Author Archives: theworddoodler

london

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london has been the inspiration for my writing since i moved here over 25 years ago. from the outside you might think is a humongous whole on crossing the river thames like some great up turned turtle flailing it’s legs. or you might think it is just a large discarded black bin bag discarded carelessly across a stream. both would be somewhat true but inaccurate. fairer to say that london is a collection of towns, neighbourhoods, connected by the web that is the london underground system.
it is known for certain people to rarely leave their particular neighbourhood. to never venture much further than their local high street and corner shops. after all, what need for the centre of the city when you can find what you need on your doorstep? i have known children to have only for the first time to have experienced other polaris of the city, the tube, when taken on school trips with their schools. otherwise their familys stay put.
and who can blame them when you consider the city of london itself, the centre core, is made up of towering office buildings and bars and stores that close over the weekend. what to entice the venturous then? particularly when you factor in the increase in prices should you enter there.`
yet central has much to offer. numerous museums and galleries where you can seek inspiration for a tale. cafes where you can watch the world go by whilst surrounded by works from the past. hidden lanes that lead you to a bygone age of mystery with a pint in a boozer at the end where the decor and clients haven’t changed in years.
then outside of central you have the neighbourhoods. often referred to by their stop on the tube line. in the south: brixton and its caribbean roots gradually gentrifying with the influx of the thirty-somethings in search of their first homes. in the west: richmond where the money lives with leafy parks and pubs upon the thames. in the east: barking with sprawling council estates and descendants of the working class made good. in the north: haringey, the home of protest, upheaval. these are just some places but there are many more and everywhere, the wealthy rub shoulders with the poor divided by the post code they choose to live in.
with such variety and diversity in a living museum of culture, who could not get inspired to write? how could it not play a key role in the work im producing?

moment 26

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a trail followed. sooty prints from fireplace to rug to telly. a story to be discovered. a wire severed. the cry of a child. teddy with arm detached. violently. trainers chewed. unblemished white blemished. a dirt trail on a duvet. a monkey ripped asunder. the karate dog safely hidden. relief as other teddy remains safe in upper room. a disaster adverted. in the shower, a single clue to visitors. an unpleasant sight. dark and wet. the foxy culprit long since gone.

hemingway

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i first came across hemingway when doing a course on writing at citylit, london. if you don’t know citylit, it’s an adult learning college locate near holborn tube. that big long road that winds it way down pass theatres and hotels to waterloo bridge and the south bank. citylit runs many creative courses and i heard good things about its writing courses and heard they were doable if on a budget. i’m always on a budget.

the courses are often taught by stabilised writers. this one was taught by scott bradfield. we were often set things to read. and he set us the short story ‘hills like white elephants’ to read. i read it. read it again. it was like a revelation to me. here was a writer cutting out loads of description, reams of adjectives and adverbs, to pare back the story to its essence. the writing was like a fresh of air. a chill winter wind that wakes you from a night of over indulgence. it was like hemingway was giving me permission to do something. something i had long thought.

i had studied literature as part of my ba. a diet of hardy, dh lawrence, and george eliot (oh god, george eliot). they loved their long winding descriptions where a hundred words were better than five. long rolling descriptions of the scenery. adjective upon adjective that wound their way across the pages before a character did something. followed by exposition. how they loved exposition.

i followed this by teaching primary and mainly reading children’s literature. children’s literature loved an adverb and adjective. not forgetting a liberal use of simile and as many words for ‘said’ you could think of. so did the national curriculum. this is what they decided good writing consisted of. no hemingway style for them. you had to use lots of adverbs and adjectives to tick the boxes. not forgetting the whole range of punctuation.

it is not surprising then that this is what i thought writing was. had to be. i had been fed a diet of word types. all the word types. used liberally and often. yet i was not satisfied. why did we have to mention all the senses? in every description? surely, you should focus on the important ones for that scene? and did we really need long passages of description to describe a setting whilst the character was left in limbo? doing nothing. waiting for us to finish. my thinking was we should treat the setting as a character. and f important to the plot. then we spent time on it. but if passing through. was there a need? i began to have doubts over the way writing was taught and the way i wrote.

