Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Calvanism, and Talking Heads
On a daily basis I normally write my Blog in an MS Word document before transferring it to Blogspot the following morning, but for some reason the only document on the floppy that would not copy or open was my Blog. Corrupted, and with no means of retrieving it, I had to delete it - which it did no problem – and so I write my entry for this date off the cuff and trying to remember the crux of what I had written. And that’s where it is annoying – it was good, and now I can’t remember.
Oh yes – I remember now. I was writing to try and help myself decide whether or not I should go to the coffee morning with the IS Director in the big building up the road. I gave loads of reasons not to, and I really can’t be arsed typing them all again. Suffice to say, I didn’t think I should go given the hypocrisy of it all and the fact that I don’t see why I should push my tie up to the neck when I don’t do on any normal working day in the office.
That was yesterday’s thought, but now as I write this (Wed 6th), I have formed an opinion overnight that maybe it would be a good source of material, that it could be used somewhere in some story in the future. And so if I can brave the stressful questions and non-genuine greetings I may just be onto a gem as far as writing goes. And that is more important to me. Plus I could go for lunch with my friend Lynda who works in the same building afterwards so we'll see.
I walked home from work again. I am finding it quite therapeutic and it gives me time to think at length. It takes about an hour and sometimes I stop and take notes when little diamonds pop into my head. I spoke with Jack, his voice now determined in my head. He wants to be more grown up, but is still pulled by his teenage years and deep down he thinks the experience of running away will do him good in the long run. I hope he’s right, because he doesn’t know what I have planned in the next few days.
When I got in, HJ flowed. It was almost as if I'd had a “clear the air” session with him and I found that getting to the next phase came much easier. I don’t know, some days it is so much easier to see the words than others. I tidied up Issue 15 and it’s almost ready for sending in, and Issues 16 and 17 wrote themselves. The story really has gone off on its own to places I had not planned, and so each time I sit down to write HJ, I get a real sense of excitement, because I myself am just dying to know what happens! Weird – but totally satisfying.
KIC are planning a new printed magazine that will be coming into the market early next year, and after receiving a mail from the editor I responded with some ideas. Hopefully it will be a quarterly magazine and as well as the possibility of short story publication, I have put my name forward for a regular column which I would just love to write.
I watched Writing Scotland in the evening after having missed it last week. It was really interesting and I could relate to a lot of it. They spoke about how darkness is inherent in all Scottish literature, simply because of our pessimistic mentality, and I find that a lot of poems and stories I write are dark. Just take HJ for example, it's dark but has veins of romance and humanity and humour. The programme then moved through Calvinism and John Knox, while wanting people to read the scriptures, saw the free, imaginative writers’ minds as a bad thing. I think I may have to get a book on the history on Scottish literature next time I’m at Borders because this series of documentaries has opened my eyes to a lot I never knew about. I’m off to google Calvanism...
