A fat alarm clock
A fire is lit
A hedge
A hotel room in New York City
About to sit down with my half-pint of Guinness
And always tucked his daughter up at night
And the flesh of each other
Blue-backed, silver-bellied, half-imagined things
Brought back to me that September evening
Chanting, chanting
Drawn like a moth to the darkened black room
Dumb as a cloud
Her parents love her eyes, how hard she works
His donkey-jacket on the kitchen chair
I am sailing the world
I cannot speak to you.
I died first, I think
I thought we were sitting in the sky
I took myself on for the hell of it
I'm trying to remember as best as I can
Irish Daisies, Yorkshire Nightingales
It begins as a house
It's almost impossible to be here, you kneel
Later he moved quietly to deeper sleep
Light through trees
Like a dwarf on stilts
Men hurrying back across the river
My father decoded the world
My father, drawing the fire
My fellow inmates praise him
Nothing has turned the wood
Our baby's heart, fluttering
People stop me in the street
Right into the mountain
Rockall, Malin, Dogger, Finisterre
She moved him to the hospital
Sometimes in autumn
That other country? Where was it?
The boat chugged up to the little stone jetty
The doors between the days fall open
The past fades like newsprint in the sun
The Unit
The village gossiped
The voices carry from everywhere
Then dusk, and someone calls
Then I gave myself a fright
We were joined at the hip.
When all this is over, I mean to travel north
With ten minutes to kill and the whole place deserted
You do not scorch the sheets or wake your wife
You wonder if it's lovers
Tuesday 30 October 2007
Monday 29 October 2007
A BC Thread
Recently a Boot Camper asked, "Does anyone else get scared?"
He was asking about writing from the deepest parts, how scary it could be.
My first answer was: it's a straight choice. How honest do we want to be? How true? I am only happy when I feel my work is lifting a rug (5% of the time, tops)
Later said:
It ISN'T necessary to directly use your own experience, however painful, however true, or deep or "drama-worthy"
And if you DO directly use something, it's IRRELEVANT whether it's therapeutic, makes you happier or sadder
What matters is the TEXT and what it brings to others
It doesn't matter AT ALL whether 100% of Ballistics is factual, only that it's TRUE. It can be true even if it's 100% fiction.
When you use "your past", your own pain, your own memories, really, the THINGS aren't all that important. What's important is the feelings, and what the events whether directly or indirectly used, SAY, make us feel.
If I use a personal experience directly and try to stay "accurate" I will lose truth. The world and exact accuracy usually kills message.
And later:
Lots of these things are hard to prove, but think like this.
When "a little brown dog" starts glowing, some memory or link to memory, either some maturing part of you thinks it's ready to discover, or some older part of you maybe wants to relieve an internal pressure, BUT THAT IS JUST ONE THING (presume for simplicity)
I suppose it's possible that the conscious and unconscious brain between them choose one single item. one discrete memory, but is it likely?
My belief is that the more we right, the more we try to unfuzz our history, the more we "go there" (I mean in that drifting, available, state) the more things might start to emerge.
The idea that I might isolate ONE and one only (one that might "REFUSE" to ever come out) seems crazy.
When memories and ideas come make sure that at least the emerging tip is not lost. RECORD THEM ALL.
many things may happen her
Example you are imagining/believing that this memory of a squashed cat REALLY MEANS SOMETHING but last week you remembered a
snippet of a song, or an image of an old radio, or someone's shoes, or a car. I have no idea. MIGHT IT NOT BE THAT THE CAT WAS A WAY IN BUT NOT THE KEY? Might it not be that one of you "lesser" ideas/memories will, in the end be more important?
RECORD THEM ALL. LET THEM INTERACT
And later still:
I NEED TO EXPLAIN SOMETHING, WARN YOU
Do NOT presume that all this "must be" an unearthing of your specific past.
It does not have to be YOU or something that happened to you.
Example. Imagine that once you saw, as a kid, a kid getting bullied. You vaguely noted it. It was "gone." Years later you also vaguely note that the kid committed a heinous crime or suicide, or became famous or rich (it doesn't matter). MAYBE you realised the two were the same. Maybe you didn't. Maybe you connected the two bits, connected the relationship, the cause-effect, maybe you didn't.
