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.

Over the Rainbow

Is there really a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? Nice to think so. Like all dreams it is a myth that symbolises hope. As a writer I hope that other people will be interested in and entertained by what I write and publish, or in the case of stage plays that they enjoy seeing what I have written bought to life on stage. Artistic endeavours are generally meant for sharing. They are a way of other people seeing how other people live and think and feel and this only has to be a good thing.

I have just finished reading Raymond Carver's selection of short stories called "Please be quiet,please."  It is easy to understand why he is so well respected and while I admire his skill at creating the innermost thoughts and feelings of his characters and his insatiable interest in detail I did get somewhat irritated with each and every story having an open ending. It was as if the story is left dangling in the air. But then this says more of me than Carver I guess.

A book that is not at all ambiguous is the best seller GUT. It is a text book related like a story. Fascinating. I am only half way through but have already learned so much about the gut brain and the way it affects our health. And is has humour! Wonderful.

So I gaze at a rainbow and trust that my pot of gold is a collection of people who read my works and enjoy.

The New Year Awaits

The Festive Season is almost over and with it 2016, a strange and in some ways dreadful year in many parts of the world. I am hoping for a much better year with peace and love reigning over the world rather than fer and terror, though this is hard to imagine with the current state of the world. Though I trust in human nature to do the needed changes. 
On a personal level I am trying to focus on what my New Year's Resolutions will be and how many, if any, I will keep. Promises, to self or to other people, are sometimes tough to keep and probably means they were too optimistic in the first place. In light of this I am going to choose ones where there is a better chance of them being kept! I will not be letting anyone down then.
Some thoughts so far: 
Choose carefully and read more of the writers whose writing I admire and stories I respect.
Try to get more of my own voice into my own stories/novels.
Make sure I write something absolutely every day.
Try to improve my marketing techniques via social media and other sources. (A tough nut to crack for many writers)
Do unto others as I would have them do unto me. (a great way of saying it)
Donate a little more time to practically helping those in the community who need it.(Find the time!)
And I expect there will be many more 'wishes' before January 1st. Wishing everyone happy planning and executing with your New Year Resolutions.

Great to receive a photo from a fan who lives in Germany! A nice way to end this year and indeed, this blog.

READING SHINES A LIGHT ON LIFE

Finishing off the massive novel Game of Thrones sure was a relief and I have to confess to skipping through bits in the middle. I was always interested in what was happening in the story, although I seldom felt emotionally involved. I am told the film version increased the involvement. The book did shine a light on how another writer views the thoughts and actions of a whole set of people in a particular world and particular era, albeit fictional. Parallels were drawn all the time of course with real time history and events and people in it. On the whole, not a pretty picture but expertly 'painted' with words.

As a complete contrast I am reading  a short story collection of Raymond Carver. Similar to Game of Thrones in its use of the very detailed examination of tiny snippets of a persons life, yet quite opposite in length and scale and somewhat disturbing at times, in the outcome. Almost all of the stories are open ended, which heightens the tragi/comic aspect of each story. It is a clever device, one which I have never been able to conquer with such subtlety and artistry. My work is much more matter of fact, or so I think. Readers may thing differently.  I very much admire Carver's work as a teller of tales although I find the direct realism of the short stories by Nam Lee much more to my liking. Yet as a writer I learn from all of these masters and wish as many people read my books as read theirs. 

Just over a week ago I began to write up a story that has been swirling around in my brain for over three decades. It is part memoir, part fiction, part documentary and it is being written down (pencil in a notebook) in a style I have not tried before. Yes, I am inspired by another classic writer, whose name I will not disclose at this stage. Hopefully my new work will become a book worthy of publishing and, better still, worthy of reading. Hard to tell at this stage as it it just the first outpouring of head and heart. This first draft is around half way through and it is getting a little scary, the way it is heading. I am pretty sure of where it is supposed to go but, as with all creative works, even its creator can be surprised by what it leads to.  I must keep up the momentum and soon finish this first draft because, with me at least, too long a pause can dwindle away not only my enthusiasm but downgrade the yarn from interesting to boring. A writer's nightmare.

I will keep calm and carry on. Let me have your thoughts please. I would love to know what you  feel about reading or writing, or both.

