The Word Cloud

In a recent flick through my copy of The Cambridge introduction to Creative Writing - ( Superb book!!) -  I happened upon a writing game that caught my imagination, and from which I have borrowed the title of this blog. 
The object of the exercise is to compose a 500- word introduction to your own imaginery collection of poems or short stories.
Approach  it from the angle of a struggling writer come good. Try to say something wise to your readers and critics.
What were your strengths, and why were you overlooked and rejected?
You may also like to settle some scores, or do you have a debt to repay, either litery or personal? 
Here for your amusement is my humble offering and I invite your thoughts, or better yet have a go yourself.
For my part, I really enjoyed it and all credit to Mr David Morley for a brilliant book, on the love of my life.

Introduction:

August 2009.

Well, here we are - my first collection of short stories.

 

It feels strange to be writing that statement after all of the time that some of us will have spent together aboard the good ship William and for you new shipmates, ‘Ahoy mate’s and welcome aboard.’

Assembled here, many for the first time, is a collection of tales for your delectation. The majority of these stories have been around for some considerable time, in one form or another, and some have been re- written in places, over years.  But, by and large, they are presented here warts and all.

A couple, the wife’s tale and Psycho, in particular, hark back to the very beginning of it all. Looking again at these stories, especially now, in the context of time, I cross an ocean of memories.

The hard, cold, and often fruitless endeavours at the Launch- no bottle of champagne broken against the hull here.

 The rejections, the self doubt, the dark depressions, and the dreaded writers block.

 How many pages, chapters and half finished works, have ended there time amongst us, discarded on the great waste paper basket of life? Or, if I was in a particularly malevolent mood –the shredder! - Surely the most heinous of punishment for any piece of literature?

For those aspiring writers amongst you, raise a glass with me, to the honourable form, to which we all, great, and small aspire. The forming of words, for the creation of a life. The labour pains of birth, and finally, for some- (for many will be lost prematurely) - the coming of age of the fruits of your loins.

 These children, for whom you will sweat and toil, will be your legacy, and if you have taught them well, they will stand tall and proud, amongst the fallen. 

A word, at this juncture, to all of the editors and literary agents, down the years, who have sat in judgement of my trials and tribulations and saw fit to deliver, the harshest of sentences available to you- ‘the death sentence’.

They say, -” that which doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”- and I thank you all for your considerations.

Billy Connolly, the comedian and TV personality, tells how he was approached in a pub.

 ‘ere Connolly. Can you take constructive criticism?

‘Yes’ replied Billy.

‘Well in that case. Your ***king shite’

So! - I raise my hat to all of the bar room critics that I have encountered along the way. You know who you are!

Yes indeed. It has been a tumultuous crossing in the main, but we have battened down the hatches and weathered the storm.

 

Now, that’s quite enough of all this reminiscing. Time, instead to give thanks to the myriad of people who have given so much support and help along the way.

Again, you know who you are- and big hugs and kiss’s all round. XOX

 

And Finally ....

 

To Gail, My first mate on this big adventure. ‘Sabici darling’.

 

Enjoy the book shipmates.

 

J.W

 09th September 2009

 

Can't get a word out, can't get much out when I've got a lot to jot down in a hurry but never anything beyond typing something and then feeling a huge jolt of doubt to infest my mind....it's crippling to have so much and so little mixing together in and out of logic and annoyance.

Maybe that's something I should expect--I should expect a lot of thing to come about in life and this is one of them. Though it could be to do with what I'm writing--a minor test in a way to write something with elements of dark stuff while going into realms of lighthearted fantastical science-fiction, the human soul is the darkest thing you can have in anything and the main characters is completely encased in a conflict that is ironically good and bad.

Sorry about the end stuff but that's what has something to do with it.

Until recently I had a blog. It wasn’t much of a blog, but it was all mine, which is in the nature of blogs. They are the possession of the author; they say what he/she wants to say as he wants to say it. And there it is, or was, I should say. For it is no more. It is no longer nailed to the perch that is the Word Cloud. It has dropped off, or more accurately been pulled off. Irradiated to death by my own hand, because, as Mr Spock (Captain Spock at the time) once said: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one”.

And there we are. Why have I done this deed, this mercy killing? It was not an erudite blog, it was not much to the point, but it was harmless. Or so I thought. It turns out that it was unintentionally emitting a force field that was destroying all in its vicinity, rather like the Genesis effect. (Those of you that notice a Star Wars theme here should not read too much into it. It’s a phase that will pass within hours). But from the ashes of the devastation that was my own little planet of blognevity a newness arises.

