Sunday, December 24, 2006

The best xmas EVER

hi everyone, let me introduce you to hte best xmas EVER.

Right, 1st of all ... I never write about this 'cos not only does it destroy my "image" and my "style" but I've had real issues with my mum and dad.

I'm not going to go inot details but needless to say, i havent spoekn to them in a long while...

mum and dad turned up on my doorstep yesterday and y'now what, i dont care if it ruins my salebility I WAS SOOOO GLAD TO SEE THEM!!!

my mum has been following this blog (she say some of the comments are weird - i blame the alex's and some are so supportive - she mentioned you lucy!!!) and my writing career and (deep breth) I think hse might be PROUD!!!

none of you know what this meens to me!!!

its like being a kiddy again and really feeling that you've done soemthing right and (i hate to say it) being pro authority and eastablishment really floats my boat!!!

and after they left me ang and i cracked open a bottle of wine, forerro roche, and i had a bit of a cry.

AND ANG WAS SO PROUD!!! which means so much more!!!

And, mum, if your reading thins leave comments,k I value them so much! I'll see dad on the 29th and Ang, Lulu and i are making plans to see you in the new year (begin crying now! its not going to be fun for you!!! We'll eat all your nie food and then bugger off to Camden and get really drunk!)

Thursday, December 21, 2006

GRANTS FOR THE ARTS!!!!

WROTE TO ME YESTERDAY! I AM NOW FUNDED BY THE ARTS COUNCIL AND A "REAL" WRITER!

I cant believe it! seriously! it's the best news i've had all YEAR!

seriously, you dont know how much this means to me, it's made the difference for me so much. I was very much so at a "sink or swim" stage for a while, its now gonna let me at least poke my head above water!

I suppose as a "networking" i should treat you all to a pint!

And I really want to say a huge THANK YOU to Damien! All the hard work and everything! keep your eyes peeled - a bottle is winging its way to you tomorrow!

I'm not sure what to do with the logo that I'm allowed to use (brand it on my bottom?) or what to start doing first, but I'm still in shock mode!

IF I SEE jAECK lACOWSKI i'M GONNA RUN UP AND KISS HIS LITTLE HEAD!

Damn! I should really start writing that fucking novel!

HYPER!

STOP. HAMMER TIME!

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Beauty

is a word that I really can't spell at the best of times, but its a theme that is connected wth feminist writing and feminism, so I suppose it could really apply to my stuff and my attitudes towards it could have some type of impact (?)

Actaully it really all stemmed from a friend of mine having a dream about my attitudes towards beauty. somehting to do with me looking like lyndsy lohan and then going mad and getting a tramp to remove my eyes ...

So, I remember when i was at uni and I read an essay on make up and beauty, it hinted that vanity was poisonous and that make up was poison that slowly killed hte wearer of the make up (mental)

and how does beauty really apply into my writing situation? Well my characters are weird when it comes to beauty.they dress oddly, bury their clothes and go to fancy dress parties.

they dress for times past way before their real time, are models and burlesque strippers.

what does it all mean???

Monday, December 18, 2006

Popular Culture


Very strange, when I was doing the tour of blogs I noticed that Charisse put a comment on Lucy's saying that its the prettiest blog ever, Morph and Alex's blogs are just weird and mine seems to be really overpopulated with popular culture, esp with the pictures.

It's far too colourful and dark at the same time. I'm getting worried about my contrasting tastes and style... Makes me look odd and bizzare, like I'm wishy washy and flakey. :(

and I do like Lilly Allen. Want to do Lilly Allen Karioke...

with gin.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Am I right?

I submitted stories to quatrecento magazine and monday night lit mag and i have that awful sinking feeling that perhaps I'm not the type of writer they like to promote...

It's all the "reserch your market" business that I never really do very well perfering just trial and error, It was when I was scrolling through pictures of all the past writers that they had published that I felt a bit "hmmm"

And It was simply by looking at them... the pictures I mean, all of the submitees were over fifty, all were white, all the guys had lost their hair...

So that leads me to really think who would like to publish my stuff? I really am not too sure if there are any young "funky" (hate that word) mags out there tha would like hte ramblings of meeeee, hmmm.

If anybody knows of anywhere suitable then please do tell me...!!!

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Back on the shelf







Well, now I am well and truly back on the shelf I thought I would compile togehter pics of all the guys (famous) I have fancied and see if there are any strinking similaraties!
Hmm Apart from them looking a bit like they are on drugs, not really...

Well, In reality the guys i have liked have seemed like the nicest, wittiest, best looking etc at the time and then I relsie that they are more assholes! So how does this influence my writing? Firstly perhaps I should concentrate on chick lit(!!!) although I really hate the whole Bridget Jones thing, more subversive chick lit (which seems to ge me nowhere - but I do enjoy writing it)
and the general thing I do where I dont really get depressed, i get Angry... well that influences my writign somewhat, and I get cynical, really cynical and it comes out in hte writing tenfold.

and then the characters. my male characters are always weird looking. I tend to describe male characters as being kinda minging but with a lot of charisma (the type I tend to go for in real life!) that is the male protagonists and love intrests. I recon I might write about annother type of bloke, but I am limited to experince... like I wouldnt feel comfy writign about churchgoing elderly guy when I've never met any.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Bad Influence


I'm a great one for believeing that stuff influences what I create and so I'm gonna make a list of what has had a genrally large impact in my life and how it manifests itself in my writing:
Music
  • Britpop - I was a great fan of Britpop back in the day and The Colour of Magic possibly shows this more than other stories. Ironically enough I'll only listen to Blur and Oasis now and never bothered much then, I was more into Suede and Pulp and more of the flamboyant - male Britpop rather than the female pop-punk britpop like Elastica and Kenickie... Dunno. I think Britpop comes out in my writing in 2 ways. Overtly: Like the charcter of Doogie and the arguments in The Colour of Magic and more sutubly in style like the nihilistic / darker / navel gazing themes of Toyland and Daddy was like the Autumn.
  • Industrial - i got into industrial a bit later, and its more in the themes (although I'm sue that the boys-with-mohekians thing thats present in Summer 2000 is from this) rather then direct influences. its the pholosophy of human / machine / nihalistic style that tends to come out in work. esp. Daddy was like the Autumn.
  • Pop-punk - comes out in my wappy comedic-type plots that are moslty not so wappy and not so comedic. I like the silliness of it but i'm not very funny. I'm hoping to bestow this in my new play (working title Danvers)
  • Grrrl Rock - manifests itself in hte attitude of some female characters. Drawing heavily from figures from this movement its more present in hte drama like Sing,sing Death House and short stories like Medea.

Film

  • Fight Club - I love the style and structure. I embody this is Medea quite a bit, like the sentiment too ("you are not a beautiful unique snowflake, god didnt want you...")
  • Early John hughes - now who wouldnt like to write dialouge like in The Breakfast Club???
  • Withnail and I - characters, pure characters. Arthur from Daddy was like the Autumn is very much Withnail based. I even wote a short story about the theatre that was very Withnail and I but in London rather than Penrith. (Black Books - alltho not technically a film also has a similar infuence)
  • Tim Burton Movies - its pure style! I like creating worlds! see Toyland.

I shant go into books 'cos every book tends to inspire me!

I'm back Baby (kinda)

I have decide to reward myslef with a holiday from writing from now until 22nd Dec when my work stops and I can really devote time.

The only thing i will be doing (appart from Gods tonight) is meeting with Ladyfesters on Fri to get the applications and funding finalised. Beyond that I'm not going to do anything to any prose or drama. I need to sort head out before I write.

But I do feel a hell of a lot better, just bogged down with the money work and general ex issues... I feel metally better and physically better (been ill)

Sunday, December 10, 2006

I'm going emo

The past 24 hours have been crazy. Absolutly crazy.

About midday yestaerday I left my house to meet with my friend Corinne and we were going to go to Nandos and get lunch. Corinne wanted to chat to me about the whole "Hans" situation (and for those opf you who don't know - yes, its deffo over. and No, I never want to have annother boyfriend ever again, too much emotional wreckage!) As I was waiting for Corinne at town hall square there were female moris dancers from Loughborough doing the Morris...
Anyway, We decided to go for a wwhite russian before nandos (bad, bad move) and went to firefly (i refuse "bug") wherepon Marv's sister (Marv being a slightly retarded old school mate of mine and Corinne's boyfriend) came over really pissed. she had finished wwork at 5am and hadnt slept and had 3 hours before going to wwork. she was crying over her father and totally hysterical and mental. Its really bad when you cant get served in the pub you work in...
Anyway, we talked Marv's sister into going home and getting some rest before her shift started and Corinne and I sat don to a nice bottle of wine... Then my phone rang and it was my best mate Angie who has also split up with her cunty boyfriend Mark a few days before "Hans" and I finished. She wwas bawling, really bad. Thought she was going to kill herself.
So corinne and I got hte fly staff to put hte bottle behind the bar for us and were going to get it back later. we ran back to the narb and angie wwas in and her cunty ex was about making dinner. she didnt know he was coming bak, i had phoned Lucy H on the way and she turned up at Angies. We really are good mates, we rally round!