THE WONDER OF WORDS

Far too frequently I complain about technology, basically because it does not know what I want of it and, more importantly, I do not know how to command it correctly...errors are usually my fault therefore. None the less frustrating! But today I have to say how glad I am of a fairly old technology, namely the humble television set.
Last evening I was able to sit in comfort in my lounge room and watch and listen on my television to three fabulous pieces of performance. First, over an hour of the Australian band Crowded House,. somewhat nostalgic but great to watch and also to see how the large audience outside the Opera House was enjoying the music. Then came a revealing insight into the life of Nick Cave and his creativity and finally an episode of an English production of Shakespeare's Henry 4th, with just about every good British actor I've ever seen in the cast.  Fantastic production, made all the more realistic by the settings.
At the end of the show I concluded with the obvious yet heartfelt praise that I always do. "Oh, what a writer Shakespeare was."
But then I thought how Neil Finn, the lead singer of Crowded House and Nick Cave are also writers. They attach words to their music while Shakespeare makes music of his words. They are all writers who write words in selected ways and so make them precious examples of what creativity is capable of.
And so, in my own way, I keep trying to make words into sentences and paragraphs to hopefully create a work that is music to some readers ears. Not an easy task but well worth attempting. Words truly are magic.

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IMAGINATION

On my desk, a few centimetres from my keyboard, sits a white ceramic drinking mug. I have never used it for coffee or tea. It is the place I keep my pens, pencils, scissors and ruler and I pick into and out of it almost every day. I have done this for over two decades. Yet how rarely do I actually LOOK at the mug itself. I now do so.

It was bought for me over two decades ago by a friend when I was suffering a great deal of hurt from a professional disappointment.  It was a gift worthy of a friend who understood what I was going through. On one side is the picture of a mouse dragging a heavy, live, upside down elephant, a design by Boynton. It depicts just how hard life can be, both personally and professionally. It reveals what a writer trying to find a publisher sometimes feels like. A writer dragging their book behind them, seeking out a publisher, can be heavy going and a weary, sometimes never ending climb to the top. Yet, when the mug is turned around the words, "GO FOR IT!" are writ large and that is the other side of what life can be like. No matter what we have to carry on. That is being human. Joy and pain. Pessimism and optimism. Dead weights and lightweight laughter.

Looking properly at the mug I can sense what stories could be bound up in that one small item. There are the memories of me and the people who were with me at that time. Then the people who made  and sold the article. How many hours did the designer spend on getting it just right? And there were people who heaved the clay, ones who sold it, and how many others stared at it in the shop before it was whisked away by my friend. So many true stories to be told plus those where the imagination can forge further stories. A number of worlds,both real and imagined could be bound up in that one silent, ageing, simple drinking mug,

So when people ask what do writers find to write about it may be a cliche to say, 'Look around you', as I often do but it is exactly right. Look, listen and imagine, is the crux of all story telling surely. It is the imagination that can take us into the lives of others and it is that experience that can help us understand and accept others as being as human as we are. Stepping into another's shoes is really the important part, for it opens eyes and hearts. Is this why fascists and fundamentalists feel the need to burn books? 

I'M IN LOVE!

Yes, I am enthralled, amazed, enchanted, enthralled, entranced, in love. Not in a sexual or even a sensual way but in the way that a lover of words loves another lover of words, one who uses them with such skill to turn a story of ordinary humans into a wonderful experience for a reader. I speak of Geraldine Brooks and in particular her book Year of Wonders, a story set in England around the time of the 17th century Plague. Not only do I like the way she gets into the head of the protagonist and makes the historical facts of interest but it is her descriptions that enthuse me. For example, "The Plague is cruel in the same way. Its blows fall and fall again upon raw sorrow, so that before you have mourned one person that you love, another is ill in your arms." What better way to express the continuing horror of a disease. The her descriptions of the Nature that surrounds the villagers of that period are so fitting, a time before Industrialisation and Nature at its best and worst. "Grey is the sky colour here, the dove-breast clouds louring so upon the hilltops that sometimes you feel you could just reach up and bury your hands in their softness." And her description of how readily a group of 'ignorant' villagers turn on women they believe  to be a witch is an incredibly powerful indicator of how we can all turn into unthinking animals. A lesson to contemplate in today's world of fundamentalism on many sides.
So, yes I an enamoured of this writing and yes, you should read the book but what is so important to me is the lesson that Brooks brings to us lesser writers. In this modern (2001) book I am experiencing the divine pleasure of  what I have always loved about writing and reading, the use of adjectives and adverbs that flourish and expand a story, even if within the confines of skilled containment. I have spent  years of my life being told NOT to use too many descripters. "They pad a story.  They are unnecessary. They are the sign of amateurism." SO many teachers,whether at High School, University, Creative Writing courses, have battered me with such  commands that I eventually inculcated them into my own work. While understanding that every word must count, must move the story on, I have always thought that the use of more than simply sufficient adjectives and adverbs is what makes a story special. The likes of Geraldine Brooks and Hilary Mantel and many other female writers bare me out and it is so good to see that it is not just 19th century writers who 'padded' out their books for our enjoyment. Imagine Austin, the Bronte's and Dickens, without their informative and delightful and often vast, descriptions. It makes me wonder of course how my lesser described characters, situations and places stand up to the scrutiny of readers. Please let me know.