is not elitism, it is common sense, for language is primarily for communication, an exchange of thoughts, feelings, ideas and information. Images might entertain more effectively but words are what defines us as human beings. Other animals, birds, insects, fish use other senses to see, smell, touch and hear but only humans have the capacity for detailed language. It must not be lost.
A final note, the ending of the life of that incredible New Zealand born, Australian satirist John Clarke, whose brilliance made me laugh and cry at his every performance. His amazing use of language cannot be beaten. In a pithy ABC slot where he was 'interviewed' as a politician by his comrade Brian Dawe his response to the question what is Clean Coal was the short witty comment.."It's an example of alliteration." He turned the knife with a word, not a sword. Vale John Clarke, a man who knew how to use language for its optimum purpose, even if it only took a few words to say exactly what was needed to be said.

READ OR LOOK

As a writer I of course love words. As a writer for the stage and screen I also appreciate the value of the visual. A picture can take the place of a thousand words, a few hundred at any rate.

Such was the case when watching a scene from that fabulous British TV show "The Vicar of Dibley".
Dawn French sat on the sofa staring at a bottle of whisky doing her best NOT to take a swig from the bottle. As a vicar she was being tempted. The way she spent between 60 and 90 seconds turning her head from the bottle to the picture of Jesus and back again, using her eyes, her lips, and body to emphasise the battle was a great lesson in comedic skill. Such a simple act and yet she made the whole process as funny as anything I have watched on TV. Not a word was needed to explain the conflict of her decision making. Of course the visual 'punch line' was that she gave in and gurgled the whisky straight from the bottle. I laughed and sighed with admiration for her and of course for the director.

This action would have been indicated in the script by the writer of course but it shows how an actor can add so much to the concept. It helps if a writer has been or can imagine being in the position in which they place a character or in a scenario in which they have been involved. Yet the fact that silence can add to a script is an important lesson for both actors and writers to remember early on in their career. So, while the audience would see the actions performed in silence, those actions would have been described in words. Dawn French, I love you. Words, I love you too. 

IT'S ONLY WORDS

What a few weeks since my last blog! Words are barely enough and yet here I go. 

I was writing to a deadline. A book to enter into a competition. The style was influenced by a novel who's title I could recall but not its author. How remiss of me. I went online. I got side tracked and spent hours looking into everything apart from what I was looking for. All extremely interesting though. I gave that up and went back to the writing of the last couple of chapters. It wasn't working out. I decided I needed a complete break. I took a five day break. No writing. Definitely no technology. And so it was. No emails. No blank screen beckoning me. No guilt trips over the looming deadline. No Fb friends telling me about their dogs and gardens and grandkids and holidays and, in some cases, their writing successes, the latter always giving me pleasure even if they are only friends via Facebook.

The days were a lovely mix of museums, art galleries, book launches, visiting friends (real ones), the spraying of every perfume from every counter in the Department Store, eating food not generally eaten, drinking coffee too often drank and simply loafing about, watching and listening to perfect strangers. Everything digested with gusto, for perhaps future use in a story.

Then a few hours drive home in the rain. The deadline meant picking up from where I'd left off. It was not easy. I had all this other stuff' now in my mind, none of it remotely attached to, or useful for, the story I was working on. The words came slowly. The clock ticked. The rains turned into floods. Roads impassable. I had to finish and send off the manuscript. Luckily it was to be emailed. But then gale force winds arrived with even heavier rain. There was talk on the radio of trees down, possible blackouts. How to email without power  to my computer! I worked into the night. The deadline grew closer. Will there be time. Will these last rushed chapters be good enough.

The river rose. The trees bent wildly in the growing wind. It was now or never. A decision had to be made. I opened my emails. I sent off the completed draft of the manuscript. An email was pinged back. The submission had been received. I more or less fell in a heap, feeling the need for another five day break. No way out. All roads out flooded. Time for coffee, an early Easter Bun and a big deep breathe. Words can't express totally how I felt. Good is pretty close.

Do Holidays Ever Go Away?

When I asked the question whether holidays ever go away a friend replied, "Which holidays?" A fair enough question when you consider how many of them there are. Not just the annual 2-4 weeks break from work but the others given as religious or national days, which somehow generally manage to include a long weekend. When I was younger and working full time those extra days of holiday were very welcome  and the 4 week break was a time of freedom from routine and sometimes the boredom of a regular job. Things have changed a fair bit over the past decade or so. Long weekend holidays are still enjoyed by most people , although the service industries we so rely on do sometimes miss out, but they become even more important for those who are expected to work ever longer hours, often for no extra pay, and for those with temporary or casual work who can spend  as much time travelling to and from work as the hours they get paid for.

So, as a writer, no longer having a 'normal' job I realise how lucky I am. I can spend weeks writing, without a break or I can take a big break whenever I want. Unless there is a specific time put aside related to my writing I can shut down the computer, hide my pencil and pad and even close my mind to anything related to what I am currently writing. When there is no deadline I can spread my work over days, weeks, months, even years, if it does not affect my income or my status. So yes, I am lucky to be at a stage where I can more or less take a holiday when I like. Mostly they are breaks of a few days but I could, if motivated, take more. I can simply end this sentence and not write another one until I feel I need to. This can be a few hours later or..whenever.

