Skeleton Architecture

I think I don't like poetry. In fact I'm pretty sure. What I like is a brick of a book with well rounded characters, who can take me on a journey with them. I find that for me poetry can be navel gazing, twee nonsense, so caught up in its clever cleverness that it drives me to distraction. But then again, I like lots of songs for their lyrics, and sometimes, just sometimes, I come across some poetry which just blows me away. I came across Iain Crichton Smith recently at my writing group. I live in Scotland, and the other members of the group were all saying that Smith is so much covered in Scottish English (and Gaelic) classes that people don't tend to notice the beauty of his poetry. I didn't go to school in Scotland. The poets I studied at school were people like Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Shelley. I don't recall ever coming across anything like this. That said, I'm not sure that as a teenager I would have noticed it. Perhaps you have to have some i...

I go to a writing group, which I love to do, because it pushes me out of my comfort zone. My comfort zone is a messy place, so it's best to get pushed out from time to time. I am definitely not comfortable just now. At our most recent writing group we had a great workshop on writing poems.  I was really into writing poems as a child, and especially as a teenager, but I don't do it now. Although I am pretty pleased with my poem on Google+  which I did for the writing group last year. It's not that I don't like poetry, I just have so much other stuff that I want to read, and write, more. However, we have been set a competition, and I think it's good for me to attempt to do it, so I've been looking at the poems we were given to provide inspiration, and I've chosen Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. It's not that I like it. I have heard it too many times, recited unloved, thrown into the pot of a wedding, maybe even our wedding. I don't remember...

We decided long ago in 2006 that we were going to shake up the way our family worked. My husband, Kenny, would go for a job with a bigger salary, with the flexibility which has to go with that, and we would move our family as required. I would look after our children, and make sure that things at home worked, even as Kenny needed to work away for his job. It's worked out well for us. Kenny's doing well in his career, and our children are happy and secure, despite having moved a few times, but nothing is all good. Everyone has something they don't like about their work, and being a full time Mum, while being very rewarding, and completely worthwhile, can also be dull, repetitive, and frustrating. For me, I need to have another focus as well. When we first moved for Kenny's work my other focus was on the charitable organisation I was running (in Suffolk). b.a.b.i.e.s (Babies and Birthing in East Suffolk) was fun and so very useful, and gave me plenty of adult foc...

I wrote this post before... and then I decided to use the Blogger app again, and lost half of it. Last time I used the Blogger app, the same thing happened, but that time after a lot of digging, I was able to resurrect my work. This time it's gone.  And so's the Blogger app. UN-IN-STALL. And with the mood I'm in I'm not sure I can be bothered to do it again. Meh. Well, maybe. OK, I'll do it, but I'm going to change my favourites. Today, once again, I'm sharing my top 10 favourite fictional characters (favourites for various reasons, which I've explained below. I'm hoping you'll return the favour and share your ten favourite fictional characters. Here's mine, in no particular order: Izzy is on the left. This pic is taken from here 1. Izzy Reubens (from Love and Rockets by the Hernandez Brothers). I love Izzy, I would still like to look like her. She is also gloriously tragic and broken, furious, and demonic. The Love...

I'm using the fact that it's October as my excuse for this one, but I'm wondering how long you reckon you'd survive the zombie apocalypse? And if you survived, what would you do? I've put a bit of thought into this, ever since a writing exercise in my old writing group that went wrong.   Here's what you do: Think of 6 crisis situations, and write them down Number them 1-6 Roll a dice. You have to go with the one that is selected. Now write an account of one character coming home after a terrible incident has occurred (connected to the crisis). YOU MAY NOT MENTION WHAT HAPPENED. Add a character So what went wrong? Well, I had five crises, but couldn't think of another, so I asked my husband. He reckoned I should put in 'zombie apocalypse', which I shrugged off, much to his disgust. Reluctantly I conceeded, and then rolled a six. So I created Laura, bringing in the shopping from the landie and slamming the door shut behind her; havi...

