Taking A Fall For The Second Time

David Blunkett has resigned for the second and probably final time. Politicians generally have just one professional life, how many do writers have? Is it possible to have literary success followed by a fallow period, being dropped by your publisher, your agent... And then make a startling comeback with a piece of writing so amazingly accomplished that soon critics are saying it is your "best thing since...", effectively joining up your 'old' writing life and your newfound one. Will that happen to me one day, I wonder?

Katrina

As a tribute to Hurricane Katrina I have recorded an experimental piece of 'musique concrete' that includes some 'off-air' news reports and processed white noise from my synthesizer imitating the sound of the storm. I could imagine that should the piece be staged a projector could show the news footage that has had all of us spellbound over the last 24 hours.

Piano Man

I have recorded a song based on the story of the Piano Man - the man who turned up at a hospital claiming complete loss of memory but who could play the piano to concert standard. The piece mimics the feeling of loss as individual notes are picked out tentatively on my keyboard before changing into a more structured song with a spoken lyric recounting the man's story and finally the return of his memory. I love conceptual songs like this.

Unintelligible Design

Inspired by 'Dubya' endorsing Intelligent Design to write a short story from the dinosaurs' perspective - being popped into existence and then popped out by a fickle God who cannot decide what he actually wants in his new Eden. I think a comedy like this might be developed into a series for Radio 4. I would call it Unintelligible Design and it could feature someone like Stephen Fry as God.

Terror.

A field day for the media and every other news outlet in Britain as the news slowly developed as to what actually happened this morning.

Feedback

Feedback to the latest issue of New Wor(l)ds has been mostly positive. I generally send out around 20 copies to friends and peers. I think the fact I am still so productive and am able to produce this amount of short stories and poetry silences the cynics I know who perhaps wonder why I continue to do this in spite of the fact that the publishing industry has so far ignored most of my efforts. Personally I believe my work to be at the very least much more interesting than so much contemporary mediocre fiction - on the bookshelves or the airwaves or television screens. Perhaps if I actually wrote something bland enough it would get published in a reputable lit-zine or short story collection... But I don't do mediocre - in my writing or my music. My work is too immediate for that, too dynamic. I am thinking about posting a sample from New Wor(l)ds here now that I've sorted out a new layout template that allows for more text.

Watch this space!

The JPEG above shows the cover of issue 7. I designed the cover with a strong yellow background the black ink ran when I printed them. I think it added to it actually, though further copies may only have a black and white cover to save on ink cartridges!

Live 8

Hype aside these huge concert spectacles are hugely enjoyable watching from the comfort of your armchair. As I predicted many musical genres were poorly represented last night, and those that were the usual suspects.

Shortly after Christmas 1985 when Sir Bob was introducing his idea of raising money to the world, myself and several other local bands and musicians did our own money-raising effort for Live Aid. We all played for free and raised about £150 which was no mean feat when we were only charging 75 p admission! These gigs with many bands of differing abilities were always interesting. With no one person in charge it was everyone for himself in terms of securing a decent position in the running order. We ended up somewhere near the start for some reason but I had written a one-off song to rival Do They Know It's Christmas called We Know It's Not Really Christmas.

Here is the lyric:

Kilamanjaro's snow has spread to the Serengeti
Reindeer grazing side by side with buffalo
The tribesmen hunt with spinning bolas
But we know it's not really Christmas

Frozen waterhole yields no moisture
Flamingoes land like ducks on ice
And the lions of hunger wait in the tall grass
But we know it's not really Christmas

copyright SJH 1986

New Wor(l)ds.

Its that time of year when I compile my annual overview of my work and distribute it amongst my peers. Comprised of short fictional narrative, poems and even short scripts its often a bag of rich diversity. I am never short of material. I have known other would-be writers who spend many a moon complaining that they can't think of anything to write about, or spend an inordinate amount of time on one single idea. This is a problem I've never encountered personally. I have untold quantities of stories and poem ideas in numerous notebooks and have only to open any of them to find a half-decent story idea with which to begin a new novella or play idea.

Now I am blogging I am faced with the question as to whether or not to publish any of my stories here. I recently blogged some poems but my stories are much longer and it is always a concern how the text will read in a single long column. Looking around at other blogs I see there are other writers doing it but I struggled to read to the end of their short stories. Perhaps it is a question of quality - a good read is a good read isn't it?

I printed my first collection of short stories and poetry in June 1997 using works photocopier. Over the years I have stayed with the same A4 format which I find is a comfortable size.

The Land Of Oz

Received a final round robin e-mail from two old friends today who are leaving for Aus. How strange it is these days that final good-byes are made on the Net. And yet no doubt within days they'll be e-mailing photos of their arrival, where they're staying etc...Given that I've not seen them for ages will it ever seem like they ever really leave?

Proliferacy

I have been quite prolific lately, not only with this blog, but many other works in progress I am doing. Digging out old tapes of my first band and being very inspired by the quality of the lyric writing (I was only a lad when I wrote them!). I may publish some of the best ones here, but wonder do I keep to the original song titles or not? Does a rhyming lyric become a poem when taken out of context? Can a poem ever truly become a lyric for a song? Purists would argue 'No!' and I think I'd go along with that. But sometimes the esthetic of a lyric can lift it into the sphere of True Poetry and I suppose it's only fair that the reverse may also be true. Some of my poetry could easily outdo many a pop songs lyrics for grammatical dexterity. Maybe I am a great lyricist but did not know it!

05/05/05... or 666?

Blair appears to be back. Well, I voted for him at least and as I write it looks promising. The Tories floundering in the background cannot have a hope now Blair has joined forces with Bush and put us on the world stage again, for better or for worse.

Timing issues

Timothy timed the tinny can-can
And numbered the hubris'd klu-klux-klan
Waiting for figurative results
In a sheltered blanket of peace

Clare weighed the woody tom-tom
And countered the debris from the wonton
Waiting for diminuative results
In a sheltered sleeping bag

On my last post

I think my last post might well have been equally describing the blank page of a blog before a thought is thought out. All the future unpublished pages of my blog are ranged like unfallen snowflakes, waiting for my thoughts to literally crystallize them into being.

Like the unheard forest tree in Zen, the snowflakes are only seen when they are "written on".

But when will they fall?

Eskimo Snow

Whiteness blaring on whiteness
...and white
Only white

A staring blankness staring
...and white
Only white

Glaring staring whiteness
A snowdrift on ice

Flaring ice fire
Into glacial skies

...and white
Only white

Complexity in Simplicity

How often do you hear that Eskimoes have a thousand words for snow? Well, of course they don't. They have one word for snow, one word for sleet, one word for ice... in other words lots of words for different kinds of snow. Flake, crystal, glacial... we have different words too. I think my blog will be as different as all those words but is only about one thing. Not snow, but people and computers. In my job I often have to help people understand how to interact with their PC's in the workplace and I 'm always amazed how difficult a lot of people find it. As usual, everyone assumes something to be complicated when it fact it's all too simple.

So lets keep things nice and simple here.