Mark refused to leave. he can be a bigger cunt than i can even make up. we were going to levae and go back to mine and Lucy H's but Ang's keys had mysteriously vanished.. I Called my mate little Alex to ome over and paify mark. I was going to stay the night at angies, we'd share her bed, but you have to remember ang hadnt slept for more than about 5 hours over the past 4 days. she was in shock and fragile.

Didnt help that mark was discussing the girl he had slept with the night before when Little Alex and JW Bennett turned up. they all sat aboput until 7ish in the morning "contemplationg the universe" they didnt like it when i pointed out that the entire conversation was bollocks and plato 101 from a level philosophy, they liked it even less when i said that i had previously studied their religion argument at gcse sociology - boys, itscalled secularisation... look it up on wikipedia...

Angie was mental, crying and falling aout and not coping. i made her get about an hours sleep and she fell asleep on the bathroom floor. at 7ish mark suddenly turned and kicked her out of the flat, i went with ehr and she called her stepdad billy sparkles.

Good ole Billy Sparkles, he picked us up outside the spar and we went to angies mums house. angie had a bath and got some sleep. i watched hollyoaks and grabed a shower. angies mum made sunday roast (melon followed by prok chops and stuffing with home made rice pudding - yum!) and i relised that the last time i had eaten was friday some time, it was now sunday, granted angie wwas worse than me, but i eat all the time. havent been like this for a long time.

and then mark called ang and said she had to go home and make dinner for him. WHAT!!!

and os she said no he told her to come and get her stuff from the flat before he trashed the whole lot.

so she called his parents hoping they would talk sence into him.

Marks mum called back saying no. the flat is now marks and angie had to get her things out tonight. mark and his dad were going to hte pub.

bearing in mind this flat is 100%, rent bills, tenancy agreement all in the name angela wesley. NOT Mark Wilkins.

and then there was the cat to consider.

Milly is the fattest, most spoilt (and now traumatised) creature belonging to the cat family there is. she now lives on my stairs.

Billy sparkles, angies mum, me, hysterical angie and (somehow) Josh went over to the flat to get the cat, get most of angies stuff and scarper to angies mums. when we arrived it was a tip, marks p[arents were sat at his feet indulging the veruca salt wannabe and JW Bennett was asleep in Angies bed. the cat was under it and refusing to move.

Josh tipped up the bed (JW Bennett did not stir from his slumber) and i went uder it to get the cat. no sucess.

JW Bennett woke up and said "I feel like I'm being evicted! Where's Alex?" to Angies mum.

we got the cat. JW said he would try and calm mark down who was fing and blinding at angela. his mum and dad did nothing.

and tehn we got back to mine all had a cup of tea and i promptly burst into tears about Lee.

there is a story in this somehwhere.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

we're not worthy!


well its that itme again where I think I may as well do teh rounds and try and find places that will take my work, seriously, I really dont do this often enough (only having sent out sumbissions en mass once or twice and got little response) so here are a few on my hit list

http://www.mondaynightlit.com/submit.html

http://www.chapman-pub.co.uk/contributions.php

http://www.quattrocento.co.uk/contribute.htm

ok, now i feel foolish. after taking a huge list out of Myslexia and thinking my stuff will be good for all of these, I find I am actually only suitable for 3.

Stories considered for publication in these (considered by me - not by them, they will probally tell me to F off) are "The Colour of Magic" and "Medea."

Thank You (no, not a dodgy Alanis Morisette - who we all know is actually God - Song)


I know I said I wouldn't post for a while but I really need to say a big THANK YOU to everyone, Lucy W for being understanding and caring and a wonderful person, Morph for philosophising about my life (so I don't have to!), Poopy Charisse for taking me out for indian goodness and letting me whinge and rampage, Angela for being the person who can see straight through me months and months and months ago, Lucy H for always being there, fish for making me laugh, always with his randomisms, JW Bennett (famous author) for being the voice of reason in a messed up world and esp to Alex for making silly ecards that make me howl with laughter until people want to tie me up and take me away!

Snakebite and Black!

Monday, December 04, 2006

hiatus

Apologies.

Got far too much going on with home life at the moment.
Going on Hiatus for a bit (ie: before nervous breakdown) so no updates for a bit.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Sitcoms


After a discussion I had last night about comercial writing and cult writing and making money I thought I should really think about a field that I could feasablly do that is commercial. Now you see the problem with me is not that I'm utterly snobby about writing commercial fiction, it's just that I CAN'T DO IT!!!

Really, I can't. It pains me to admit but I just dont really understnad what commercial fiction is and don't tend to read it. I seem to be in my own little bubble. If I did write it I'd possibly hate what I was writing and it would show that I thought it was a pile of rubbish. I can't write genre fiction for the same reason.

So what do I enjoy watching / reading that many others do too? Well, the answer is sitcoms.

Really - I'm not taking the piss, I could watch some of the great oldies, Reginald Perrin, It ain't half hot mum, Hi-di-Hi, You Rang M'Lord, Citizen Smith, Allo Allo, Are you being served?, Dads army, Open all hours, Poridge, Rising Damp, ever decresing circles, Terry and June, Steptoe and Son, Some Mothers do Ave Em, Fawlty Towers... the list goes on (only ones Am not too keen on are the Alf Garnet, the Likely Lads, The Liver Birds - and thats 'cos I think they are terrible) all bloody day!

And most of them from the eighties to today aer even better: Blackadder, Red Dwarf, The Young Ones (apart from when Alexi SAle comes onto the screen) Bottom, Spaced, Brittas Empire, Drop hte dead donkey, AbFab, Father Ted (in my mind the BEST EVER sitcom), Only fools and Horses, Black Books, Nathan Barely, Two Pints of Larger, Two Point Four Children... annother endless list....

So seeing as I love sitcoms so much why dont I try and write one? I tried once before (working title of "Shitcom" 'cos I thought it was) about some people that worked in a jobcentre, but the problem I found then is that I'm not very funny, I dont have a super transferable sence of humour, so I tried to write it with fishboy but that didnt really work out...

So to create a sucessful sitcom i suppose it has to be character based. Steptoe and Son wouldnt have been half as popular if old man steptoe wasnt such a "dirty old Man" neither would father Ted have been as good if Dougal was cleaver, or ted told the truth.

and then it needs to be ballenced with a farce-styple plot, now, I'm a bit crap with plots and recon that a farce might just be beyond me. Its gotta be the most difficult of plots to create. So writing for a sitcom is possibly one of the most difficult types of writing that their is!

The Subtext of Subutext

Just an idea for annother drug story. I'm gonna be the female Irvine Welsh!

I have always wanted to put Irish Steve into a story as a character. I think it just works, so in a Tyus from Spaced way he will give my narrator (same old) a pill and it will be subutext rather than E . She and her fella neck them and its descriptive rather than mush more and highlights problems in their realtionship.

Actually this might work as a scene in my novel.

Innitially it was just intended to be a story to set my brain working again.

Friday, December 01, 2006

I'm a Fucking Stupid Wanker


I really am and I'm the first person to admit it. Talk about fucking stupid, I have managed to fuck up my Tripod... Really, I've screwed myself by imagining a 5 next to a 1 and creating 15th december submission deadline date... how dumb am I?

Anyway its the first today and im rushing and printing and trying to get it in and wondering if i should email them or what? I'm gonna just send it and hope they still consider me... I mean it's £200 if they do like it and I'm begining to starve, it's not fucking funny, I'm really becoming the poor starving writer, perhaps I'll die in the snow selling fucking matches.

Well it's printed now in the extortinate internet cafe, because my printer and my computer are "having a moment" and that leaves me feeling very unimpressed... I'm really not doing too well in keeping myself grounded and sorted and not running away with the faires.

Oh yeah, just while I remember, a big up to Morph for getting his play "God's" put on by LUT (non bitter) :)

And tonight smokescreen are playing the music cafe and I'm supposed to be going out to the fanclub and all I want to do is hang out with Angie 'cos I never get to see her anymore and I really feel that I need to spend some time with her. Dear Reader (oo err! gone a bit Jane Eyre there!), You must appreciate that Angie and I have rarely spent much time appart since we were 11, and we met when we were 7 so it's a weird close-ness thing. She 100% does my head in but she and Lucy H (similar situation) are the closest thing I have to family....

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Gwen Stafanni Got it Wrong


Well as I said in the before post about not doing random side projects... I lied. Have just had an idea for a random non writing related side project...