This is the theory! In practice my mind, my imagination, my need to tell the story, dominates my desire for holidays, in what ever form they come. If a character nags at me to get on with the story then I continue. If I am pushed into describing a scene that very moment then I must. If my heart prods my mind along to revisit a chapter then I do. Under these circumstances I continue working and a break goes off the radar. Yet, in spite of those 'pressures' I know that I can work at my own pace. I can select the times I work or do not.

So do my holidays ever go away? Certainly not. The ones I have had remain as memories to savour.   The ones I have to come are ones that excite me with the visions I have of where they will be and what they will be. Of course, they can also be a great source for the backdrop to a
story. Holidays need to be around forever. Otherwise we might all go stir crazy. There is a fundamental need for all  humans to refresh both body and mind. It makes us better people. Long may holidays reign, no matter what the global corporations or politicians, who receive very generous holidays, say!

TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date. How often this comes to pass. No matter how well I seem to organise my time there never seems enough of it. So how do I get everything done that is required of me? In short I don't, not in the time frame allocated anyhow. Mostly this is because I get distracted. This is a curse for anyone who has a deadline. During my University years I not only was interested in the subject being researched but also in everything else that came along with that subject or linked to it in some way, often with no true links at all but it just sounded interesting information to discover. Ah, how this changes the focus as well as broadening the mind. This was all great for the expansion of knowledge but when I went off at each and every tangent it meant losing focus on whatever I was intending to research. This just about sums up my writing life. While it is good for a writer to have knowledge of and an interest in anything and everything it can be both time consuming and too much of a distraction.
Finding that right word or that correct description often means leaving the page and entering another world, one of information rather than creation. This is true whether gleaned from a plain old dictionary or from an extraordinary online conversation. This in turn leads to a myriad of interesting facts and pathways to follow and sometimes it is hours before I actually return to my page with the one exact word or description I required. It also often arouses in me a desire to return to a subject only just touched upon and then this can lead to a whole change of direction of a plot or a character's needs. In fact, a complete change of story can occur. It is unknowable until received by readers whether this turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing.
So, judging how well time is spent and whether that time was a good or a bad influence is something forever debatable. Like time itself, writing is when a thought is translated in a fleeting moment from one mind set to another.  For some lucky writers their words seem to last forever, for others they vanish seemingly into thin air in a matter of moments. The essence of either seems being in the right place at the right time to be noticed and approved of. Such is the stuff dreams are made of.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

I have always felt with some pride that I have kept my prejudices to the lowest possible level that is humanly possible. Yes, I do quiver  whenever I hear someone sound the H at a beginning of a word where it should be silent. Yes I do tremble with slight disgust at the way some people eat their food and yes, I do think most women work more harmoniously together than do most men. The former two prejudices I deal with silently, the latter I talk loudly about but back it up with facts.

I recently watched an episode of the UK, TV series VERA and grew green with envy at the quality of the writing. It revealed prejudice in a subtle, yet honest way with clever story telling, leading me to think one way, and so exposing my own deep rooted prejudice, one I thought I did not possess, and then completely turning that path of the story on its head, making me see how wrong I was to jump to a certain conclusion. It pertained to a particular ethnic group and while my prejudicial thought was only a temporary moment in my life it shows how easily we can all be roused/led to think and feel and do the wrong thing. So I admire how clever are such contemporary TV shows that deal with such issues in a serious yet entertaining way. It begs the question of whether entertainment should be used more to flesh out ideals and prejudices, rather than dictatorial editorials and political clashes. The world might be a more harmonious place if it did.

This ties in with my belief that good comedy, whether stand up or situational, has always manged to make people laugh first and ponder on the issues later. A brilliant tool to break down barriers. Whether self pride can be broken down entirely is something we all have to deal with but as they say, pride comes before a fall. So I hope the next generation of writers,whether in novels or for  any other form of media have the skills to debate the darker side of human nature with honesty, factual evidence and yet in an interesting and entertaining way. Long live good writers.

😍

CHOICES

Here we are, almost a month into 2017, a year that is undoubtedly going to ring in more changes than many of us desire. These are mainly due to political changes, that in turn will allow for increasing changes in the corporate power games that play out everywhere in the world. These changes could be said to have been brought about by choice, the choice of the voting public. The question now being asked is how deeply choices are made by manipulation of the emotions, above and beyond the already accepted one of the absolute power of a few media barons in the past. How much social engineering has been going on for decades, maybe centuries? Before IT even. In other words what really are free choices and what are those made by both internal and external pressures. Psychology is a strong motivational tool, as any cult leader can attest. 

Choices can be reversed as long as the damage done is not totally irreversible. (like a nuclear war) This thought is what keeps some of us optimistic and encourages us to go on working for a better world run by more thoughtful, less greedy people with a conscience, who care about their fellow humans and the world of Nature to which we are bound.  

It is this sense of caring for humanity that keeps me writing. I long to explore what other people feel as much as what they do. I cannot but hope that more people will read what I have written and discuss it, or share it, just for the fact that it's a differing perspective to their own. Maybe this is a dream of mine, that others will want to hear about what is my view on life. Yet, in the end, we all seem to wish for the same things; sufficient food, shelter, health and love, even if we all come to this via varying situations, and each journey is somewhat different. It is this knowledge 😍that gives us writers the fodder to make and produce a huge range of stories. And long may it be so.