When these things are pointed out to us we can make a CONSCIOUS, intellectual cause-effect/wondering link. BUT WHEN THEY ARE NOT POINTED OUT TO US, ARE THE LINKS THERE UNDERNEATH SHAPING OUR FEELINGS, OUR EMOTIONS, WHAT WE CARE ABOUT, WHAT AROUSES OUR ANGER OR SYMPATHY.
so a thing might be part of our personal history, first hand
a thing may be part of our history second-hand, ie seen and heard in others
a thing may be part of our psyche THIRD hand, a news report of the above, a book, a play
a thing may, arguably be part of us FOURTH hand, cultural, like "paedophilia" and peadophiles loom so much larger in consciousness these days than they did when I was a kid... or "save-the-planet" or back in the sixties-seventies the fact that most of us went round half expecting a nuclear holocaust.
So memories do not HAVE TO relate to bad or good things you did or had done to you
Now whether or not you have a Hannibal Lecter past or lived with Jesus and ate honey and ambrosia every morning and your shit came out in perfumed bags, you conscious and unconscious pick up EVERY DAY the subliminal links to millions, billions of incidents.
When you read Alex Keegan you read (somewhere in there) HIS past, some of his sensibilities. How much of Dickens' psyche lurks in the bowels of his books... so the more we read and write the more we slowly accumulate "pressures"
if you read a current-vogue book about someone being abused, read absorb, "forget" how do you know, even if your life has been perfect, that this little nugget won't be eating away at you colouring your view of possibly EVERYTHING until you die?
We have many lives now. We absorb from news, poetry, shorts, novels, plays, films, video, TV, the web, in a way people never dreamt of even fifty years ago
but note this... what tweaks you, what sticks with YOU, does so because you are particularly susceptible, receptive to that image or idea
THERE'S A REASON FOR THAT and that's why you have to take an instant snapshot of the "thing" put it on a whiteboard and keep it alive.
If not, if for example, your psychic guardians 'don't want you to know" it will be gone, probably forever in 24 hours.
Think of it as a little fall of mud outside a cave. Mark the spot before mud covers it up.
But remember that it is not "inevitable" that the event or memory or feeling energising this connection is SPECIFICALLY something that happened (physically to you). It might be a combination of things. You might never have been touched by the creepy paedophile from next-door who hung himself when you were thirteen, but maybe you heard his name once when you were out drinking with the office-girls and a childhood friend went white, you FELT.... but the group were playing X and now when you hear X you feel torn, twisted.
It could be anything (or nothing, just an accumulation of juxtapositions and pressures from images, words, ideas from your reading/watching.
If demons made someone write Silence of the Lambs, The Exorcist, Apocalypse Now and hundreds of others, what happens to US when we watch them (even if we laugh)? IF those writers were exorcising their demons (if) what do we absorb?
And
So... I access a feeling, a hurt. a memory and I write about something else.
Yes, that's one way. Often directly writing about something merely energises the defences and we get shut down, anyway. But if we can sense the ache-pressure-fear-disgust (or exquisite pleasure) and find some literary outlet that seems to reflect the feeling, it may well be that what we write will be suffused with the "power" of the partly-unearthed memory.
Say I had walked in on my mother fucking the neighbour and not only that but she looked horrible, told me to fuck off (and then extrapolate)
Yes it may be possible to one day unearth the actual memories and write about them as fictional or actual autobiography but often these writings fai because the memories are bitty and we obsess on the missing parts "wanting to tell the truth"
But if, from the feeling we write about a parent betraying a child, a FICTION, we then can use the pain we felt.
Later someone asked, about these recorded "cues", should they keep one warmed up, ticking over, or should they have many?
Of one I said:
No
IT IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING YOU COULD DO
I have many things on the go so the one that wants to can begin to fester and expand. Second two things or more may choose to interact.
Note the verbs. the thing wants to, the thing chooses
NOT the author
One BCer posted this:
It might be worth reading this article which Alex posted on the BC blog.
It came from the notes from a Kingfisher Barn course a couple of years ago, and talks about using half-memories:
http://thebootcampkeegandiaries.blogspot.com/2007/04/little-brown-dog-in-rain.html
and then
http://thebootcampkeegandiaries.blogspot.com/2007/04/theme-truth.html
Note, I am not trying to write (or post) "perfect" articles. I believe that we don't learn so well from the perfectly-formed, but learn better from bits-and-pieces, spontaneous responses which generate questions and then, hopefully, answers.
He was asking about writing from the deepest parts, how scary it could be.
My first answer was: it's a straight choice. How honest do we want to be? How true? I am only happy when I feel my work is lifting a rug (5% of the time, tops)
Later said:
It ISN'T necessary to directly use your own experience, however painful, however true, or deep or "drama-worthy"
And if you DO directly use something, it's IRRELEVANT whether it's therapeutic, makes you happier or sadder
What matters is the TEXT and what it brings to others
It doesn't matter AT ALL whether 100% of Ballistics is factual, only that it's TRUE. It can be true even if it's 100% fiction.