Trinny and Suzannah style Zine that details all the different types and fashions that you get to see around the midlands. Photos and then details of where the bits and peices came from / how much they cost.

Someone I used to know (before they were elliminated by me) Had a book on Harajuku Fashion taken on the streets of Japan. He said it was his porn, (but then again he was a bit special needs) but I suppose erase the weirdo and the actual book itself was a fantastic idea to highlight the creativity and diversity of a population through what they wore! Really, the only difference was Japan being used! Using Leicester and Nottingham and Birmingham totally removes the exotic and impossible feeling of the book and replaces it with something DIY and utterly do-able.

All I need is Charisse and Lucy H to get this underway. Arts council funding for the actual production costs. make it buyable on the net and perhaps even free to get the colourful if somewhat weird fashion out there. Perhaps local adverts too and make it a free zine.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

pains in the ass!

I've not been writing yesterday and the simple reason is i feel like i have been punched in the face (allthough i know i havent) It really hurts and I have a sneaking suspicion that its annother bloody STY forming from my stressed out, super unhelthy lifestyle.

NB:
Must stop skipping dinner and saying "wine is a food"
Must stop skipping breakfast only to sucumb to McDonnalds bagels before 10am
Must stop chain smoking cigerettes until throat bleeds
Must stop having cravings for cider, not scrumpy but proper ace white cider and wanting a dog on tatty peice of string.
Must begin writing and be dedicated to the current project that I am working on rather than 20 different scatty projects
Must stop spending all money in Primark, Dolly Mixture and Gald Rags and Charity Shops and getting depressed about not buying new dresses.
Must find new haircut. (<- Whaddya think? Recon It'll suit me?)

on other news I'm currently reading "Silent Bob Speaks" which has had no impact on writing or general wellbeing but Its really funny... anyone whos a fan of the Kevin Smith films will know what I'm on about



Shnoooogannnnnnssss!

Monday, November 27, 2006

Drinking games


Well - I had a very productive day yesterday writing my play and wrote an entire secene that is somewhat like a game (kudos to "Gods" here Morph), but more of a consumption game. Like a drinking game the rules are complex and the audience could be fooled into thinking it's simply made up as they go along - but structually it had opend some doors for me.

Now I've decided at the end of the play they could play the lambrini game and iv'e seen this game be turned onto its head and used as a wonderful tool for bullying and picking on hte weakest memeber of the group. I have a line that I'm trying to slip in "If you nominate me one more time I will throw this monitor at you" which is actually harder than it sounds...

Anyway - the idea is they are all playing a vallium consuming game and little bits of my chaacters personallities come out. Dan becomes incresingly hostile and greedy, Helen is scatty and forgetful, Keziah is niave.... you know hte type of thing... anyway they are playing it to waste time cos they've got no baccy, but Helens income support cheque is due in the bank at midnight...

Saturday, November 25, 2006

And I am still writing plays

allthough I still have a differing desire and animosity for theatre and its various inadiquacys. I began writing somehting yesterday and ploughed out a scene. Ive planned some more scenes in my head but as per fucking usual I am not really too sure what I'm trying to say and the structure is suffereing - but hey its a first draft - first drafts are supposed to be shit.

Its actually quite realistic to be 100% honest. I havent changed any names, I have only downgraded the ammount of people involved. Dan, Kez and Helen always said one of us should write a book about the times we spent together - I recona play would be more hard hitting.

anyway - the characters are kinda real, the setting is 1998 and its actually really hard to think about how we used to cope back then! If we got up to one tenth of the stuff we gor upto then we'd all have CRASBO's! and its just little things - mobile phones and internet and stuff... a lot of things were just done spontanious and on trust.

there are a few bits and bobs, a few scenes and stuff that are based on real shit that happened to us - its actually really fun to write! I stole the idea of creating a message on an answerphone and then erasing it from a play that someone was talikng about on Thursday and my opening scene is set in a phone box (no Bill and Ted) so its a bit odd. I keep jotting down if scenes are exterior or interior but i recon thats more for redrafting rather than being a screen writer.

my characters need more substance and stuff but i recon i might just write it and then see what happens. i have all today and tomorrow to devote to it if i dont sleep all day / eat all day/ sloth about all day!

Jack the Ripper


Last night i watched that dredful movie "from Hell" becasue I heard that Johnny Depp was in it being a laudinum consuming, absinthe drinking, opium smoking victorian. I was obviously disapointed on actually seeing the film, cos it was pretty awful (and kept turning into a bad version of a Nine Inch Nails video whenever he actually smoked any opium) and his accent was terrible - I mean even worse than Keanu Reeves in Dracula - and the plot holes really put me off the film as a whole.

Anyway - I'm no Barry Norman - It did however spark my intrest into looking into Jack the Ripper and various serial killer type things... very mid to late nineties i know - perhaps I should start writing "Natrual Born Killers 2: The revenge of Juilet Lewis's Mullett" but perhaps not.

the real thing about it was the dark side of a society that was supposedly so prim and proper having this dark seedy underside. I have no desire to write an gothinc or horror book or stories but these slightly scarier bits of the world where things like this can heppen seem to keep resurfacing and being present in my writing.

Why are pictures not loading up onto blogger?

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Ideas!


i got an idea this morning about my playwriting. Obviously, its going to have to wait until after Ladyfest 'cos this is a bit of a project and the experince I get with Ladyfest will help me. I was thinking of a three play weekend! Like hiring out the Y for 3 days over the weekend and putting on a showcase of 3 plays by 3 local writers. Marketing it as some kind of inclusive ticket and marketing it to the emos and ratkids that seem to populate the clock tower at the moment. the idea is to create theatre thats a bit like a quentin tarinteno film, y'know, Compelling and innovative while being action and pace driven. Showcasing it cheaply so people can go (like £6 a ticket) and putting theatre out there that rebells agains the grain of the "popular" (ie boring) stuff about girls going clubbing in Jamaca.

I'd like to open up theatre to new audinces. I think the kids that go to ret (ratkids) are a prime audince cos they are open to new alternative ideas, but also a challenging audience to pomote theatre to because their experince of theatre has been awaful "legs akimbo" style stuff and youth theatre that uses props such as cricket bats. its not getting them involved as an educational thing its more getting them involved as a "naughty" thing - slapping "18" stickers on the flyers - that type of thing!

and its a way for theatre that might not make the mainstream to have a voice! I've been told there is a buzz arround arts in the Midlands at the moment and I think its beause more and more people are getting up and doing stuff rahter than sitting back and hoping some publishers or theatre company will pluck them out of nothingness!

Monday, November 20, 2006

Septic Dive



Now, A Friend of mine thought I wouldn't care about a post he put on a forum that i Frequent. The post concerned itself with a Club that he used to go to in Birmingham when he was too small to be out drinking and that club burning down.
To be fair it did make me think, what if My special little club had disapeared overnight? I used ot go to a right minging dive called Sector 5 (or Septic Dive) and it did reopen a little while ago, only to close back down again in a "blink and you miss it" way. Y'see, it didn't have the custom, nobody who used to go would really bother going more than once for novelty factor (and I do fall into that category, I must admit) and the ratkids think its all passe (which I suppose it is). So it feels a bit like it's a feeling, it's a place and situation that was specifically unique to Leicester that has gone :(
so as a part of imortalising the past, cos thats kinda what writing does, I stareted a short story about secktor, about the people who used to go there, about the generics and politics and everyhting else that it was about cos for some people it is a bit of Leicester history, perhaps not that intense or anything, but it was a breading ground for artists and witers and cooks and dustbin men and civil servents and dole-ites and students and really it was one of the only places that held so much diverse potential!
I set the plot on the night that a pepper bomb was set off in the club and about the people who did it. Its got made up people in it, it's got real people in it. But I really can't say which are which!

I thought about putting it in for Tripod. I'm really enjoying creating this story! but am not too sure if its really relivant!

I keep trying to load pics onto my blog and htey just wont do at the moment! right am gonna see if i can load up anything! Now the horse pic is what happens if you google my name on images. I'm worried!

Saturday, November 18, 2006

I Missed a Day


I keep thinking its Friday 'cos yesterday I didn't wake up till 3 and went bed at 9 after getting a text from Andy and Spohie asking if I wanted to go out drinking again. But felt too poor and ill to even bother replying. I have to keep reminding myself its Saturday and Helena is floating around the Midlands Somewhere and I need to find her tonight. My shoes smell of edam and they are pretty new so I'm really suspicious and looking at Charisse and her cheese fetish. I really need cigerettes, but hey - whats new there?

Anyway - enough of the life crap. This isnt an emo / ratkid blog about how suicidal I can be. It's documenting stuff about my writing, what I'm working on, ideas, ways and meens to improve and make a living, How I feel about certain parts of being a young, starving (all food donations please!), struggling writer. And parts where I may feel exploited / violated as a warning to others!

