What Three Words...

Are you lost? A response to an article by Arnaly Arriaga Blanco

A piece of green near my home; just a token pic to ease you inn. It’s under threat by the way - the UK government have decided their own policies re green belt and contiguous housing/building are ignored to meet targets that aren’t even real. It’s a land grab pushed by developers backhanders. Long story, but it makes it hard to think even mindedly what our ‘leaders’ do across the planet. On with business:

There’s a link to Arnaly’s piece at the end. I found it interesting and my life compared similaarly in someways, having worked so hard at music for most of it. Then suddenly a door blew open to a happier new world I’d been to before but not understood. Writing. Anyway, notwithstanding my penchant for dense rambling… on with the questionairre:

Why do you love writing?

Possibly because it is so easy I can express myself - and there seems to be a never ending need within somewhere that is seldom quiet. But moreso because of the joy I get from it, in having expressed something or some other detail - or because it gets applause when I read, and compliments on social media.

It’s been with me more or less all my life. Cruelly I was put off poetry in my early teens and only visited it sporadically throughout most of my life so far. That said, I threw out most of my early garbage anyway.

What’s on my desk?

An iMac, iPhone, printer, long dormant cassette player, various leads for Ipod and recording devices to be plugged into the Mac. Biros, softer pencils (and often my fountain pen and whichever note book/s are relevant to an ongoing piece. A Writer’s Yearbook (2022), often a pile of books pertinent to several projects/trains of thought. AA soldering iron, recording mixer, Marshall practise amp, various effects pedals for electric or acoustic guitars. A stack of old phones. Old paper for notes, piles of notes that I’ve often forgotten their relevance to. A huge ringfolder with my family tree, ditto smaller folderHeadphones (+bag), a Seagate bac-up, copy of Women Of Troy,

/Hecuba/Helen by Euripedes. Lots of dust and some nuisance value coasters made of Welsh slate.

When do you write?

There are no fixed times. I keep a notebook and or pen/notebook by my bed; there’s my fountain pen and notebook on the coffee/tea/tv guide/current magazines table. I get too embarrassed talking into my phone even when I’m alone so try to type on it and end up swearing a lot. If I feel too tired in the night I can’t always commit to memory - so I use the phone notes.

Which is your favourite season for writing?

There are more than four in South Yorkshire and they all bring it on. I suppose - favourite - has to be spring, but late spring cos early is still too cold. But I’m not seasonally driven - I hate that when you go on-line and everybody’s wittering on, blaming Keats or someone for their fucking bahlamb nestlings or the robin trying to warm against the snow and they drone on and on…

What essentials do I like to have when writing?

Being awake with pen/paper or the PC/phone to hand. I don’t go in for ritual or lucky or protools or any other eejit distraction. Just get on with it, it’s too precious to faff.

What helps you get into the writing zone?

I’m not sure; having read something I love or a style that I admire can set me off. It oftenn happens mid someone else’s work. I have to bookmark it annd and rattle away - thankfully I have a rapid typing speed - too fast for this keyboard, i must get another as it adds/subtracts letters randomly.

The usual pattern will be notes occurring to me in the night; I turn them from phone notes into fountain pen notebook (I use unlined to be free, with a quality of surface aimed specifically at fountain pen. Fountain because biro smells cheap and school and pencil is for re-writes and test phrases - though I started with pencil due to stockpiles from a stalled I can draw moment…

Anyway, said notes as they are written down suggest other lines and words, so I add them, and a story emerges. A theme develops itself and before I know my average 3 - 7 stanzas are done. From there editing can be slight or brutal - I work to suit the poem not my fancy. Other times a word or line will sit there for months, years - others once consolidated are attacked by the eternal editor, who never even sleeps.

What themes keep coming back in your writing?

A slightly darker side - which I heretofore regarded as brutally, honestly descriptive. Outdoor if not nature scenes I suppose, with shades of the preternatural - which like folklore and folk medicine - always has some hidden truth about it. Fantasies, with no known time frame or period. Anything anyone says you can’t/mustn’t - I will with relish.

Of all the books written by others, which one do you wish you had written?

It’s not something I ever considered (mind you, none of these questions are - why would anyone? Other than to interview another writer?). Maybe Robinson Crusoe. It’s taking too long to think further about this. Next…

What is your writing mantra?

Here we go again. I borrowed one from Aristotle and I reckon its good not just because I try to write that way (I’m known for rambling) but also as a famous local poet quotes it: “not a word wasted”.

What is the most unusual place you’ve taken your notebook to write?

I can’t answer this straight, as I never go anywhere to write. It’d probably be a waste of effort as writing comes when it likes, not on demand. Except that recently I did try a prompt driven competition - and got shortlisted on a throw-away piece. Yer caan’t mek it up, eh? I do go many places though (or have done). Maybe flying over the Namib desert, which inspires me. Or walking round a sleeping Rhino in Nepal, clapping and singing just to prove he’s truly zonked.

Which single object best represents where you are in your writing life right now?

I don’t really associate in this way. A few days ago the mask of tragedy was about right. Right now maybe the whiter side of Jakin and Boaz.

Tell us something not many people know about you that relates to your writing.

This questionairre is getting taxing. Surprisingly for a young male, I used to write really explicit porn thinly desguised as verse. A single piece survives, in the hands of a friend’s wife. I’ve no idea how that happened and it’d be embarrassing if it weren’t so funny.

Where do you get support for your writing?

I don’t. I’m self-supporting. I have reached out online hoping for greater and more in depth response when I first got back into it, about 2017ish. I had no idea then how many people actually wrote - or should that be how few didn’t. I’ve taken guidance where I found it, as I already have an MA in Literary Editing (and other media) I felt that some freebie Open University courses on creative/poetry writing would help. I copied the glossary to try to help me understand the complexities of language, literature and grammar - which I nibble at when things I don’t get pop up. I tried sharing again with a writing group and got heart-warming responses - but other work seems to get overlooked so I don’t bother. I look at orgs but mostly they want your money for publishing/courses that teach what I know (largely, see lit note above). I suppose Aristotle, Longinus, Horace and Plato - though The Dalia Lama provides rich pickings to organise and quiet the mind.

What is your dream for your writing life?

Too late for that question really. Knowing how rubbish I was while young it didn’t stop me approaching publishers. Nowt, but local rags printed my stuff and the local city library pinned it to their notice board as poem of the week, whatever. Nowadays, to be able to carry on, to come up with material on a parr with what impresses me, gratifies me would be comfortable.

I began just before a heart attack, carried on through cancer and Im STILL HERE, STILL WRITING - that’s my golden award, my red carpet, my beaded bubbles winking at my great fortune.

Which three words sum up the kind of writer you want to be known as?

Park Bench Drunk. Or is that just a location for emergency services? The Sublime Poet, that’ll do.

Arnaly’s link:

(https://open.substack.com/pub/arnaly/p/writing-myself-into-existence?r=344n6j&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web)