At Random - My Blogging Topics

 I've decided to introduce a new topic for some pieces in this blog - 'At Random' for thoughts, essays, rants etc. which don't really fit in with any existing named labels/topics.  I already have 55 labels which is unwieldy and introducing a new one for every random entry seems impractical. 

I do need to reduce the whole list, for a start I have reviews under three separate labels which is probably unnecessary.  Some topics are self-contained and explanatory, The Fair Weather Gardener seems obvious, while Unsuitable Authors is ambiguous. Unsuitable why and according to who? The answer to the latter is my grandmother who, after being partly instrumental in teaching me to read before I was five was very censorious about what I read.

...remarkable things... is an open ended label, but only used very occasionally, for things (mostly books) which I've found truly impressive or moving.

Project 31 Women is my ongoing research into 31 specific artists, who all exhibited at one ground-breaking exhibition in 1943. My research into these artists has become more desultory since I produced the first of a flurry of entries in 2013, but it's been my most important project, sharing it has allowed information about some unknown artists to be seen and many people have followed it and used it for their research etc, which I'm very pleased about. The whole point of Project 31 Women was to get these artists known and I won't allow it to fade away.  Ideally I'd like to see the project become a book.

Other labels I will juggle with, is it necessary to have Animals and Wildlife separate? What about Conservation and Environment? I will have to think on't.

 

Writing exercises - one

Writing exercises - one

Originally began this blog because I was doing so little writing. So. Writing exercise from an old copy of Mslexia magazine…

choose four ordinary objects-

I chose the following:-

Cheque book                     light bulb             framed photo of a child                 old floppy disc

Without naming it, write a purely physical description of one…

I wrote:

There are lots of these. They are square, plastic and brightly coloured. This one is green. It has no label, no indication of what lies inside. You can slide the metal plate on the top to one side, revealing a dark, shiny surface, which reflects some light and gives no clues, then a tiny spring exerts just enough force to push the metal cover back into place. So you’re still left ignorant.

The trouble with choosing four objects is that I automatically select four that resound with dramatic potential. These are not mundane things! But then what is mundane? A trowel? It can plant seeds that burst into miraculous life. A carpet? Whose feet have walked on that? A dustbin – containing who knows what secrets! Mundane? Nothing is really mundane.

So…

A floppy disc is something that I used to be dependent on – much of my life’s work still resides within a couple of boxes of these, even though some of the work has later revisions and anyway  they have been technologically superseded . Mundane? Not for me.

A light bulb, mundane? These simple inventions have revolutionised people’s lives! No need for smoky torches and braziers, dangerous and, unless you can afford hundreds, ineffectual candles. Ever tried reading by the light of one candle? Even a dead light bulb is redolent with the scenes it might have illuminated!

Framed photo of a child – mundane? Obviously not. Even better if you don’t know the child, from a fiction writer’s point of view anyway.

Chequebook. Mundane? A new one has such potential, it doesn’t have to only be used to pay the water bill! It could be used to buy a holiday in the Namib desert.., or a magic lamp. A used chequebook tells a story in the stubs.

OK, I don’t believe in mundane and this is obviously one of the aims of this exercise, writing a purely physical description is very hard, it leaves so much out; no emotions, value judgements, intimations…etc.  This may be the best thing that my time at Leeds Uni taught me. If you are a writer, there is always something to write about. I am a writer. Any writing is better than not writing and feeling sorry for myself.

 

Blogs and snails

Oh well, slipping already. Better get on with it.

The bad news is it was frosty last night. The good news is we still have a few strawberries on the plants we potted up in the spring! They are on the windowsill in the sitting-room, we had to bring them indoors to save them from the slugs, which were eating everything in sight.

OK so this isn't meant to be a gardening blog, or a diary come to that, just an attempt to discipline myself into writing something every day. I follow a blogger called Clarissa, she's an American academic who blogs several times a day. Surely I can manage it once a day? I'll obviously have to build up to actually having something interesting to say!

Beginning a blog

This will be my new blog as a writer.

The purpose of this blog is to encourage me to write something new, preferably every day and hopefully something creative. I've been in the creative doldrums all of this year. I may permit myself to post something I've already written, but not more than once a week.

I mustn't allow myself to just post an old photograph! This is for words not images, well not visual ones at least, descriptive prose maybe.

I will continue my other blog, Expert's Life, but narrow it down a bit, to still include my photographs and otherwise mainly building related comments and articles.