so reading hemingway gave me approval of my ideas. to leave the adverbs behind. use adjectives sparingly. use five words instead of a hundred. cut writing to the bone. to the essential. to what i considered important. gone were adverbs. i went further. reducing articles. conjunctives. pairing back the range of punctuation. the length of a sentence. reducing the sentence to its minimum. to the minimal point at which it could still be understood.

my prose-poetry is a concentrated version of that. my short stories and the novel i’m working on. less so. grammarly would have a system failure reading those. and i continue to experiment. wonder how further i should push it. the results are here on this website. see what you think.

the photo? the significance of the photo? that’s me in a bar in barcelona that hemingway was meant to frequent. it was meant to have changed little since his time. unlike the bar. i think hemingway has changed writing forever.

moment 24

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the sky is so dark here. real dark. not like the dark of the city which is like a deep, dark blue. illuminated by the streetlights. the lights of shop windows, offices, apartments. the lights of cars going somewhere, quick and fast. a blur of light up from the city, into the sky, making it dark day. the sky is never black in the city. just the colour of uniform. the stars lost, devoured, consumed by the city life. florescent lights are our wonder now. laser lights across the sky, picking out buildings. no room for shadows. nests are filled with birds with insomnia. tablets on a branch. if only we could sleep. the streetlight flickers. blink on. blink off. blink on. turning backs to the light. but here it is real dark. black of soul dark. reaper cowl dark. even trees become invisible. you have to sense them. sound echoes in its closeness. it touches the ground. spreads. over every blade of grass until all are nothing. a void. a board to be chalked upon. above are shapes i had forgotten. shapes like stars. pinpoints of white in the sky.

writing routine

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finding time to write can be problematic. it can affect getting into a routine. and can make the routine or writing habits you follow. many books advocate writing regularly. some say every day. i have never managed that. being busy with family life. and holding down two other jobs to pay the bills can impact on the time you have available. and by time: i’m not just on about physical time. the time to be free from work. i’m also on about the more important mental time. if you have stressful jobs that are mentally taxing and full on then it takes awhile to achieve quietness. the quietness you need to let your imagination play. explore. dance from thought to thought. place to place. if your’e mentally exhausted this takes longer. first you have to recoup. then gain the quietness. then focus on the writing.
so i snatch my quietness. my writing time. it is not regular. or frequent. and due to that. i forget. i forget what i have written before. where i am in my novel. the threads i have set up. i plot but they are brief notes. often single lines for a chapter. a glimpse as to what the chapter may hold. the rest i write on the hoof. by the seat of my pants.
this means i break all the rules of writing. i don’t edit after i’ve written a first draft. despite how many writers recommend this. i write a chapter or section. leave it whilst i turn my attention to family and jobs. return to the writing. read that chapter and edit. write the next chapter. i edit and write as i go.
i tend to find i don’t do a lot of change. maybe it’s because i ponder a lot what the next chapter is going to be. if i can remember it. think about the characters. the situation i left them in. and i’m a slow typist. that helps. i use just two fingers to type. this has the effect of slowing me down. so by the time i write a sentence or word it has been edited in my head several times. the paragraph shaped. that is why some writers advocate writing by hand. to allow time to think.
when i wrote my first novel. it was by hand. and the edits. only at the final stage did i type it up. i still do some writing by pen. my prose-poetry. it is straight from pen to paper then to ipad. a few changes on the way. novels are straight onto ipad.
i use Scrivener. i like the corkboard and how it can be used to easily shift things around or generate an outline. the outline proves very useful writing a synopsis for agents, etc. i write my novels sequentially. i don’t hop to a scene if stuck. some writers do that. but i can’t work that way. i need to solve a problem before i move on. not that i have many problems. due to all the time between chapters and typing it down i usually have them ironed out in my head.
i also make use of a good writing group. it is local to me and offers invaluable insight on what i’ve written. they will point out if something doesn’t quite work or needs fleshing out more. and it provides a good indicator how a reader might react. do they laugh when you intended? were they surprised by an outcome as you wanted? or was it all guessed too earlier in the story, leaving no surprises?
writing groups also give a good incentive to write. you want to make it worthwhile going. to offer something to an audience. to not go empty handed. this keeps you on track.
however you write is up to you. you find your own path. despite what some may think. there is no secret formula to writing a novel or getting a book published. it is all out there. you can read loads of books on the subject for suggestions. but ultimately it is down to you. your words. your effort.

