Tag Archives: life

the curse of spring

Featured | Posted by
Woman with blonde hair standing near green leaf tree

the months move on and the cold dark days of winter begin to fill with the light and warmth of spring. plants awaken in the garden spreading their leaves and the flowers blossom. animals play and skip across the grass with a spring in their step. literally. you would think with all this light and energetic joy writers would be happy. no. spring is the cursed month.

you may ask how i come to describe so a glorious time of year as cursed. well let’s look at the facts from the writer’s point of view. first all this sunshine and warmth. annoying. you are trying to buckle down to a particularly difficult rewrite of a paragraph in your dark and dinghy corner of an attic room with the cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling sagging with the dust of neglect. and what happens? sunlight breaks through the grime of the window and shines upon your desk lighting up your laptop screen making it difficult to see. the suns warmth beckons you outside.

‘come on,’ it says. ‘take a break. enjoy the sun.’

and you think to yourself: i will take a break. and before you know it you are sat on a whicker chair with a cool rosé in hand taking in the sun rays. time ticks on. you have another chilled drink. and before you know it the day has gone. the sun has set. and no work has been done. a whole day’s writing lost to you. never to be regained. instead you now have a feeling of reproach and guilt consuming you as you make your way indoors to the kitchen to make a chilled salad. all because spring is here.

and that is not the only way the season is cursed. picture this. you are in your attic tapping away at the keyboard. the edits are going well. you are fully focused. in the zone of creativity. then in the corner of your eyes there is a slight itch. just slight at first. you try to ignore it. but the itch grows. so you stop your typing and rub your eyes. you have fallen out of the zone. you try to claw your way back. but now your nose is twitching. you are going to sneeze. you try to hold it back. nose twitching violently. a sneeze blasts out that echoes across the attic room. filling the space. bouncing off the walls. another. and another. and you are reduced to a sore-eyed-weeping-water-sneezing-violently-wreck. you can not think. mind numbed. cloudy. all thoughts on the novel lost. you have hayfever. the fever from hay. and it is a fever. the eyes leak. your nose drips. your face feels warm.

you search for the hayfever medication. you hold the purple box in your hand but it is empty. so you have to leave the house. leave your writing. and go to the chemist where you purchase a box of medication at a price slightly too painful. you could have got new pens with that money. paper for the printer. but instead you had to buy medication. you go home and swallow a tablet. but of course there is no instant cure. hayfever medication doesn’t work that way. you have to build up a resistance. it takes time. so all you can do whilst waiting is lie on the sofa with a box of tissues to hand and think about the writing you could be doing and blame the god of genetics or something.

so enjoy spring if you can. enjoy the sun and flowers and the pollen on the trees and walks in the woods through dappled light. but remember the harm that it does. remember the curse it puts poor writers under. the curse of spring.

in praise of slow

Featured | Posted by
Black and yellow line on black asphalt road with words "rapid " and "slow " written on it. Image by Constantin Stanciu

in today’s world modern technology has added a lot to enhance everyday living. it enables us to communicate across vast distances, simplifies many daily tasks, and enables advances in many scientific areas. it helps us to perform tasks that were once long and laborious in minutes. it removes the time from a task.

we have engaged with tools when word processing to simplify and speed up the process of writing. the spell and grammar checker. the formatting tool. all of these has aided to quicken the time between the generation of the idea to it appearing on a page to publication. and now we have “AI” being pushed by large tech companies who promote the speed it can do everyday writing tasks. they say it is the dawning of a new age of writing. that it will enhance our work and make things easier. that the distance between idea to publication is almost nonexistent.

but is this rush to embrace speed such a good thing?

when i write or read i like to take my time. i like to chew the words over in my mouth. formulate and restructure the sentence in my mind. think ahead to where that sentence is going and contemplate what possible one could follow. for a while i dabbled with speeding up my work by writing my first draft directly onto a computer device. i reduced down the process between idea, composition, editing. speed was the king. but was my writing any better? was the process easier? no.

so i went back to basics. i put time back into the process. instead of the computer i switched to a notebook and pen. i allowed myself time to chew over thoughts and ideas. for the sentence to brew in my head. it may have only added a few extra seconds but they were valuable seconds. and i added further time. instead of being in a rush to get everything down i added deliberate pauses. stopping mid scene or paragraph and leaving it to pick up another day. the novel would get written but it needed the time to plant roots, develop its stem system, branch out and flourish.

the writing world has been guilty of this push for speed for a long time. writers publishing word counts. publishers demanding certain word numbers. a false dichotomy that demanded volume over quality. how often have we all read a book and thought ‘this section drags?’ what if there had been a bit less insistence on word count? what if the need for word numbers had been reduced? then we could have spent time on choosing our words more carefully and putting forward our best sentences.