I went to Momentum the other day and it was cancelled. Man! that really pissed me off 'cos they didnt even tell me, or any others. Shows what TWP think of their writers huh? They can't even be bothered to send an apology email. So it looks like TWP and Nottingham Playhouse and all that lot really don't value the young talent that is about in the midlands. Well, not enough to actually treat them like real people.

Man that sux. I mean really sux. It's like if your an "artist" you get treated well by some but then others come along and really put a dampner on the whole affair. Metaphorically piss all over the parade. It's not the first time stuff like this has happened.

Anyway- in other news, I think that "Tinfoil Stars" is coming on ok-ish for my Tripod submission.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Uphill Struggles


Right. Why is it never easy for those of us who were not born with parents who are exeptionally liberal and with fountains of cash falling out of every pocket and bag and tops of shoes and cuffs of jackets?
I was just looking at differnt types of funding, and from my own experince with funding applications, its never easy. Then I think of the people I know who can just go "Mum, Dad?" and get the money IT REALLY WINDS ME UP!!!
Its so offputting. Do they put these dredful things about how hard its gonna be about just to scare you and deter people from applying? I recon they must do.
Terrible .
So I'm basically screwed, screwed and crossing my fingers when people who are not even a zillinth as talented or comitted fancy being a "writer" for a bit and get a big fat cheque from mater and pater. MAKES ME ANGRY

The Middle Road

is where I seem to be treding with this play that I wrote 2 pages of last night when I was absolutly shattered and pissed off and worried and everything...
And its about two sisters that symbolise everything thats different between people, like real exaggerations of each other.
and it sounds pants, and not exactly my type of thing at all, but sometimes you need to take the middle road to please people.
there is nothing about newspapers that i want to put in it tho!!!
Its because i feel totally frustrated, in my "want to run before walk" mentality, i want to be able to write these good lays that I would actually like to see, but instead my talents seem to be so washed out and underdeveloped i have to take the "good / bad" approach that is so pants!

Monday, November 13, 2006

how bad is it to be inspired by Eastenders?


cos for Moo Mentum I have decided to abandon the 2 ideas I originally had and go for something more mid-road. The ideas i had before are ones that are too good for me to do justice to at thi moment and I'm still learning... I will go back to them whne I know more about theatre and more about my own limitations as a writer (and perhaps if i get more confidence too!)
the idea that seems more fitting for my talents today is inspired by Friday nights eastenders (bad), but the whole storyline about Stacey Slater and her bi-polar mum really struck a chord with me! combine that with Sheela Deleghne's Taste of Honey ans the last act of Top Girls and, of course, John Hughes's 16 candles and I think I knopw what I might be doing!

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Marriage


Well, seeing as "Mr significant" (he who pretentiously didn't want to be named online - as if! it's not like the law's after him or anything!) and I keep fighting and it looks like annother "Grr! Hate You" Moment in my Lovelife... and It might explain my explosive tears at work...

Anyway, it's making me think that whole thing about marriage again and how it's fucking stupid and at least if I'm NOT married I can run away!

And this is the article I wrote a while ago for a newspaper (and I use the term loosley). I'm just gonna post it here so when I feel like I have been "burnt on the stove of love" I can read it

Often, my female friends and I toast to becoming spinsters with cats. Unlike women in idealised American sitcoms and dramas, like Sex and the City and Friends (noticeably the Americanised love child from digestible novels like Fielding’s Bridget Jones’ Diary and Arabella Weir’s Does my Bum Look Big in This?) we have become resigned to not finding relationships and opting for singleton life.

Let’s start with these sitcoms themselves. You see, we are led to believe that if you are an immaculately made up, thin, naturally beautiful, goddess of Manhattan who spends all day buying clothes, sipping martinis and smiling sweetly at any man who wonders by, you still have no chance. What kind of message does this tell to us mere mortals? Those of us who reside in damp Britain with the ‘glamour’ of the British suburb, our ‘designer’ clothes from charity shops and pints down the local? It says we are less in the way of competing for male attention and happy ‘princess’ endings, than those air-brushed deities who just scrape into relationships by the end of the series. Well sod that! If we took a step back and actually looked at the guys we are bitchily competing against our fellow sisters for, the men that we pluck, tweeze and cripple ourselves for, they really aren’t worth it. As a song in a Fanta commercial, where a young bride is jilted at the altar, states “they all turn out like their dads”. Think about it, how many guys have you gone out with that you prayed wouldn’t end up looking like their fathers, with a greying mullet, beer bellies, hairy back and dubious opinions.

So spinsters with cats is the other option? I can hear lots of general groans and melancholia. But marriage really can’t be all that its cracked up to be, seeing as one in three ends in divorce (and arguably, many of the rest end in alienated people just co existing rather than sharing the unbridled romance of a mills and Boon novel. It would explain why these fantasy pamphlets sell by the thousand to disillusioned housewives!). Why do women feel the urge to become married? Well that’s easy, go to any toy shop and take a peek down the doll isle; (you know the pink one that every little girl in a five mile radius is tactfully persuading their parents to let them go nuts down.) and the amount of dolls in little white dresses is obscene. If you think about it the whole Western idea of a white wedding, the dress, the flowers, the bridesmaids, even the cake with another doll in a little white dress on the top. It’s all geared towards the female species (or at least the environmental construct of feminity). All men get is a night out getting drunk with an old stripper in a working men’s club. No wonder marriage is not high on their agenda!

Society sets up marriage as one of woman’s ultimate goals. We are led to believe that this is what all the previous dress rehearsals are for, the prettiness, the dieting, and the silicone. It was all about looking and, ultimately, becoming marriage material. So what is marriage material? From just glancing at what the media tells us it’s thin, hairless, innocent and childlike. Its never the vamp in dramas, the dark, seductive woman who is destined to be mistress and ultimately come to a sticky end. Even Shakespeare held this view as he wrote his satirical love sonnets to the prostitute called ‘the dark lady’. But either way, the good Sandra Dee style girl or the dark seductress, they both, deep down would love a white wedding with a meringue dress.

I’m going to be radical and admit that I don’t want that. It’s as controversial as saying that I wouldn’t want to be a millionaire (I would just spend all the money on daft things then be miserable). I don’t want a wedding, or a marriage. I don’t even want a ‘life partner’ or ‘soul mate’. Relationships are always destructive things, even the media acknowledges that. When was the last time you watched a soap that had a happy, long lasting couple who love each other no matter what? Talk shows never feature couples that get on well, and the tabloids are always full of celebrity infidelity. But we must always ask why do relationships end in disaster? Why do we (male and female alike) tend to get with someone who chews you up and spits you out? Well maybe we can get some clues by looking at the mechanics of relationships.

Freud’s oedipal complex (and I don’t care what anyone says, modern psychology comes from Freud and Jung. The ideas may be a bit wacky, but they are still taught in academic circles, and built upon) is mostly centred around the male and his development into heterosexuality, but its views on female heterosexuality are…interesting (ok, ok, their downright hilarious). Instead of the male wanting to replace his father, marry his mother, yada, yada, yada…it deals with, what Freud called, penis envy. Women want to ‘love’ the mother so they get envious of the penis. Eventually, they realize female ‘love’ is impossible and settle for a love of their father instead. There are soooo many things wrong with this argument I could write a whole article on the Misogyny of Freud and psychology. But, arguably, his overall premise, the fact that women tend to go for fellas like their fathers and men go for women like their mothers is kinda sound. It’s just the way he came to the conclusion that’s a little nuts.

The way we learn about relationships is constructed within the family. We look and observe as kids as to how our parents, or parent figures, behave and interact between each other, i.e. if your mum and dad argued a lot, chances are you’ll get in an equally argumentative relationship. History repeats itself. Plath acknowledges this fact in her poem Daddy where she portrays the father as a sinister Nazi figure and the speaker as a persecuted Jew. She details her seven year marriage as another encounter with a Nazi type father figure: ‘a man in black with a Meinkampf look’ and takes uneasy credit for the destruction of both men in her life.

Plath’s attitude to relationships, buried her, literally. After Ted Hughes left her for the umpteenth time she stuck her head in an oven and killed herself. A tragic extreme as to what could come from relationships that hurt more than love, but it’s a lesson to us all. If we deeply consider this fact the story of Sylvia and Ted has happened again and again within the modern media. If Kurt had respected Courtney enough would he have been an addict for so long? If Lennon had really appreciated Yoko would he have embarked on his lost weekend? Would Alanis Morisette have written You Orta Know if some one had not broken her heart? Dammit, if Alfie Moon truly loved Kat Slater wouldn’t he have understood the sacrifice she made for him? No. because parts of the reasons women are hurt by thoughtless, insensitive men is down to the women themselves. The problem doesn’t lie in finding the perfect man it lies in keeping him that way. Again the predicament of being a domestic goddess in the kitchen and a sex kitten in the bedroom (or is it the other way round?) rears its ugly head. Society lays blame on the woman for the reasons why relationships break down. In the old American sitcom Bewitched most of the problems in the Stevens household is down to Samantha’s witchcraft and occult relatives rather than the fact that Darren tries to subdue her natural urges.

