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Mumblings and meanderings
Mumblings and meanderings (general thoughts concerning aspects of the forum)
I had some excellent crit from Ox and a comment at the beginning about “may be worthy of a wider audience”, it meant a lot to me because I know that as I get older my time becomes more precious to me and I start pushing to get as much out of it as I can, Ox would probably phrase it as “not wasting his time on fools” but I get the feeling we might be coming from the same place and it’s a good feeling that he spent so much of his time on helping me get it right.
Do you remember Paradise Creature, I gave him some crit and sent pm’s to him a couple of times, there was something about his writing that got to me, something about the style that reminded me of Dean Moriaty from “On the road” for some reason. I was sorry he went, I know he was a wild man, terrible influence on the forum and all the rest. Then I ask myself “Who are my real heroes in the arts?” The sort of people who are safe and easy to be around? People like Charlie Parker? Did things like borrowing a sax to play a gig and pay off a debt. Then, after the gig, pawning the sax and spending all the money from that and the gig on heroin, brilliant musician though. Dylan Thomas, alcoholic... enough said for anyone who knows one. Bernard Shaw once made one of his characters profess to be both an artist and lost in love. Another, a more pragmatic soul, tells him he can’t be “A true artist would see his aged mother rise at dawn to scrub doorsteps and let his wife and children starve rather than do anything than his art” The wording is from memory, but you get the gist. Instead of rules which discriminate against the unpleasant or ill-mannered should we adopt an approach which discriminates against the non-writer? You have to post so many times in a writing part of the forum before you get to comment in the lounge, that sort of thing.
I recently came across a children’s story by Babygirlmedia that she had inadvertently double posted. I was impressed by the way she had done the things we keep being told to do. She had used material she was familiar with, it was a story for children and about children written by a mother. It was in the sort of unpretentious, straight-forward language children use and understand. Self checkable things like spelling were good. I can imagine many members would pass this by thinking “Not my sort of thing, I’m into fantasy/poetry/whatever”. There are people who admire writers that can be relied on to turn out a regular supply of predictably uniform tales, some of them work for Mills and Boon. Personally I am impressed by people like John Buchan who manage to write good thrillers and historical biographies, including one which for many years was the definitive one on Cromwell. Or Fay Weldon who worked writing advertising copy before becoming a novelist and has also written a wonderful book about Jane Austen called “Letters to Alice”. It does you no harm to travel outside your usual parameters at times and sometimes it can be extremely stimulating, or you might just find some inspiration in someone else's serious attempt.
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Google Olly Buckle and click on my Associated content page, or find me on youtube.
I had a tremendous advantage in life, at the age of eighteen I caught polio and for eighteen months was totally paralysed except for my eyes. Milton Erickson
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