Just Lately I Have Been ….

Down to the last 50 pages on the edit for novel 2, nearly there now….

Trying to write novel 3 … and failing mostly

Meeting Jez for cups of tea and talking about films … but not so much about the script, which we should be talking about … however, we are almost a film company now….

Going to gigs.

Going to some more gigs

Reading God’s Own Country by Ross Raisin and finding my own Yorkshire accent become broader with each page turned… sithee!

Listening to Biffy Clyro and Frightened Rabbit

Receiving ridiculously small cheques (I mean the amount on them obviously, not the actual size of the cheques) from magazines I have lately written for

Finding art and designs at Leeds based collective NousVous and liking it a lot

Watching True Blood

Still waiting on a website I’m supposed to be writing for to get its arse up and running

Watching Fringe

Saddened by the news about Borders and already bemoaning the loss of the Dundee store

Eating mince pies

Drinking tea

RIP Maggie Jones

Yeah, so I’m jumping in again (apologies), just to say RIP to the legend that was Maggie Jones (aka Blanche in Corrie).

She was a brilliant actress who lit up the screen with her one-liners and humour. She will be missed!

A little self-plug

Writers are known for plugging. At least, I am. Me, and a few others. Today, I’m going to give you a prime example of that, in hopefully three minutes or less (I have no Internet currently, so I’m spending valuable change on the Internet…)

You may recall Paul B mentioning that he’s trying to write a poem about his siter for a book for a cancer ward – well, I’m the one ordganising said book, along with my friend Sophie. The project, entitled Poetry Against Cancer, aims to raise money for St John’s Ward, Ireland’s only children’s cancer ward. But we need your help. The book isn’t getting as many submissions as I’d like it to.

Please contribute. See, I’m begging now.

More details can be found here: http://poetryagainstcancer.wordpress.com – we also have a Facebook page, but I don’t know the link for that off by heart…

And that’s just over three minutes. Thanks!

Drought

  I’m not a tap. By that I mean I can’t wield a pen and spill verse like floodwater. My stores of creativity seem to require time to refill once they’re spent. The refill rate is tediously slow most of the time, like a painfully slow trickle. I’ve often gone weeks and months without penning a single scrap of poetry or song. I realise of course that if I’ve nothing interesting or significant on my mind to write about then no amount of forcing and faking will cause a poem to spill forth.
  It usually happens that during one of my droughts I get lazy and redundant. It passes by without me even noticing or caring, as though if I never wrote again it would not worry me. I’m probably well aware that something, eventually, will come to me out of the clear blue sky and end my poetic drought, but what if it didn’t?
  Consider my current situation. I have not penned a single verse of poetry in perhaps three months now. The odd line or two, some terrible songs, some music. Nothing that even closely resembles what I consider to be my primary outlet, the poem. As I said these droughts are a common occurance and usually don’t trouble me in the slightest. Except this time.
  It occurs to me that I havnt been experiencing a drought at all of late. I have in fact been doing some writing, just not poetry. What little I have been writing has been draining my creative store and leaving too little inspiration to form a decent poem. I can’t really blame the songs, they’re terrible and mostly meaningless. Likewise the music, of which I havnt written much lately. These things aren’t really significant enough to cause a total lack of poetic inspiration. This blog, however, seems to be the only explanation for my inability to write. I know it’s only a blog, but like I’ve mentioned before, I’m not someone who can just pick up a pen and get to work. 
  It’s not as though I havnt tried. Most recently I attempted to write a poem about my sisters battle with cancer in aid of a hospital cancer ward. I wrote one line and stopped dead in my tracks. I had plenty to say, but I couldn’t. Maybe something will come to me soon, or maybe I’ll never write another poem again. If i’m not poetically flooded soon, I may need to stop writing this blog to get back on track.    

Really nothing much to say

Ok, first of all, i just want to apologise for my prolonged absence from the forum lately, university life has been a tad more time consuming than i ever imagined it to be.

Basically, at the moment i feel completey lost, I haven’t written much since the summer and i stupidly decided to leave all my assignments until the last minute. I have three legal essays due this week and i’ve only done one of them. I absolutely love my course, but college has turned me into a lazy worker. Throughout 6th year i would be doing my homework, studying for my exams and writing up to 3,000 words every day, and that was fine, but lately i’ve been unable to motivate myself. I’m not sure why, i think maybe lack of pressure has something to do with it. I’ve done the leaving cert and  it just doesn’t feel like i have anything ‘important’ to work towards, apart from my degree, but the level of degree you get is only determined my your final year grades. I’m starting to become one of those people who are just happy to cruise along in life and never push themselves to achieve, and i’m shocked by it.

I’ve taken to the social life in college quite well, I made it onto the sailing team, i’ve joined a few clubs and socs and all the people on my course are fantastic. I’m exactly where i want to be in life, i’m in college!

As you may have guessed, i really don’t have anything to say in this blog. I just wanted to make an appearance and i will try my best to return to a more active member, once i get these assignments out of the way. I think once the anthology is published i’ll have something to spark my writing again so i’m excited about that. I can’t wait for the t-shirts, and Ireland is pretty much flooded at the moment which is exciting, for me, cause i live on a hill haha. Anyway, sorry for this complete waste of time, but i am a bit ‘tipsy’ right now and realised that it’s my turn to blog.