Occultism and witchcraft often is associated with the image of a spinster. How many times as a child have you contemplated the lonely old woman at the bottom of the road to be a witch or Satanist? Doesn’t her house stink of cat wee and why doesn’t she have a husband? Maybe she turned him into witches brew? If the modern media cannot provide a happy ending, I want no part, so I raise my glass, “To spinsters with cats!”

Thursday, November 09, 2006

What a weird day...


Today has been, like the weirdest day of my life... just to sum it up a friend of mine emailed me this, I quote:

"I’m not allowed to surf the net anymore! So all I can do is email, but I get told off for that too! Bah!
Crying? That’s alright I cried the other day cos’ I thought I’d lost my hand but it was ok, I was wearing gloves :D"

and that really sums up the weirdest day in existance that I have had!!! And yes, I did cry today. I sat down at work and broke down into tears just cos I cant take this job anymore! I nearly walked out, but didnt 'cos my workmates talked me out of it...

oh yeah, and "Kiss My Face" Theatre are doing a thing and need writers... So I should really submit somehting to them, 15 mins... they usually do stuff for schools and things, so they might not like my rape inspired incest plays... perhaps my sister chav play? They are holding hte event at the same place i went to see smokescreen, but on the other hand they are a bit like the "lega akimbo" people from The League of Gentlamen have a look http://www.kissmyfacetheatre.com/

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Moo Mentum


Well, allthough I feel like that post that the Guardian lady said about theatre was accurate, I still seemt o be writing for fucking theatre and doing the fucking Momentum thing! When Will I be too old to go to these fucking youthclubs and houses of the unshaven? I really did think that last year was my first and last experince of it but Nooooooooo, they go and up the age limit and I (stupid that I am and daftly dedicated to writing) still go.
It was great last year 'cos Emma Rosoman ran it and she's fantastic. Its somebody else this year and (true I really havent given it a chance yet) she got us to do weird clapping and chanting and all I kept thinking was "I could be in the pub but I'm here doing this. What???"
How Embarassing.
and I know I'll still end up going every week, cos I want to develop this play for Ladyfest, Fuck TWP, seriously, with a long hard pole, cos htey wont do anything I come out with. Not cos its shit (allthough I'm bound to say that!) but 'cos its all about getting bums on seats and doing something for the theatre going public (who, needless to say, are somewhat removed from my background and experince). If you want the "cutting edge" of performance and stuff look at the DIY Music festivals, the little random nights, even the once-illegal soundsystems for something creative and different! Just be prepared to tone down any slightly southern / BBC english stylee accent that might arise!

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Tinfoil Flowers and Stars


is the story that I have written for Tripod. Its not ver Leicester based (really) and is generally a bit odd but novermind. They'll either like it or hate it and i wont care...
Its a first person again with travel (as all my stories seems to be at teh moment) the narrator is a bit bonkers and has left a cult. She is the type of person who escapes and runs away all the time but she knows that she cant run away from and escape her city. thing is she finds that (contradictary) comforting in some ways, smothering in others.
The form is what is most differnt from my other things. I went against Kris Siefkens advice, all those months ago now, and fragmanted it about like I used to. Its not really a return to the style I used to have, more of using it properly now!

and I have a class tonight but all I want to do is go to hte pub. When I used to go to these classes before Lucy said it was well funny when i got home cos id spend at least 10 mins trying to get my key in the door!

Sunday, November 05, 2006

G 2 da A 4 da MAX!!!


No, I havent suddenly grown dyslexia (well, more dyslexia!) I was rappin' and being down with the kids on da street...
Must stop the hiphop speak now! Its all from living with Charisse I tell thee, her and her hipity hopity and bogeling to Jazzy Jeff and the fresh prince... Anyway, to stop me rambling anymore this post is actually (again) about Grants for the arts! I HAVE ACTUALLY DONE THE SODDING FORM AND APPLICATION AND ITS GONE!!!! GONE I TELL YOU!!!! Those who know me, this form has beed doing my head in for the past 6 months or so and I've actually done it!
narnarnarnarnar!
So now a great big weight has been freed from my brain and floated away into the atmosphere and I feel like I can relax again (or at least until I turn my head onto the next project... Ladyfest, novels, momentum eek!!!)
and I bet they will still take opne look at it and just go "nah mate, no fucking way" and put the whole package in hte bin! Oh why oh why cant I just be positive?

Anyway, on a slightly differing note here... I have become strangly aware that a lot of writers I meet seem to have little "life experince" and when I say "life experince" I mean going out and enjoying oneself and getting "ratted" for the sake of getting "ratted"
So that is exactly what I did on friday night. I was supposed to go and see DJ Yoda (if anybody knows who he is) but it was dead expensive so I decided to dedicate the evening to doing my grant application and sorting it all out etc... Obviously a Friday night on da narb (back to hte hiphop speak again - sorry) dosent go that way and i got dragged out, to Sams bar (only for one i kept telling myslef... how nieve) Obviously in hte end i got dragged somewhere, not Yoda may i point out but somekescreen and I really thought about it when I was there, that it was possibly inappropriate to go and see Yoda when Smokescreen are the "up and comings" of the day (they really are just normal people, struggling musicians, just like most people i know) were playing and for a bit I really felt like I was kinda supporting young artists kinda... (cept i obviously didnt have to pay to get in or anything)
and, most importantly, it was FUN!
here check them out http://users2.smartgb.com/g/g.php?a=s&i=g20-01131-88

oh yeah and the pic is what me and Angie looked like when we went out!!!! (no not really!)

Friday, November 03, 2006

SEX!

now that got your attention! I really am writing about sex!
its not one of my strong points, i tend to "censor" the action. Any tips on erotic (but not thigh-high boots porn) writing? I was thinking about creating a sex driven short story of some type, like the whole "angry sex" bit and the "if you dislike me so much why do you let me do this?" sentiment...
Oh, and Lucy spilt water on the keybord and its really hard to type so am stopping this post noww!

Thursday, November 02, 2006

a random quote

that sticks in my mind was an ex-type person saying "The only reason why you're with me is because you want to dilute your inferior chinese genes with more white" and I really should slot this inot my novel somewhwere cos its stuff I cant make up!
and I also thought that I could put something in about being a post-colonial trinklet... just like the term

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Publishers to approach

ok. Its premature but I'm thinking of publishers for my novel
http://www.immanion-press.com/index.htm is a local publishers, ok really geared for fantasy but it takes weird stuff
http://www.longbarnbooks.com/
http://www.snowbooks.com/
and Tyndale Street Press looks promising, Alltho I cant find a website

More Stuff about my Novel


Well, I keep getting ideas for my novel and I need to jot them down somewhere, so I had best get going with it.
Firstly I think I might be able to make more of a statistical / structural move by making my narrator cary a variety of weirdly amusing jobs that often change and move about. I'm thinking of making her work at a murder mystery resort for one of the jobs... you know type of thing where they have to dress up and guss who killed people and suchlike... I'm sure I'll think of more weird jobs as I go along.
Secondly, the flat the girls live in needs to change to reflect their chaotic lifestyle. So I'm taking the view of intead of it being a relistic Narb style terrace, its an old flat above a shop that never opens with rooms on different levels all over the place and up all differnt types of staircases... gives the female domain of my novel a rapuszel style feel and thats all relevant. It also opens the possibility of eavesdropping and being able to hear what is above you when your in the bath...
More ideas will come to me as I create my world more thoroughly, so watch this space

Green and Unplesent Land


Everyone - Please remind me to do this

Green and Unpleasant Land(Provisional Title)The InkerMen want to produce a book of English folk, mythology and supernatural tales that either reinterprets existing tales or mythologizes existing buildings and sites previously unwritten. Our attempt is not to contemporise historical work but rather to relocate it and provide alternate readings of England’s green and (un)pleasant land. We are looking for stories of England that touch on the hidden sides of its culture, history, future, geography, mythology and folklore. Stories can be in a variety of genres.Stories should be between 3000-5000 words and should be original work not under consideration with another publisher. Send proposals of between 250-300 words to the publishers by 31st December 2006. Acceptance of the proposal does not constitute a guarantee of publication but full editorial comments will be sent with recommendations for improvement.First Draft after proposal acceptance: 28th February 2007We aim to publish the book in July 2007. Contributors will receive a copy of the book with an inlaid bookplate with signatures of all the contributors.this is their website:http://inkermenpress.tripod.com/index.html

and along with the story for Tripod that's quite a big-e to pull out of my ass by December.