When you use "your past", your own pain, your own memories, really, the THINGS aren't all that important. What's important is the feelings, and what the events whether directly or indirectly used, SAY, make us feel.
If I use a personal experience directly and try to stay "accurate" I will lose truth. The world and exact accuracy usually kills message.
And later:
Lots of these things are hard to prove, but think like this.
When "a little brown dog" starts glowing, some memory or link to memory, either some maturing part of you thinks it's ready to discover, or some older part of you maybe wants to relieve an internal pressure, BUT THAT IS JUST ONE THING (presume for simplicity)
I suppose it's possible that the conscious and unconscious brain between them choose one single item. one discrete memory, but is it likely?
My belief is that the more we right, the more we try to unfuzz our history, the more we "go there" (I mean in that drifting, available, state) the more things might start to emerge.
The idea that I might isolate ONE and one only (one that might "REFUSE" to ever come out) seems crazy.
When memories and ideas come make sure that at least the emerging tip is not lost. RECORD THEM ALL.
many things may happen her
Example you are imagining/believing that this memory of a squashed cat REALLY MEANS SOMETHING but last week you remembered a
snippet of a song, or an image of an old radio, or someone's shoes, or a car. I have no idea. MIGHT IT NOT BE THAT THE CAT WAS A WAY IN BUT NOT THE KEY? Might it not be that one of you "lesser" ideas/memories will, in the end be more important?
RECORD THEM ALL. LET THEM INTERACT
And later still:
I NEED TO EXPLAIN SOMETHING, WARN YOU
Do NOT presume that all this "must be" an unearthing of your specific past.
It does not have to be YOU or something that happened to you.
Example. Imagine that once you saw, as a kid, a kid getting bullied. You vaguely noted it. It was "gone." Years later you also vaguely note that the kid committed a heinous crime or suicide, or became famous or rich (it doesn't matter). MAYBE you realised the two were the same. Maybe you didn't. Maybe you connected the two bits, connected the relationship, the cause-effect, maybe you didn't.
When these things are pointed out to us we can make a CONSCIOUS, intellectual cause-effect/wondering link. BUT WHEN THEY ARE NOT POINTED OUT TO US, ARE THE LINKS THERE UNDERNEATH SHAPING OUR FEELINGS, OUR EMOTIONS, WHAT WE CARE ABOUT, WHAT AROUSES OUR ANGER OR SYMPATHY.
so a thing might be part of our personal history, first hand
a thing may be part of our history second-hand, ie seen and heard in others
a thing may be part of our psyche THIRD hand, a news report of the above, a book, a play
a thing may, arguably be part of us FOURTH hand, cultural, like "paedophilia" and peadophiles loom so much larger in consciousness these days than they did when I was a kid... or "save-the-planet" or back in the sixties-seventies the fact that most of us went round half expecting a nuclear holocaust.
So memories do not HAVE TO relate to bad or good things you did or had done to you
Now whether or not you have a Hannibal Lecter past or lived with Jesus and ate honey and ambrosia every morning and your shit came out in perfumed bags, you conscious and unconscious pick up EVERY DAY the subliminal links to millions, billions of incidents.
When you read Alex Keegan you read (somewhere in there) HIS past, some of his sensibilities. How much of Dickens' psyche lurks in the bowels of his books... so the more we read and write the more we slowly accumulate "pressures"
if you read a current-vogue book about someone being abused, read absorb, "forget" how do you know, even if your life has been perfect, that this little nugget won't be eating away at you colouring your view of possibly EVERYTHING until you die?
We have many lives now. We absorb from news, poetry, shorts, novels, plays, films, video, TV, the web, in a way people never dreamt of even fifty years ago
but note this... what tweaks you, what sticks with YOU, does so because you are particularly susceptible, receptive to that image or idea
THERE'S A REASON FOR THAT and that's why you have to take an instant snapshot of the "thing" put it on a whiteboard and keep it alive.
If not, if for example, your psychic guardians 'don't want you to know" it will be gone, probably forever in 24 hours.
Think of it as a little fall of mud outside a cave. Mark the spot before mud covers it up.
But remember that it is not "inevitable" that the event or memory or feeling energising this connection is SPECIFICALLY something that happened (physically to you). It might be a combination of things. You might never have been touched by the creepy paedophile from next-door who hung himself when you were thirteen, but maybe you heard his name once when you were out drinking with the office-girls and a childhood friend went white, you FELT.... but the group were playing X and now when you hear X you feel torn, twisted.