Perhaps I should explain. Software is funny stuff. I was once managing a project in France – Toulouse for precision, where torturing Brits is a national pleasure and regional centre of excellence. The argument was the performance of the system we were putting in (for the real time control of satellites in orbit). It was getting slower. This was in the early days of PCs, by the way and the machines we were using back then could make a nice home for a family with 2.4 children if you took the bits out. And I, along with others of my team, argued quite vehemently that software is an exact science, it isn’t organic and doesn’t change with time. We were ace professionals and truly believed it – then. What cobblers! Whatever was embedded in my blog was invisibly wreaking havoc. I have therefore entered the clean room in a blue coat, silly slippers and a very amusing hat and am producing this under forensically clean conditions.

Actually on the subject of organic growth. I have just harvested the last of my onion crop and hung it in the shed. It is a wonder to behold and we are supplied with healthy, organically grown onions for the rest of the year, having enjoyed them for that last few months already. A triumph; and a poke in the eye to those who said I was wasting my time growing from seed.

And so, at last we come to my grievous loss. Although I miss my old blog, it is not that which features in the title. I have a shining new one after all (fingers crossed). It is much closer to my heart than that. At the age of 22 I shaved off the fearsome black beard that I used to frighten naughty children with. However, I retained a splendid adornment on my upper lip, which has been in place to this day, over 30 years later. I have recently been wrestling with the undeniable fact that it had become almost completely white to the extent that I was offered the pensioners rate at the barber recently. This morning I bade it farewell and shaved it off.

Goodbye old friend, I’ll miss you.

I think I might've been 9, when I first cought a glimpse of a Laurel and Hardy film and sadly that would be the only time I saw the oddness of a silent film play out to make me laugh. Two days ago, I got into watching the odd clip on YouTube and thought of a reasoned comparison for any Laurel and Hardy short or film--they're like one of those old adventure games Lucas Arts use to do, with the clicking about to find the next piece of the puzzle.

Everything on screen is a potential part of the puzzle and with any given Laurel and Hardy short, you have to keep your eyes peeled on everything that appears on screen--a sublte impression of what could happen at any given moment for your eye to catch before it happens. Though you'll need to figure out what, how and why humour could derive from such a brillience.

The humour is old, but it still packs a sublte punch that slapstick (when done right) can be a brilliently timed piece, where each action has a reaction later on, gears clicking into each other until the time is up.

Not much to do with writing

I don't see life as being able to contain clearly defined good and bad guys, that's actually impossbile in human nature being a complicated trap of contradicting ideas--Princess of Mars, pretty much sums up the era it came from of clearly defined good and bad guys. The main character is brave, honourable and stuff while the bad guys lack redeeming features.  It's fun to think how simplitic the idea of good and bad once were, if you're bad their's nothing to redeem you, if you're good come on in. Nothing is simple and defining what makes us good or bad isn't a easy thing to do....it no longer exists in a world like ours.

A Princess of Mars, just stands there to be a little marker of how we viewed life at one point--a hero is brave and the villains are cowardly--not simple to think how things have changed in the last 70 years. No more easy to spot bad guys and good guys have to lie and cheat to think of themselve as doing the right thing. Politics, easily shows us that the good guys aren't visible or bad guys....nothing to see but shades of grey along with everyone.

Usual warnings - not so much swearing but adult of theme and drivelling nonsense of content...

 

Whilst blasting out my eardrums to the rousing joy that is Elgar’s Pomp & Circumcision, on repeat, I realised to my horror, once I began to actually listen to the words I was screeching out in my tremeloed baritone-less vibrato, that this mainstay of Britishness, this backbone-tingling pride-pomp was in fact Victorio-Edwardio-pornio! (The words were originally penned as a coronation ode for Edward VII – that’s “seventh” not “vee-eye-eye”) S’true. Follow me, oh gullible lovely reader as I show you what I mean. Not too close, I don’t know you that well…

 

Land of Hope and Glory,

Where’s that then? Show me a land of hope and glory and I’ll show you a sea of legal-sharks and narcissists. And why the hell would we want to live in a land of hope anyway? That presumes there’s something to be hopeful for; ergo something to escape from, doesn’t it? I’d rather live in a land of “ohhh, we have that already.”

As for “Glory”, now you’re talking. Every morning without fail *cough*. Anyway… in Australia there is a weather based phenomenon where a long sausage shaped cloud rolls overhead in a majestic display of natural beauty. Typical of the Aussies, their humour shines through as this is duly named Morning Glory too. Although, EzBird said “wishful thinking” would have been more apt…

So this line is about a land of expectant erections then…

Mother of the Free,

See, I always sang this as Mother of the Three and just assumed it was Big G, Little G and Spooky but then I realised that was unlikely but only after I found out that the Bible, despite being written in English, was in fact foreign and I felt a right chump. (I don’t ever touch my left chump on account of the swelling…)

Now this may be a little harder to swallow (chortle) but the main thrust of this line (snigger) is about the woman who is to set the “wee men” loose. If you catch my drift (Tee hee). (I’m euphemising over sperm here or was that already understood...?)