so i demand of myself: be slow. take time in the writing process. don’t rush towards arbitrary targets. reduce the pace. grab a pen and note book. better still a slab of granite and carving tools. chip away at my sentences. letter by letter. word by word. until i have a great monument to my writing. something to stand tall and admire.

end of eras

Featured | Posted by
air balloons in sky over Bristol, UK

it has been a time of end of eras. things coming to a close or a major change happening after many years of just coasting along. days unchanging. constant. sure.

the first of these changes has been no.1 child finishing their ‘a’ levels and launching themselves onto the world. they are full of ideas and enthusiasm for what lies ahead, edged with a hint of steely determination. i think they are better prepared than i was at the same stage in life. much more knowledgable and wise.

part of this launch was moving out of the house for 10 weeks to do a course in bristol. the last time i was there was probably for an evening when my friends and i dove up from taunton and went to a large warehouse where four punk bands were playing. the headliner was the henry rollins band. i think he was also trying to flog a poetry book as well.

i have mixed emotions about the departure of no.1. i’m losing a buddy who always had something interesting to talk about. a new discovery. there is a space in the house where they were. but i’m also excited to see what will happen on their journey. what new adventures they will report back on. what life holds for them.

the second end was finishing my WIP. my novella. i started it in october 2022 and it has been with me sporadically since then. it has been the hardest piece of writing to write. it was out of my comfort zone. it had a number of elements i had to juggle and they needed to all land successfully. it was also the most planned because of this. i had to make every step right.

i was sporadic in the writing because i made some major changes to my life. changed my working world. made it less certain. and i’m older than when i wrote ‘wishbone billy.’ i don’t have the energy to do the late nights writing. and i find i also lack the focus now since the covid pandemic and lockdown. my ability to concentrate for long periods has dropped. i’m sure there will be a study somewhere which will look at the impact of covid on the mind. on cognitive function. if not, there should be.

and there was the doubt.the great shadow of the imposter raven on my shoulder. waiting. pecking. freezing my mind. it took some battling some days to overcome it and put words to page. to have the confidence in the project. the belief i could do it. i had to keep telling myself i had done it before. i could do it again.

and so three years later the first draft is done. finished. it is out to beta readers who will come back with an honest verdict on the thing. i look forward to hearing. and am beginning to ponder part two of the series. at the moment it is just a vague thought. but it is forming. ticking over. i’m excited by what my mind will generate.

the last end. the last end of the era. was the death of kaos my cat. he has been at my side many a time as i sat writing. he had appeared in many a prosepoem. but his time had come to an end. it was quick. surprising. heart breaking. there is a small space in the house where he should be. but he is not there. and when i sit at night to read or write it is just that bit more lonely. i think there will be the patter of his feet and a jump as he lands on my lap. but there is nothing. just me. my book. my writing.

Kaos the cat. black cat.

cleaning woman

Posted on by
Woman in white robe standing in kitchen

It was the towel that did it.

Karen returned home to her bungalow at quarter past six.This was her usual time after cleaning the offices in the evening. A day spent wiping down the surfaces of the food preparation areas. Scrubbing at stubborn coffee spills on counter tops. Vim usually did the trick for that problem. Vacuuming the coarse office carpets. Often in colours no respecting householder would have. Dingy greys, dark blues, grass greens. The toilets were always the worse. Particularly the executive loos. Maybe it was some sort of power play or a case of ‘because they could’ but the floors around the bowls were always covered with pee and carelessly discarded tissue. She really had to work her magic there to get rid of the smell and yellow tell-tales. 

Karen trudged through the open front door stepping over her husband’s discarded jacket on the floor. Precisely where she had told him numerous times not to leave it. She picked it up and put it on the nearby coat peg. 

She carried the bags of shopping through to the kitchen. He was there at the cooker frying. She watched as egg, sausage and bacon spat fat up the wall of tiles around the oven. Each little spit landing and leaving a yellow mark. Hanging there at first then gradually making a trail down the wall towards the surface of the hob where it rested satisfied. A mark of defiance. Defiant at her cleaning. The hours she had spent scrubbing those tiles white last week. The toothbrush she had used dipped in the best bleach then worked into the grout between each tile. The only way. All gone. All lost. Lost to the sizzling spit of a frying pan.