apple

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my mother used to warn me as a child: don’t swallow the pips.
 ‘why?’ i would ask.
 ‘because a tree will grow inside you.’
 but i laughed. it was just one of those things mother said. like: your face will get stuck forever if you pull an ugly face when the wind blows. just a warning to tease kids. a bit of fun. no truth to it. so i would eat my apple. usually a cox’s orange pippin. nice and sweet. juicy.
 skin.
 flesh.
 stalk.
 core.
 pips.
 a tree never grew. no matter how many times i did it. my stomach digested it. the acid inside. the fluids. breaking everything down to nutrients. waste. converting to energy. to be used by the the body.
 i grew up. became a school kid. primary. secondary. young adult. then onto college. such tales discarded. forgotten. there were more important things. girls. cigarettes. alcohol. music. clothes.
i left college with a passable teaching degree and a job in the city. the city. the only city. london. a sprawling mess of towns joined by a tube network. i spent term time focused on my work and career. played the weekends hard.
 it was my habit to return for a week to my mother’s house in the summer. to that country town. in the heart of somerset. not because i liked it. i loathed it. the town. the people there. the narrow minds. the slow ways. it was an obligation. an obligation that i reduced down over the years to one week in summer.
we would sit in the large back garden taking in the sun. sat in rusting garden chairs. cool lemonade to hand. talking about things but not talking. this would last three or four days then i would get restless. the walls of the house and garden confining. suffocating. bearing down with their weight. what was to be said had been said. so i would take off. small pack on my back. four cans of beer. sandwiches. pack of crisps.
 i would set off down the road. past the tin topped houses. bridge over the river. take a right. follow the road. through the new estate. along the lane then the woods. the edges of quiet. a few dog walkers and children. further still. to the country road. pick a direction. set off and see what i would see. small villages and houses. arches made from over hanging trees across long winding roads. take a swig from a can as i went. a bite of sandwich. enjoying the company of one. the solitude. the silence. on i would go. until the beer ran out. then i would turn. head home.
 it had been a busy year. ofsted. the sudden departure of the head. stupid bitch shouldn’t have left her password on the computer. my promotion. the reorganisation of the school. the right people in place. my weekends had got wilder to escape the pressure. half-remembered nights followed by waking up in someone’s bed. a bleary-eyed return to my flat. yesterday’s clothes. a shower. a snack. then out to do it all again.
 so the week away in the summer came as a real break. a break to the pace. the self-destruction. a chance to slow. be still. so we sat. mother and i. in the back garden. sipping lemonade during a particularly hot summer. wasps buzzed around. the air hazy. the soil cracked. grass dry. parched. we talked without talking. then nothing. just the heat. the lemonade. the beat of the sun.
 one night the sky cracked.lightning bolts. the pound of rain. i sat up. watched. a blessed relief. the bed had been hot. clingy. this brought coolness. a change. tomorrow. i decided. i would go on a walk.
i got up early. four cans in the pack. cucumber sandwiches. packet of crisps. and i was off. down the road. past the houses. over the river. take a right. estate. lane. through the woods. into the country. follow a road.
