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