Got no ideas for the dammed thing tho!

Oh yeah and the pic is cos the premis of the comp reminds me a bit of Blake

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

This is how I feel about Theatre


Read it.
Its bang on the money.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/2006/10/from_page_to_stage.html
and i cut and paste it too just cos it really sums up how i feel


Where are all the good new playwrights?
Theatres tell us that new writing is at the top of their agenda. But their schemes sure aren't working.
Lyn Gardner
Latest Guardian articles
Show all articles
Latest blog posts
Where are all the good new playwrights?
Not just a pretty phrase
Children's fiction: the struggle for recognition
Show all articles
Full profile
All Lyn Gardner articles About Webfeeds
October 30, 2006 04:46 PM Printable version
A decade ago this week British theatre was enjoying its greatest flowering of new writing since the Jacobeans. Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and Fucking had just opened at the Royal Court Upstairs at the Ambassadors, just one of an abundance of new plays written by emerging talents such as Martin McDonagh, David Eldridge, Simon Bent, Nick Grosso and David Greig who all premiered their first major plays during 1996.
A decade on, all those writers are going strong, but where are the emerging talents of today? My guess is that they are clogged up somewhere in Britain's burgeoning playwrighting schemes unable to find their way out. Over the last few years many theatres have put in place extensive play development programmes, yet despite these schemes there has been a tailing off in good new plays by great new writers since the heady days of the mid-90s.
While many new writing theatres and companies have seen an upturn in the number of plays they receive and generate through such schemes -in some cases more than 3,000 scripts a year - from where I'm sitting it often doesn't feel as if there has been a similar upturn in quality. Perhaps - perish the thought - all that play development schemes do is to encourage not particularly talented people to write more and more plays. The danger here is that genuine talent will be missed because with so many plays in development it gets increasingly hard to see the wood for the trees.
Theatres have always worked closely with writers. Very few plays - whether by new or established writers - pop through the letterbox in perfect shape. The relationship between writer and literary manager has historically been a crucial one. But in the past the plays that were developed were being developed to a purpose: the staging of that play. The meetings, the drafts, the workshop and the rehearsed reading were all part of a process that was leading towards production, not an end in themselves.
Over the last 10 years a new play development culture - based on American models - has taken root in British theatres and it is now so firmly embedded that it has become an industry in itself. These schemes are not always hungry for new talent and there is little evidence that they are producing better plays. Those who have jobs in this growing industry have a vested interest in the schemes continued growth, as do the theatres who have squeezed money from public or private sources to fund such schemes often in the name of access. But, if playwrighting schemes worked, every new play you saw would be outstanding. They are not.
Theatres are understandably keen to broaden their pool of writers. Most theatres still see a 30/70 ratio of women to male writers, and black and Asian writers are woefully under-represented. Access is important, but what's the point of providing access to schemes to develop plays but not to the stages themselves? It's like teaching people to swim but then denying them access to swimming pools. There is something cockeyed about a theatre culture that has put so many structures in place to develop plays and so few to stage them. The opportunities to get work staged--and it is only when a play is in front of an audience that a playwright really learns how their play works - are simply not keeping pace as the pool of writers.
Theatres know this, and yet still they hang onto plays trying to keep their options open. Play development should be about enabling writers, not tying up their talent in a queue of unproduced plays. It is often a mirage, a substitute for real action and commitment by a theatre to a writer and his or her play. It provides the theatres with an opportunity to tick all the right funding boxes while offering playwrights very little at all - except misplaced hope.
Being able to list the significant writers that it has discovered has always been part of a theatre's identity and history, and there's nothing wrong with that, but funding pressures mean that competition for writers and plays is increasingly intense. The more play righting programmers there are in place, the more the schemes have to justify themselves. It leads to the creation of a culture of "ownership" of plays, with theatres sometimes exerting pressure on writers to ditch the play they really want to write and generate a new idea "in house" so that the theatre can argue that it was only by the writer being in their particular programme that the play could have been written.
If playwrighting development programmes really worked wouldn't we be seeing more emerging talent than we did a decade ago when such schemes were rare? Maybe there are just not enough good new plays to go round and perhaps these schemes are simply a way of disguising that fact and making Britain's new play culture seem more buoyant than it really is.
If you are a playwright, work in play development or are regular theatregoer I'd be interested to know what you think, but I'm beginning to believe that however many playwrighting development schemes you put in place real talents such as Sarah Kane, Caryl Churchill or David Eldridge will only come along a couple of times in every decade.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Other Writers


In some weird Freaky, Haloween inspired way I am going to be nice and put links here to all local writers that I know. It might not be the case of "if you like my stuff, You'l like their stuff" but its promoting writers that I know just from doing the circuit around Leicester
Firstly, Lucy Wade's Blog http://lucyannwade.blogspot.com/ is annother writer Development Blog like mine. She's a pretty nifty playwrite.
Alex Mack has a little blog in the same vein at http://morpheanramble.blogspot.com/ and, no, he can't turn himslef into Liquid Metal nor does he look like Harold Bishop!
Alexander Walsh has a blog too http://alexanderpaulwalsh.blogspot.com/ and he'll probally go all squiffy about me posting the link here.
JW Bennett is a fantasy writer who has possibly see me get changed and has definatly seen me on the toilet (!) www.freewebs.com/waxlyrikal is his website.
Kaye Axon has a pretty good site at http://www.fusiveweb.co.uk/Default.aspx?alias=www.fusiveweb.co.uk/kayeaxon She's a poet and short story writer.
I tried to get a link to Damien Walter's site but for some reason it wouldnt load...
Freda Warrington is a local fantasy writer also http://members.aol.com/FredaMike/index.html
I've never actually met her, but interviewed her once for an article. I also was very inspired by her when I was about 15, then I saw a picture and was scared...

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Just going back to the hat thing


Following is a blog entry by annother writer (whom I shant name)

"A gentleman's hat is his castle
There's something that happens at every party I'm at,And that is that somebody steals my hat.Why is it that so many otherwise responsible and law-abiding people seem don't seem to perceiveThat it is unacceptable to take another fellow's headgear without so much as a by-your-leave?You wouldn't dream of pinching somebody's coat or shoes or anything like that,So why don't the ordinary rules of respect for other people's property seem to apply to the hat?Everybody thinks it's a jolly good laugh to pluck it off your head and mill around wearing it,And they don't give a damn that they risk creasing or tearing it.Turn up at any social event sporting your prized fedora or trilby,And I guarantee you that by the time the party is over you have no idea where it will be.Sometimes you find it on the floor all out of shape because it's been stamped on,And once somebody took mine and ran out the door into a waiting taxi and I found out later that they had taken it home with them to Southampton.But that's not the worst of it, because last weekend I went to a friend's housewarming and wondered whether it was a good idea to take a hat at all, but I decided I'd risk it -And something happened that took the biscuit.Towards the end of the night, when people had started to make their excuses and leave and most of the beer was gone,I noticed that my hat was no longer on.So I looked all over for it, and eventually found it laid carelessly on the counter in the kitchen,Half full of sugar, which I tried to tip out but it got all mixed up in the band and the stitchin'.So now my hat feels all sticky andrough,And sometimes some of the sugar gets onto my hair and looks like dandruff.And if you lick it, it still tastes sweet all down the right side,But I suppose I'd better look on the bright side,Because if I ever become a secret agent, and they send me to the desert on a secret mission,And I forget to take any food with me, I'll still have some form of nutrition.So the day may come when I'm grateful to the drunken idiot who ruined my favourite trilby, and feel like I want to buy him a drink and give his back a pat,And if that ever happens, I'll eat my hat."

Now the real story was this bloke turned up wearing a trillby and a tanktop and I was pissed. Someone put the hat on my head. I did not want the hat, and the tanktop wearing one asked me, in a non polite way, to not smoke in the hat (alltho I saw him smoking a pipe wearing the offending article) and as I said before, I was pissed.
So I poured suger in it and I dunno why he seems to think it was a chap, cos he was glaring death looks at me all night. He knew it was me.

and the reasn why I put myself through this shit?

When Ambrose interviewed e for OhMyNews, he asked me why I write and for some reason I decided to review this question. In the interview I said its cos my brain would explode if i didnt, but I think there may be other reasons too...
Its a big IN YOUR FACE to everyone. Its a revenge act.
I write to piss people off, I write because of every boyfriend who ever annoyed me, every teacher who said I was a bit thick, every doctor who tried to put me on medication for my bi-polar personality, every lecturer who called me a retard, every playground bully who scraped my knese, every best friend who turned on me, everyone who ever said anything bad about me behind my back, every girl who stole the boy who I liked, every boy who said he loved me and didnt, every boy who wouldnt fuck me, every parent figure who wante to stifle me, every german who bought me dangerous toys, every smackhead who ever stole from me, every one who made me feel like shit, every singer who I became disenchanted with, every prson who stabbed me in the head with a biro...
Its for all of those and its a big FUCK YOU.
you know who you are.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

My Scary Story


Well, After spending all of yesterday trying to write a story about The Voices in Nancy Spungens schitzopherenic brain I watched a programme about Twins and then restarted my scary story and began writing about some conjoined twins who are going to be reattached but one of them is actually a clone and hates his all-powerful twin and he's slightly feral and actually a clone...
I kinda like this story, but I don't think its really very scary... Its actually gone more sci-fi (alltho I no nothing about sci-fi) but I'm enjoying writing it!