Karen left the shopping by the kitchen table to be sorted later. Made her way to the bedroom. Worn and unworn men’s clothes littered the bed and floor. A battlefield of linen. Reds, blues, greens intertwined with each other. Day used socks and sweaty underpants slept on her pillow. He was always such a dirty man. Unclean. She wondered what had attracted her to him in the first place. He had turned up at their date in a crumpled dark suit, crumpled shirt, crumpled tie. Unpolished shoes. Maybe she felt he needed looking after. That she was the one to do it. A challenge to be taken on. Or was it just to annoy her parents. Knowing his long hair and t-hs dropped for fs would be an a-front to their prim and proper ways. Whatever it was, they were married a year later and she set about trying to train him.

She left the bedroom. Went next door. Her favourite room of the house. She had insisted on the decor. It was her non-negotiable. A fashionable free standing bath. A wide white basin with victorian taps. A wooden bench on which rested three scented candles. Dimmable lighting to set a mood. Tiled flooring with heating. Her sanctuary. But it had been defiled. Again. Two used white, wet towels lay on the floor. In the middle. In the middle of her room. Her place. The clock work in her mind clicked another notch. The final notch. Rang the bell.

Karen made her way back to the kitchen. He was sat at the table eating his fry up. Bacon, eggs, sausages, fried toast. The frying pan had been dumped on top of the pile of washing up in the sink. She lifted it up. Turned around. Hitting him hard on the head. Metal against bone. There was a crack. He slumped in the chair.

He was always a slip of a man. So it was easy work dragging him from the kitchen to the bathroom. She looked with disgust at the trail of blood along the carpet. But she knew she had a fluid that would sort that out. She stripped him of his oil stained jeans and t-shirt. Damn that garage. And with a mighty heave, practised from lifting large vacuum cleaners up flights of stairs, she got him in the bath. 

She put in the plug and turned on the mixer tap. Something nice and warm. She fetched the large container of bleach from the cupboard under the stairs. Pilfered from work. There had to be some perks. She emptied the 5 litre bottle into the bath. Watching the gentle trail of the thick liquid hit the water. His skin. She would teach him how to be clean even if it killed him. 

She turned off the taps. It still wasn’t enough. He still looked grubby and dirty laying in the bath. Her bath. Something more was needed. Something to get him really clean. She went back to the cupboard under the stairs and lifted down the brush from the shelf. The steel wire brush. The one she used to clean the bottom of blackened pans. That would do the job.

She set to his skin. Scrubbing furiously. Scrubbing as if he were the pissed stained floors of the executive loos. The coffee  marked surfaces of the food counters. The tiles in the kitchen. The bath water turned red. She ignored it. She was doing good. Getting the grime away. The years of fried food, engine oil. Dirt on her clean sheets. A late night hand feeling for her arse leaving  fingerprints. He was always so grubby. She scrubbed away.

She pulled the plug and watched as the dirty water receded. A gradual reveal of her handiwork. A pinkish rim was left around the bath marking where the water had been. That would take some sorting but it had been worth it. She had finally taught him how to be clean to the bone.

moment 7

Featured | Posted by

old men with ghosts in their eyes sit sipping the first of the day. lost friends and family float in the air as carcasses chew on a roasted nut. they remember happier laughter when mates were plenty and pints 50p. now the laughter is full of bitter tears that fall on froth making sad eyes. No Name sits in his usual seat pouring down blackcurrant soda. he looks enviously at the amber glasses. no longer. doctor’s orders. Racist Phil peers angrily over his drink at the diverse staff then takes a sip of his barcadi and coke. they always smile politely. a lone lady with ruddy face and dye streaked silver hair takes a dash of wine then places a beer mat carefully over the rim. she waits for Harold. what’s keeping him? it’s his round. over cooked sausages, too crisp bacon, and soggy hash browns are presented to customers as a culinary delight. even the watered sauce wants to steer clear. businessmen too tight for Costas sit drinking free refill coffee while loudly demanding attention on their mobile phones. charge points are plenty but none are free. the dregs of the morning hang on as the lunchtime crowd are drawn in by special thursday curry with drink. laughter flies up as banter is machine gunned across tables and mobiles are compared. have you seen this photo? are they real? they can’t be. a lost family wanders in search of convenience. a grubby white high chair is offered like a fallen throne and gratefully accepted. a quick wipe down and it’ll be all right. a fruitshoot and chips for the kids, salad and spritzers for the mums. aren’t we being decadent. what would Michael say? thank heavens for colouring sheets and crayons. No Name orders a blackcurrant and starts the sun crossword. the lone lady, cursing Harold, drinks another wine. peppered curry arrives with lone poppadom and too sweet mango chutney. somewhere a cook cries in his grave. the rush comes to an end and the hearty remain. long gone the businessmen and mums – children to collect. Lone lady gives up, sinks her wine and asks for a taxi. she never has a phone. the writer smile’s at the content, sips his beer.