My friend Steve, who blogs over at Shores of Night  has issued a challenge: "List 10 books that have stayed with you in some way. Don't take more than a few minutes and do not think too hard. They do not have to be the "right" books or great works of literature, just ones that have affected you in some way." I know he said not to over think it, but this has been rattling around my head all day.  I've been adding books to an Evernote as I deem them fit for the list, but I've now come to the point where I'm just going to finish it. What books stay with you? Here's my ten. Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite - Ms Brite's publishers decided they didn't want to publish this book.  She was a good seller, but this was just a little too horrible.  Publishers were leery of portraying real serial killers like vampires.  It was a little too glamorous.  She found publishers though, and it came out.  I read it.  There's a scene in it so di...

In these days of social media, we're sending less letters to each other.  But not to worry.  We're keeping the Royal Mail alive delivering our online shopping. Thanks to Dave and Neil for this pic of teenage me Teenage me wrote a lot of letters.  I wrote poetry too.  It was all rather heartfelt I'm afraid. Desperately worried about talking to actual human beings, and hiding all my fear in a shroud of Goth, I put an advert in Raw magazine for penpals. I suspect some of the people who responded weren't looking for penpals. Anyhow, I ended up writing to lots of young men, most of whom were not in prison.  It was brilliant.   Most of them sent me compilation tapes (not that that ages me at all), and pictures of themselves.  There was one who sent a picture of himself in a tent, wearing a sleeping bag.  All long hair and cheeky monkey.  There was one who said he'd pop round when he got out of prison - my Mum wasn't keen.  The...

I've been having a clear out, getting rid of stuff we no longer need now the little girl is nearly four. One of the things that has gone is lots of board books.  You know, all the 'That's not my...' books, the cute animal books with fluffy bits and so on.  We're left with only five, and they've survived the cull because they're pure dead brilliant. I thought I'd tell you about them in case you were looking for a present for a baby or toddler that will be appreciated by the whole family. The books are in no particular order, and most of them can be bought in several formats.  You may well have come across them already, but if not do check them out. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle A fantastically simple and colourful book which is so old that I remember it from my own childhood.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar has different sizes of pages, which help children to understand about numbers, and it also teaches days of the week and healthy ...

I went on a writing day today.  It's nice to be able to devote the whole day to it, although I wish more writing had been involved, and less talking. My small notebook.  And some wine, because it's Friday. The woman leading it said that writing a letter is an act of creation (which I've heard in a few places recently), and that if we want to write other stuff, then we should buy some nice stationery and have a small notebook to carry around at all times and a big notebook for when we really want to concentrate on writing. Meh. I do have a small notebook.  I use it when I haven't got wifi, or when I'm with people who might think it's rude of me to start doing stuff on my 'phone in front of them.  Stuff that gets written in the notebook sometimes makes it out into other formats. Sometimes it doesn't. I don't have a big notebook.  I have a folder, with lots of random bits of paper shoved in it. If I'm doing proper writing (check me ...

I love me a book with a map at the front.   I love reading, and I especially love fantasy stories because you can get really into the telling of tales, without all the faffing around with fact-checking.  I read plenty of stories that are in the real world too (I'm reading the incredibly good story 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' by Kate Atkinson at the moment, and would highly recommend it), but it really annoys me when you get too much focus on where something is happening, and of course, all places have a lot of baggage both in the writer's, and our own imaginations.  I find Ian Rankin particularly maddening on this front.  Edinburgh is a bigger character in his books than is Rebus. Creating a made-up place enables the writer to create their own place-baggage, and also to create religion, social mores, societal structures and so on and so on and so on. All books need research, but the nature of fantasy books is different - the writer creates a world, and...

I've come across a few other blogs recently which have audio for the poems they share, which I absolutely love, because to me it gives a much better idea of the feel of the poem, so I thought I'd give it a go myself. I'm trying to do more spoken word stuff, sharing my poetry with an audience, which is daunting, but all good I'm hoping. I thought I'd start with this one, a previous version of which got me second place in a local poetry competition (I'm still hoping to get the trophy one day).  This did actually happen to me, although some names have been changed to protect the 'innocent', or possibly just to rhyme. This is very much BETA, so do let me know if it doesn't work! If it does work, and you fancy a go, this is from Vocaroo . If it doesn't work, you should get it here . Circles - A Poem about Google+                                   I've been Google+ing a while now, ...