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Cross Culture Mojination

A friend and I have been experimenting a bit. He’s a musician and a jolly good one at that, and I thought wouldn’t it be interesting to try to have a conversation!!!

…. And they said it couldn’t be done!!

A conversation with a difference. A conversation where we communicate using only our respective art forms….

Soo he wrote a short piece of music – which if you use the magic power of… finger and press play above, you can hear – and I responded with the first thing that came to my mind…

It’s quite abstract, but what random thoughts aren’t?

Now he must read this and get composing…

I hope you enjoy. As always all comments and thoughts welcome

TTFN x

 

Breathe

 

“Grit” He looked at her and laughed

“Come on bitch you can do it.”

She snarled at him and took more air in her lungs than he thought was available in the room.

“Selfish cow, I paid for that” he joked. “Lucky for you you’re breathing for two.”

She sat on the dining table, brown beads of sweat falling from every pore and orifice, sticking what little nightgown she was wearing close to her body.

He leered at her, perverted, as her breathing deepened and became more laboured.

“You stink luv” he said “Open your legs then, I’ve got a buyer waiting if you can push this out in time”

Taking a hold of her knees he used what little strength the dissipating air in the room allowed him and prized her legs open.

Her scream was piercing, the loudest yet by his reckoning.

“Oh baby, do that again I might not be able to wait if you do.

She shook her head rapidly and took in a big consignment of air.

“Steady on luv, there’s not enough oxygen to…” He fell to his knees struggling to remain conscious.

His eyes turned a pretty beetroot red.

She wasn’t far behind, taking what remaining air there was in the room she pushed whilst outstretching her hand for him to hold.

He reached up and grabbed her arm, just one more push and it would be over.

That night a baby cried on the dinner table.

… Then it died.

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Questions……. Its the Answer

Today I’d like to share what was a common business practice when I ran an advertising agency and is now an irreplaceable part of my writers toolkit.

Questions…

As I once wrote ‘Without questions there can never be any answers’, they open your mind and your field of creation, they force you to remove the blinkers and write with absolute confidence.

When I start writing I am always very aware that my first draft is for me and me alone, it not written with a great emphasis on target audience I simply want to get the story out, to display the diamond in the rough.

After the first draft is complete I become a fictitious member of my potential audience and ask questions…

Is the plot line clear enough? Is there enough empathetic or emotional attachment? What unnecessary text is there? (Something that doesn’t drive plot forward or further define character and character relationships).

Questions don’t have to wait till you have finished your first draft. During my work on ‘The Trouble With Time Travel’ I was myself troubled, every one of my characters was well rounded and created with absolute precision save one, and this one was a constant irritation to me; What was his motivation? Where in fact did he come from? What exactly does he want and what will he do to get it?

It was only when I stopped writing the main story and allowed myself to answer these questions could I continue without these self imposed road blocks.

As a writer I am well aware that every time I type or pick up a pen I am potentially creating an amazing environment full of living breathing people, animals, buildings, trees, ghosts and as yet undiscovered entities.

How well defined this environment is depends entirely on the questions I ask myself.

I hope you found this helpful, As always all comments welcome x

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My Other Novel not based around murder death and all things gruesome

ImageHi, Thought I’d share some free form writing that inspired my other Novel, ‘The Trouble With Time Travel’.

The book will be aimed at a slightly younger audience, think JK Rowling and Stephanie Meyer (Not that I’m comparing myself with them…. yet).

Anyway what follows is a little free form writing that inspired the creation of the main character hope you enjoy.

As always comments and views welcome x

………….

You are here now on this rainy evening in the centre of Grainger street amidst the hustle and bustle of a Friday night, simply watching.

Observe the elderly couple running toward the Theatre Royal twenty minutes after the show has begun, the wife clearly the more energetic of the two, the husband if he makes it there alive will be gad of a sit down.

Across the road a group of girls emerge from a club laughing, each dressed as a French maid and all looking identical well, except from the rather ill looking lady in the front who seems to be wearing what can only be described as a giant cardboard penis on her head, I’m guessing from a cardboard man with no inferiority complex.

Look still further past them at old George standing on the street corner desperately hoping to sell the last 4 copies of his Big Issue magazine so he can afford to get drunk and moan to random strangers about being homeless.

Now close your eyes, breathe slowly and wait, if you listen closely enough you can hear the far away sound of a grandfather clock ticking. Follow the pulse, as you focus further the clock seems to gain prominence as all other sounds start to fade and become a distant memory.

Now, open your eyes.

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Writers Block My Solution

Writers block is awful, you sit down eager to continue with your short story, manuscript or novel and all your brain produces is the odd piece of tumble-weed within a vast deserted landscape, the building that once housed the creative life force behind your work exists only as a mirage.

My initial way of responding to writers block was to simply stop go into a Zen state and simply wait for the inspiration for me to continue with my project.

The fear being that if I continued without the inspiration, whatever words were added at that point would serve only to infect what was up to now equivalent to a work of divine creation.

Thing is, you could wait forever for the right inspiration to come along, days, weeks even months and lets face it a writer who doesn’t write, well isn’t a writer.

I came up with two solutions one was to write every day, and that starts with free form which has been covered in my earlier posts, then pick up the manuscript (you know the divine document) and write, even if its terrible drudge, just write, and keep to a word count start with 1000 words per day.

Humans are habitual creatures and you’ll find once you start doing this it will be easier to keep going.

This helped me to write every day but I found the inspiration was still a problem you see my brain is constantly ticking over and whilst one section of my creative self was interested in swimming in deep rivers of shock and horror my other half was simply wanting to make people laugh.

I came up with a project that was the counter balance to all things dark and devious.

This meant I had two projects on the go at the same time, but you can’t do that can you???

I didn’t think so, but it seems to work for me. I tend to find that every day I’m in the mood for one or the other project and I seem to find absence make the heart grow fonder, once I leave one project I can’t wait to get back to it which makes my daily word count rather large.

I’d be very interested to learn from other writers, find out what different methods work for different people so please feel free to leave a comment.

Till next time x

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