 i had eaten the sandwiches and crisps a while back. and was on my third can of beer when i entered the village. it was unfamiliar to me. more a hamlet. consisting of a few houses and a pub. the black sheep. i wondered how it had lasted there so long with so few customers. but the country was like that. there was always something without explanation. that you couldn’t understand as city folk. and i now considered myself city folk.
 like the house at the end of the hamlet. larger than the rest. too large for such a place. with high grey bricked walls surrounding the garden. it made me wonder what it had to hide. to protect. then i saw it. a large apple tree.
 just poking over the height of the wall. full with large red apples. so many. some were hanging down. almost within reach.
 i finished the third can. looked up at the apples. my stomach felt empty despite the drink. i needed something. a memory of apple scrumping with school friends came back to me. it never did any harm. just the one. the tree had so many. who would notice? i glanced along the road. no cars. no people. i reached up. finger tips grabbing the end. twisted and pulled. it came away. the branch sprung back. 
 ‘oi!’ came a cry.
 it was an old man. in green. through a gate.
 ‘give back that apple.’
 but i laughed. feeling eleven again. and ran. the old man trying to catch up. but i was younger. fitter..
 ‘you mustn’t’ came the cry as i left him.
 i glanced behind me. no old man. no hamlet. just the woods ahead. i would drink the last can. then the apple. my treat.
 the trees towered overhead. sun filtered through the leaves onto the forest floor covered in brown pine needles. the occasional stump. not a sound was heard except the odd branch disturbed by the movement of a bird or something else. i threw the empty can away. turned my attention to my ill-gotten gains. one apple. what a fuss over one apple. when there were so many. so so many. stupid old fool. i bit into its red skin. into its juicy flesh. it was sweet. juice dribbled down my chin. i wanted the all of it. every piece. the stalk. the core. the pips. none must be wasted. it was too good.
 my apple consumed. i set off further into the woods. past the trees. towering overhead. the rustle of birds. dappled light searching. there was a stab of pain in my stomach. sharp. piercing. stopped me in my tracks. another. sharper. it bent me double. skin clammy. face wet. pains down my legs. into my feet. sharp. cutting.
 my shoes seemed to press against my feet. shoes too small. tight. my feet hot. burning. i had to get my shoes off. now. i fought the pain in my stomach. untied the laces. shoes off. socks. to see my feet. at first nothing. as i stood bent. just pale pink flesh. toes. nails.
 a flash of heat. then a change to the skin. darkening. browning. thickening. the nails on my large toes split. divided. fell off. a terrible. my remaining nails popped. then thin. brown tendrils. burst through the skin.
 like teeth through grapes. brown tendrils twisting to the ground. into it. a few at first. then more. hot burning pain in my feet as roots burst through my heels. then all sides. into the ground. i scream.
 skin thickening all over. i try to rip my shirt off. but my skin is thickening. tightening. compressing. i find it hard to breathe. i try to gasp for breath. but i can’t breathe. i can’t breathe.
 hell. i can’t move. i’m stuck here. stuck. a hot burning sensation in my head. like someone stabbing with blades. 
 then the burning stops. and silence. just me. alone. in the woods. unable to move. the silence. a bird overhead.
 i can just see. a figure. a figure in green. he’s holding something. an axe. he’s holding an axe.
 ‘they never learn.’
 and. i can’t scream.