 

How shall we extol thee,

By building a new M6 next to the old M6 and charging you to go on it? Oh wait, no, that’s a toll. Ah but if we used to have to pay to cross over a bridge and now we don’t (bear with me on this) then surely the bridge is now “extol”? No? Ok. Weak, I know.

Extol is an olde English word for “release”; don’t bother Googling it, I made it up but without it my whole argument is just rubbish. (What do you mean “yes”?) So this line is “decisions, decisions; is it better to have one in the hand than one in her bush?” I know, I know… I’ll get me coat.

Who are born of thee?

Who is born of a land of Hope and Glory? Legal-sharks and narcissists. I just said. Keep up.

Or Pixies but that is only because they have to be born somewhere.

Or this could be sperm again. It’s the supposition of “born”, into the weak premise that these words are in some way a double entendre that leads one, via huge leaps of a depraved imagination, to the conclusion that it is poetry speak for “spermatozoa” on account that “How shall we extol thee, Spermatozoa…” just does not have any rhythmic timbre, rhyming couplet or religious cachée caché chachet buggerit -ness. Oh and it wouldn’t be a double entendre, it would be a single entendre or entendre. Or just a statement.

Wider still and wider

Sounds like a couple of women I know but shouldn’t...
This is obviously a reference to girth, capacity or demand for gymnastic manoeuvres.

Shall thy bounds be set,

Is it me or has this tune just dipped into bondage…?

God who made thee mighty,
Ah, the mating cry of men everywhere. Well, the first word anyway. The rest is just being boastful…

 

Make thee mightier yet.

As in “don’t stop.” At this point, the chorus is giving it some welly or crescending as I like to call it *cough*. Interestingly, if inaccurately, the word crescendo is derived, etymologically, from the same root word as orgasm. Again don’t bother looking that up on Google, just take my word for it. Don’t use Wikipedia either; everyone knows that is wrong. Also I made it up as the rude references in the words became harder (chortle) to make up.

 

God who made thee mighty,

Yes, you said that already…

Make thee mightier yet.

And repeat…

 

QED.

 

I am disgusted and disgraced and hope that the surviving descendents of the decadent Arthur Christopher Benson (1862-1925; the son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury, a poet and schoolmaster at Eton), who wrote the words that taint Edwards lovely tune, are duly ashamed of themselves. But then again.. it could just be me…

 

All these years the truth has been hidden (except from public schoolboys who know about these things) until now! Now it is free! Run free! Run! Run my lovelies! Out of the closet and free to face the world! And shout and scream and tell everyone your dirty little secret! Run, I say! Run! Before they push you back into the cupboard with the flour monster and baked-bean ogres!

 

Anyway…

No need to comment on this one… I already know what you are thinking… sigh.

 

Ez

Goblet of Fire, in the series of films I consider to be the blank spot point, the kind of situation where you can remember all the other films but go completely blank on the forth. You get a bit uncertain as to what happened exactly even when you don't really want or need to find out.....this happened to me on forgetting what the forth film was about (though, I didn't feel uncertain about the need or want to know) but I never liked the films so it doesn't make for a biggy, Harry Potter what could happen next? The situation progesses nicely for the dark side and JK is probably going to make it turn out ok in the end.

That would've been amazing if she fucked with everyone and let the Voldamort win--cool, awesome and epic all at the same time.

“Good morning, Captain,” Jane Titantits said entering the bridge. “Does anyone know why the top three buttons of my tunic are missing?”

 “I am not sure,” Captain Dirk replied smoothly.” But it is clearly a condition that requires close examination.” He glided smoothly towards Jane, clearly intent on taking the problem in hand.

 “A movie option has penetrated the plot, I believe,” said Spark raising an eyebrow at Dirk. Jane ducked past Dirk’s outstretched hands with the easy grace of long practice.

 “That would explain why all of my underwear is missing as well.”

 “No, that was Lieutenant Taarg,” Spark indicated the Klingon weapons officer. “He has issues.”

 “Oh I see!” Jane exclaimed. “I thought his tutu wasn’t standard uniform.” (The writer plunged a fork into his mind’s eye with the visual that conjured up).

 Spark’s calm voice cut across the bridge like a knife. “I have been targeted by a cliché.” He reported. “However that is not our greatest concern. A Romulan Bird of Prey is de-cloaking off the starboard bow. It is a Reflexive Pronoun class vessel.”