Its all getting too much!

Its like one good thing and then one bad thing. Like one after the other at the moment! Being a writer meens I'm skint, and I mean REALLY skint. I cant afford to pay any bills so when I (well Lee) found some money today it was really good... a whole couplea hundred quid good, and Lucy suggested the best thing we do is pay off one of the bills of impending doom that keep flying through our letterbox like there is no tommorrow. So I went and did the first cardinal sin and actually opened one of the fucking things and it was HUGE! I mean really big (I mean, Like I've NEVER seen a utility bill that big and thats saying something considering what I do for money). So we paid off a measly $200 (excuse the dollars - this keybord thinks a pound sign should be represented thus: #) and now I'm totally worried and thinking that I'm gonna have to grow up and get a proper job and work full time and NEVER have any time to write and totally have to wear a suit to work and possible kill myself from total GGGAAAAAHHHH!!!!
I spoke to Jacek Laswoski at the Arts Council today and now I have to go up there on the 31st to see them (good) but my boss is being a cunt and leaving me little bollocking post it notes around the office (bad) I heard from Damien today about my arts proposal (good) but all the heating and computers are fucked at work (bad) I now know what I need to spend the grant money on (good) its bills (bad) I am on my period (good) but now stupidly ill and feel like I might die at any moment (bad)...
Sometimes I just want the world to stop so I can get the fuck off!

Monday, October 23, 2006

Tripods... no, not coming to eat us until Tom Cruise rescues the planet again!

Tripod Mag want submissions. Someting about "The ALternative" by 1st Dec 06. Well, this project seems to fit my style of writing as its often described as a bit "alternative"... annother thing that I quite like the idea of is writing about Leicester... Like Angela Carter I love writing about place but corrupting it and claiming a city as my own through exaggerated fantasy! So I recon that the story I described aboutin yesterday's blog entry might become a bit of this story... let me see what bit of Leicester should i scribble about? The beautiful bits or The Narb and exagerate it until it sounds like Highfield's crack baby? methinks the latter...

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Scary Stories




Well I now have to create a "Scary Story" and as I was going up to Tesco's today I got a few ideas for a story... its possibly not exactly like the whole "gonna be the next Mary Shelly" thing (i.e not scary) but I had many images of things that really sum up the past couple of days...
1.Waking up cos your crying - its like your eyes begin drowning
2. Cutting out flowers from tinfoil and sticking them all over a council flat. Walls, celing, floor
3. Joining a cult
4. 2nd hand vintage dresses that are too big for you
5. Big 60's style bed hair
7. A lesbian flatmate who wears see through white pedal pushers
8. Arms laced with filthy, scabby track marks
9. Picture of the Real Nancy Spungen - now this is because I had seen the "Sid and Nancy" film with Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb in it and I really didnt relise how amazingly ugly and yuk the real Nancy Spungen was until I saw a picture of her. Oh yeah - ttry to guess which pic is the real Nanacy Spungen... its actually really hard! They were considering casting Courtney Love in the film before she was famous but I think I would have had to turn the film off in the first 5 mins if that had happened... Chloe Webb's "Siddddddd!!! Sidddddd!!! Get me some drugs" is bad enough!
Now I need to work in someting supernatural and I suppose I have a scary story...
As you may all have guessed. I have no idea what I am doing!

Friday, October 20, 2006

I have been proper shit

recently 'cos I was really ill all last week and totally off my food (weird for me) and was shivering whilst wearing 4 blankets. And work moved (utter farce) I should write a fucking comedy about it... It really was.
There was total problems with contractors, a near hysterial cheif officer and rats. Luddites used to live in the cellar... Mental. Like, really, its stuff I couldn't make up even if I tried!
And annother work related thing, writing for me is all about letting those merderous thoughts, I keep telling myself we all have, have some type of create leeway out of my brain. Writing stops me being a sociopath.
So I thought about writing a story about my boss. Man, you really wouldnt believe the type of person she is. She's like, nice and stuff, but really "sorted" and "together". She's into god and married and head of TSS and only my age. Nothing seems to faze the woman. But a really evil gremlin that lives in my brain wanted to kidnap her and place her in a world that is totally alien for her, the type of world thats just designed for having fun, not wholesome, fairground fun, like dangerous, nasty, illicit fun! It would be fantastic to see if she could adapt (or freak out - as I suspect she would) I dunno. S'just an idea at the moment, but is something I recon would be good as a little aspect in hte rewrite of my novel.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Let Them Eat Cake

Is a 3rd wave feminist ezine that I have been roped into banging an article out for... So its gonna be good old reliable
"Riot Grrl vs Girl Power" blah, blah, blah

Jean "Binta" Breeze


Yo! Went to see Jean Breeze last night and it was really coolio, but after the crates of free wine that were so kindly donated by Bloodaxe publishers, I feel a bit rough...
And it was totally nice of them to donate the stuff...
Oh yeah, Jean Breeze is now based in Leicester (of all places) and seems to be having some thing to do with te Adult Education Centre... which is really funny 'cos it implies that the Adult Ed Centre is like a really "happening" place to be with new writng and stuff... and it's kinda not. It's the type of place that has some really good romance novelists... but they are all really serious about it... and you wouldn't expect any of them to have £60 haircuts! Its like the total opposite to Momentum!
Oh and speaking about Momentum, it's begining again and I don't know who my mentor is and I just hope they are as cool as Emma Rosoman! I hope it's not Francissle, cos I'll be tempted to bring food to every session just to feed her up!

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Femininity



Well as I'm in the process of pimpin' my blog I relised that when typing the type of theme, title of post or work into the little funky image serch thingy on Google. It kept coming up with rather dark, femine images... Even the heart I chose for Valentines Day is an "urban" grafitti (I do mean BBC "urban" here!) peice. Anyhow I think the point I am trying to make is that seeing the of my writing, chosen by myself, and kinda en mass in visual form really hammers home the type of direction, style and theme I'm heading in... and this freaks me out 'cos then I start to think "is this the type of thing that is likely to get published? Is this the type of thing which will sell?" and I suppose it shouldn't bother me, 'cos I'll write what I wanted anyway (due to being the stubborn, headstrong fool that I am). I just think if I dont start writng trash I really am going to die in poverty... just less romantic 'cos it'l be Leicester and not Paris!

Saturday, October 07, 2006

pimp my blog!


Hi everyone! I am currently in the process of pimpin my blog and the only photos on my heardrive are from my grad ball! See if you can spot my sick!
Pretty girl on the left is my best mate Flange!
(Yeah and I'm looking very chinese in my dress!)

Ps: for more stupid pictures please look at past blog entries!

Friday, October 06, 2006

Ladyfest Submission Guidelines

Dear Artist,

Ladyfest Leicester 2007 is promoting new female writing in the East Midlands. The event will take place the beginning of October 2007 at Quebec, Leicester. Ladyfest is a Music and Arts festival that is a celebration of female creativity, talent and womanhood. It is an event that encourages female artists to perform and create in an environment that is supportive of women. Ladyfest wishes to present a diverse mix of different work from female writers and artists. We are specifically looking for short pieces of prose, micro stories, poetry, performance poetry, scenes from plays and MC’s. Ladyfest Leicester promotes awareness for women’s charities which get little recognition from the media. All proceeds from Ladyfest will go to Women’s charities. For more information regarding Ladyfest Leicester please see our MySpace. www.myspace.com/ladyfestleciester07

Submission Guidelines for Ladyfest Leicester 2007

All submissions to be via email, either in the body of an email or as an attachment (enter email address)
All submissions to contain easily accessible contact details; name, telephone number, email and address.
All submissions to be typed double spaced, in a sizable font, in Times New Roman or Tahoma.
All submissions to contain page numbers, the title of the piece and the name of the author as a footer or header.
Poetry submissions to be no more than 40 lines.
Prose submissions to be no more than 3,000 words
Play submissions to be one scene from a play – please include a brief synopsis of the play.
Submissions from female writers only. Transgender writers are also welcome. Male-female collaborations are welcome. Please do not submit if you are a lone male writer. This is due to the nature of the event.
If you are an MC please email us with your contact details and one of us will get back to you.
We regret to inform you that we cannot provide feedback on your work.
There are no restrictions on style or theme.
There are no restrictions on where the writer is based.
Writers have to be 18 years of age+ due to venue restrictions.
We will contact you via email to inform you if you are successful or not.
There is no entry fee.
All writers retain Copyright.
Deadline March 1st 2007

We hope to hear from you soon!