moment 25

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my relationship with sleep has always caused problems. as a teen i would sleep for hours, lost in a world of spaceships, maidens and dragons. when asleep, i would surrender myself completely. a cat chased a pigeon in my room. i slept through. instead, i woke wondering why there was the footprint of feathers everywhere. once, when older, after a late night, i slept long and hard. i woke at 6 to the dark. i cursed waking so early only to discover it was evening and had slept the day. now, sleep and i have an on/off relationship. sometimes she is hard to grasp. just out of reach. an elusive thought. i toss and turn and despair as mind races through a million moments. a million reasons to lay awake. as one is dealt with, another appears. an unending cycle. an infinity loop. other times. i stay up late. too awake to sleep yet. too engaged in something to want to succumb. time matters not. i am in the now. i fight against sleep until it pulls the shutters and i fall. i awake confused on the sofa.

moment 23

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i left the house. needed to get away. on my ten speed, blue with silver. through the quiet traffic. across town. anywhere. just not there. down the path by the red brick youth club. stream running nearby. follow the stream. across the bridge over the weir. a moment to watch the water tumble and fall. a froth of white turbulence. across I went. no cycles allowed. on-wards into the park with the river running through it. i came upon my stepfather and friend. fishing. watching the bobbing of the float cause ripples on the water. enticing. i took the fishing rod, metallic blue, bottom of the range. a finger resting, watching the line. waiting. the fluorescent float bobbed. then disappeared. up again. then down. a fish biting. a hook cutting in. i wound the reel, pulling occasionally. wound him in. the line straight and taught, heavy. i pulled and wound, pulled and wound. the hook caught. up to the bank. up into the air. the fish thrashing, twisting, spinning on the line. i brought it into shore, on the grass of the bank. its rainbow colours hinted of deep magical places in the sunlight. of freedom in the green reeds, along the beds of the river. the caress of the current on scales as it ran along the body. a never-ending world. i watched as the fish gasped for freedom. its mouth opening and closing in the air. too much oxygen. open. close. open. close. hook through lip. i bent down and carefully removed the hook. carried the fish, in the sun, gleaming, to the sparkle of the river. lay it down on the water. watched it swim free. i left the rod on the bank, said my goodbye to my stepfather and friend. cycled slowly home. through the sleepy traffic of the town. up the hill past the tin topped house. to my door. i opened it quietly. went into the lounge. the rabbit was dead.

moment 22

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i sit by lake coniston watching the water ripple across the surface surrounded by tree banked hills and the gentle curve of mountains. the sun dances on the water celebrating the day, the break of storms and torrential summer rain. swans glide curious at the commotion but proud to show off their young to any who will give them attention. the launch leaves the jetty, sending great ripples to unnerve the newborn rowers and offering a moments excitement to the many paddle boarders with glaring colours of orange and green. the screams of children splashing and the chatting of adults in the sun. tea cups clink in the bluebird cafe as orders are yelled by the staff. a wave of sound fills the air flattening the moment as smoke rises from campfires away in the woods. what would wordsworth have made of his beloved hills and water? would he have found the time to stop and think, to channel god’s talent and compose? or would the constant din of activity stifle and consume, killing thought in its grasp of sound, a black cloud of storm thunder smothering, drenching the poet, blotting his page, words obliterated as soon as thought of, all consumed by the downpour? what then to history? the writer’s lost to a life dull and obscurity, not the conversation in a white cottage or the delight of a sister, but sad mournful days of what could have been, if only, if only.

moment 21

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the son sat in the bar sipping his prosecco. he hated it here. the place smelt of damp dogs, wet people and two-day breath. why had he agreed to meet here? there were far better places. they could have met in the new artisan coffee house in town. great flat whites, free WIFI and young female barristas. here everyone was old. but then it had to be this place. he was more comfortable here. it was easier to say. waiting. he glanced at the menu of fish and chips, burger and chips, or steak. vegetarianism a thing of mystery. not even a lazy lasagne or penne pasta could be had. so he got another prosecco from the bar and a pack of stale ready salted crisps. that was lunch then. he stared at the bar a moment at the hopeful horseshoes hammered carelessly around the bar. and the collection of beer plates of ales they never had. what time was it? nearly twelve. he would be here soon. if anything was said of him, he was punctual. old school. no doubt, he would be dressed in shirt and tie, v-neck brown jumper, grey trousers and sensible shoes. he had worn the same for years. ever since he retired. it was a matter of duty. like collecting for the british legion, watching the queen’s speech, or buying the times. he was a man of timeless routine, of familiarity. 

at precisely twelve, he came in, ordered a 1/2 of mild and sat opposite. this was it. the meeting. the important discussion they had to have, the son took a gulp of prosecco. what to say? how to say it? how do you say to a person it is time? so he just looked at him. waited. hoped he would say something first. nothing. he was always a man of few words.
“dad?”
“yes.”
“did you read it?”
“yes.”
“you know it’s for the best.”
“yes.”
“and?”
“it’s just the dog.”
“we’ll find it a good home. you know we would take her but, you know, the cats.”
“i know. it’s just…”
“yes.”
“it’s just I’ve had her so long. part of the family.”
“i know. it’s just there is no option.”
“i know.”
“just, you know. i’m working all the time. it’s for the best.”
“i know.”
“we’re thinking of you.”
“i know.”
“it’s just…”
“i know. just.”