 “Oh my God!” exclaimed Dirk. “I, myself went up against a reflexive pronoun. It wasn’t pretty.”

 “Captain!” exclaimed Taarg. “We are being targeted with a random comma weapon. I, fear imminent, collapse of, the sentence, structure integrity, field …”

 “My God!” exclaimed Dirk. “Deploy a full stop. It’s our only hope.”

 “That’s more than enough exclaiming!” exclaimed Jane. “And why is it that each time the ship takes a hit, another hole appears in my uniform?”

 “I suspect that is the movie option showing through the plot again.” Explained Spark

 It’s not a movie option that will be showing through soon, thought Jane remembering her lack of underwear. What she did say was, “this has a plot?”

  Suddenly, the intercom crackled. “She canna take much more o’ this.” The chief engineer’s voice was full of alarm, “destruction is imminent!”

 Jane, momentarily confused and thinking he was referring to her disappearing uniform said. “No I can’t.”

 “My God!” exclaimed Dirk again. “You mean the ship’s going to blow?”

 “Not the ship, the English language if this keeps up.”

 (If you are all very very unlucky, this may be continued)

 

I first wrote the book I'm working on now three years ago. It was written in a hurry because I had an agent expressing interest and desiring to see the whole manuscript. Foolishly, I had originally sent off some sample chapters and a synopsis without completing the entire book. In fact, I had only written five chapters so it was with panic and excitement that I feverishly wrote the rest of the book and sent it to the agent who liked it and agreed to taking me on.

 It all sounds really great so far but being totally naive and overwhelmed with a blinkered need to be published right away, I neglected to check out the credentials of the agent and signed the contract without hardly looking at it. In reality, the agent was one of those on the list of 'agents to avoid' , the type that takes on anybody regardless of their talent or lack of it. So, my book sat on the computer database for a whole year not doing anything at all and with me sat at home, my confidence seeping away every single day.

I knew deep down that even though I had a decent plot in the book, because it had been written hurridly, it wasn't good enough, not by a long shot so regardless of the rubbish agent, it wasnt going to be published. When my contract was up, I had a polite email saying 'sorry it didnt work out this time, blah, blah, blah', so I took a long hard look at the book and decided instead od dumping the whole thing I would re-write it completely.

I am now in the process of doing just that with the intention of sending some chapters and a synopsis off to agents with good reputations this time. The only problem now is, I am panicking that its not good enough, that I was dellusioned the whole time when I thought it was a good plot, that if anyone read it they would think I was an inept fool who couldn't write a limerick let alone a novel. I keep wondering, did JK Rowling think the same thing about Harry Potter? Did Dan Brown want to throw The Da Vinci Code out with the garbage? I don't know but I'm still plodding on because, well, because I have to I guess. I need to. I still like the essence of the story I'm writing. Its not a literary masterpiece nor will it win any prizes but its something that I would want to read, that I'd enjoy reading and I hope that other people will feel the same way. One day.

 ‘The Metro’ is a daily freesheet handed to commuters as they board suburban trains into London.    Lurid accounts of the previous day’s bodycount, and how much Amy Winehouse has had to drink, occupies the mind though  Grove Park tunnel,  but  interest wanes long before the approach to Hither Green.  

One day last week, however, an article held the attention almost to Lewisham Station.  

‘THE BOOK INTERVIEW’ proclaimed the headline and Margaret Atwood is on the loose promoting her latest novel. 

Perhaps Margaret Atwood wishes to add technophiles to her audience?   The interviewer provided a precis of her speech.  ‘The idea that religious and artistic impulses could be hard-wired into our brains - and that we probably couldn’t have one without the other - fascinates her.’

That the brain needs to understand itself, and express this search,  is surely an argument for philosophy?   But is Atwood saying anything more than Keats?  Fingers are hovering above the ‘abort’ button, I can tell,  and my laptop is coming out in sympathy, but is Margaret Atwood saying anything more than Keats who speaks of poetry being a ‘Priest-like Task?”

It is possible that academics have usurped this ‘priest-like task’;  though they might argue that their relationship with artists  is symbiotic.   Writers produce gnostic scripts that require scholarly exegesis and the verdict is passed down to  mere mortals.   Most mortals have responded by abandoning the church for the music hall.

But what does Keats mean?  What did he mean by ‘high romance?’  Is there a romantic ‘credo[’ in a sacred sense?

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

Academics will draw attention to subtexts and refer mere mortals to earlier scripts, to Shalkespeare - to the Bible - no, I will use the the word ‘sacred’ or the ‘numinous - or to the ancient Greeks.

But did Keats really mean this?  Perhaps he meant ‘Word Cloud?”

(This seems a good point to stop.)