Charisse Sayers, Literature Co-Coordinator
Sabrina Mei-Li Smith, Literature Co-Coordinator

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Man! I need a holiday!


I am begining to really think that I need a holiday. Its really getting me down being in Leicester. I went to a toyland-style party (and they have been lamer and lamer since the original party Toyland was "based" on) on SAturday night and I really just couldnt be bothered... I mean like really just didnt have the energy to do anything.
And I really think I need to get away. Its been over a year since I last had a holiday and, lets face it, I've been working really fucking hard for a year on both writng and eviljob.
I might go to Norwich and see people (allthough they done know about it yet!!!!) but have been warned that I may be allergic to everything around there!

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Valentines Day


Once, when I was going to college somebody had grafittied and flypostered a Valentine's message on about 7 walls, all leading up to the uni. It was along the lines of "It's valentines day... guess who your secret admirer is" and I thought it was quite cool (I'm easily impressed) and a bit of me wanted it to be for me (allthough I knew from word go that the guy I was seeing at the time was far too self absorbed to bother with anything like that!)
So now I want to write a story about it. Perhaps make it so The message "follows" my protagonist all the way to work and she/he knows it's not for them but a bit of them convinces themselves and perhaps also the reader that it could be... but obviously its not and its all fantasy vs reality and things. Like wishful thinking vs cynicism or somehting.
Anyway, it's better than the weird "run away to Norwich" fantasys I've been having! I mean Norwich! I'm allergic to that city!

Monday, September 25, 2006

Life Fucking Sux

Major balls.
I'm just really disgruntled. Always feel tired these days, I'm always skint and I'm always bad tempered! How lame is that? well it does get to my bad side and really pisses me off a lot. I really feel that I need achange of scenery or something, a holiday, a rest... just a change... It would help refresh me and set me off writng again.
But sometimes I think perhaps I need some type of structure around the writing and then the rest of my life can kinda fall into place. I dunno, I just feel all wishy-washy about everything at the mo and thats really not me! I'm all "I know what I want, I know where I'm going" rahrahrah, but now I feel a bit like I just really dont care about anything... I'm becomeing niahilistic in my old age! Not in a cool punk way, more in a really tragic way. I should become a skaghead then at least my life would have a purpse! get up, get money to score, score, get money to score, score.... at least you know where you are! Writing is worse cos its like get an idea, flounk it, get annoter idea, give it a go bt its still shit, get annother idea, write it, its good, you still feel its shit....
rarh!

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Grants for the Arts

I spent all of last night doing the form and I really think that they do give out money... they just make the forms really hard and difficult to understand so they can bin them whenever they come through the postbox.
How Shit.
Anyway, I need to add a peice of prose about 1000 - 2000 words long and a scene from a play.
Any thoughts on what fodder to give them? no point in adding toyland BTW cos thy have a link to it in the proposal.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

muha! I feel like writing!

muhamuhamuha!
I actually feel like writing something! I feel like going back to Crackheads and Yardies and writing about Alphonso's misus!
Ha!
Its like the old me is back!
I got the inspiration from a Chuck Plahunic Novel! Its really odd cos I suspect that my desire of not writing also stemmed from a Chuck Palahunic novel... inadiquate feelings and all that!
hehe!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

How to beat Writers Block

I have a fathamable idea of how to beat writers block.
I need to lock myself in my room with terrible music playing and JUST FUCKING DO MY THING!
In the words of Kirsten Pfaff, I need to be happy and sane and just remove myself...
I have no money at the moment... so I don't have the temptation to go out and drink (which is good).
I have to just ignore my friends (again... Apologies to Ang, Lucy and Charisse)
I need to ignore the charms of the net (sorry peeps... Lucy, Stacey, Alex's... Charisse Again!)
I have to ignore Lee (not that hard actually!)
I need to begin working on projects that I have started and not finished... so that would be:
-Stolen Story
-Mermaids and Drowning Women
-The Novel
-Sing,Sing
-The New story
I need to give everyting Ladyfest related to Charisse.
When having breaks I should be doing my Grants for the Arts Application.
I need to stop doing things like cleaning the underside of the sofa as procastinating
I need to chuck the TV out the window (Perhaps take a leaf out of somebody I know's book - he put a hammer through his!)

-

Monday, September 18, 2006

I have written nothing

Believe it or not I have reached the wonderful thing knows as writers block! IE: I have not got a new idea and feel totally drained and intimidated by my fucking laptop for the first time in months ! It pisses me off.
I've been doing otherLit developement stuff and really... in real time, I haven't really had an idea for a few days and if I had anything to write about It would feel like my head was about to explode. Ususally, I have an idea once every 2-3 days. I haven't had an idea for a week and I'm getting scared...
Any ideas out there for inspiration excercises?
The only problem is I kinda feel that those excercises are futile and false... I'm not being pedantic or snobby or anything... it's just if an idea that dont really "grab" me... well... I don't really care that much about it! And thereofre can't write about it!

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Ladyfest Leicester 2007




Right, Most of you know about this but here is an explanation for those of you who dont.
Charisse (poopy47000) and I were approached earlier this month to be the litarary co-ordinators of Ladyfest Leicester 2007. The aim of Ladyfest, is its a festival to promote awareness of womens issues within arena's that are mostly male dominated (therefore it often gets lots of female rock bands). In previous Ladyfests the Litrature side of things have been pretty terrible - simpl because Ladyfests put so much atetntion on music, they often dont actually get any artists or writers to contribute and the Lit bit gets shove on the backburner.
Well, Stacey (person who is organising the most of the festival, owns her own record label and has organised Ladyfests all over the country) has pretty much left the organisation of the entire event to Charisse and I. We are focusing on poetry (shudder) performance poetry, readings and spoken word, MC's and extracts from plays. We will be running an open submissions for everyone to send us their stuff, but there are a efw conditions.
1. solo male writers will not be able to sumbit (sorry - not my rules - perhaps will do a Mrfest at some point) but will be able to co-write with female (NB: I have a meeting about Ladyfest Today and I WILL be contesting this point - I am very unhappy about it)
2. Female protagonists pleses
3. due to the feminis nature of this event, work that has a feminist poetic about it will be favoured
(I feel like saying that anybody who is liked by Momentum please not apply - their stuff is defo NOT the type of thing we are looking for! - but I didnt really say that, did i?)
Anyway, everyone who I cn possibly think of I will contact with a full set of submission guidelines when Charisse and I have finalised them. I may set up annother email account simply for Ladyfest 07.
Oh, some more details, It is going to be held in Quebec but I havent got the exact date as yet.
And we have a team of 2 Techies to (perhaps) do most of the stuff.
So if you think you have teh stuff for this venture then please take a look at it, also tell people you think may be intrested in any way - to come see it, to submit or to help in anyway
here is the myspace for the overall festival
http://www.myspace.com/ladyfestleicester07

PS: These pics are logos that were used in Ladyfest's from around the world. I can't upload the Ladyfest Leicester logo, 'cos I can't seem to get on with MySpace!

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

annother acceptance


I got annother acceptance at
www.drunkenpoets.com

The Story is called "Rose White, Rose Red" and has many themes running through it... most notiably female competition for male affections, but in a futile way.

you cant rape the willing


As a kind of extention from the Gypsy Rose thing, I wanted to write a short story about a girl who works in an upmarket strip joint that tries to masqurade as a burlesque house.
I'm more intrested in the use of language and might try to rip off (intertextualise) something by Chuck Palahunic... short sentences, really hard hitting points, lists, deconstructed form... that type of thing, but ill just do my own thing in the end!
I found this on Wikipdeia
"In literary criticism, burlesque is often used as a generic term to describe any imitative work that derives humor from an incongruous contrast between style and subject. " Perhaps I should really ponder and absorb some of these quotes...
perhaps not!

Friday, September 08, 2006

the stolen story

the 2 out of work actors and the playwrite should all me male and one of them seems useless with girls and gets together with the male playwrite as a kind of "surprise" ending.
Its great writing this as I suddenly have a vocal poin for my animosity and real efeelings about theatre!
trouble is, I Love writing plays... just hate all the bullshit that goes with it!
I need to stop being so fucking miserable and write what they want me to. I need to seem intrested in what people are saying really when I am not. I need to stop innatly hating "loviee" type actors and smile more.
Man! if I do all that I'll end up dead in a bath with my wrists cut one of these days!
Perhaps I'll just cary on doing what I'm doing and hope that the tide will change and Sarah Kane style shocking drama will become more popular again...
Royal Court here I Come!