It could be anything (or nothing, just an accumulation of juxtapositions and pressures from images, words, ideas from your reading/watching.
If demons made someone write Silence of the Lambs, The Exorcist, Apocalypse Now and hundreds of others, what happens to US when we watch them (even if we laugh)? IF those writers were exorcising their demons (if) what do we absorb?
And
So... I access a feeling, a hurt. a memory and I write about something else.
Yes, that's one way. Often directly writing about something merely energises the defences and we get shut down, anyway. But if we can sense the ache-pressure-fear-disgust (or exquisite pleasure) and find some literary outlet that seems to reflect the feeling, it may well be that what we write will be suffused with the "power" of the partly-unearthed memory.
Say I had walked in on my mother fucking the neighbour and not only that but she looked horrible, told me to fuck off (and then extrapolate)
Yes it may be possible to one day unearth the actual memories and write about them as fictional or actual autobiography but often these writings fai because the memories are bitty and we obsess on the missing parts "wanting to tell the truth"
But if, from the feeling we write about a parent betraying a child, a FICTION, we then can use the pain we felt.
Later someone asked, about these recorded "cues", should they keep one warmed up, ticking over, or should they have many?
Of one I said:
No
IT IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING YOU COULD DO
I have many things on the go so the one that wants to can begin to fester and expand. Second two things or more may choose to interact.
Note the verbs. the thing wants to, the thing chooses
NOT the author
One BCer posted this:
It might be worth reading this article which Alex posted on the BC blog.
It came from the notes from a Kingfisher Barn course a couple of years ago, and talks about using half-memories:
http://thebootcampkeegandiaries.blogspot.com/2007/04/little-brown-dog-in-rain.html
and then
http://thebootcampkeegandiaries.blogspot.com/2007/04/theme-truth.html
Note, I am not trying to write (or post) "perfect" articles. I believe that we don't learn so well from the perfectly-formed, but learn better from bits-and-pieces, spontaneous responses which generate questions and then, hopefully, answers.
Thursday 25 October 2007
Friday
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
All day, all night, all weathers
April is the cruellest month
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks
Everyone suddenly burst out singing
Footworn and hollowed and thin
For I have known them all already, known them all
Groping along the tunnel, step by step
Had we been lovers
I believe there were no flowers then
I have come from the borders of sleep
I lay with my young bride in my arms
I lent upon a coppice gate
I love it as a child might love it
I see the image of a naked man
I thought we were sitting in the sky
I was much further out than you thought
It was after the war
Let us go and make our visit
Love without hope
Move him into the sun
No one is twisting her arm but there it is
Nothing but wild rain
Now it is autumn, falling fruit
Once we had toys, pretty toys
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me
Ten minutes to kill
The darkness crumbles
The fascination of what's difficult
The flood subsides, and the body
The staggering girl
The trees are in their autumn beauty
The troubled midnight
The voices carry from everywhere
The whitewashed wall
The words we have for things that die
There is one story and one story only
There will be time, there will be time
They sing the dearest songs
This is my first time here, a stranger
Turning. And turning and turning
We are at the races now
We drank coffee, talked for an hour
We hired a private nurse
We shall pick his bones, whisper
When she rises in the morning
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Why have you made this life so intolerable?
You did not walk with me
You would not know him now
All day, all night, all weathers
April is the cruellest month
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks
Everyone suddenly burst out singing
Footworn and hollowed and thin
For I have known them all already, known them all
Groping along the tunnel, step by step
Had we been lovers
I believe there were no flowers then
I have come from the borders of sleep
I lay with my young bride in my arms
I lent upon a coppice gate
I love it as a child might love it
I see the image of a naked man
I thought we were sitting in the sky
I was much further out than you thought
It was after the war
Let us go and make our visit
Love without hope
Move him into the sun
No one is twisting her arm but there it is
Nothing but wild rain
Now it is autumn, falling fruit
Once we had toys, pretty toys
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me
Ten minutes to kill
The darkness crumbles
The fascination of what's difficult
The flood subsides, and the body
The staggering girl
The trees are in their autumn beauty
The troubled midnight
The voices carry from everywhere
The whitewashed wall
The words we have for things that die
There is one story and one story only
There will be time, there will be time
They sing the dearest songs
This is my first time here, a stranger
Turning. And turning and turning
We are at the races now
We drank coffee, talked for an hour
We hired a private nurse
We shall pick his bones, whisper
When she rises in the morning
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Why have you made this life so intolerable?
You did not walk with me
You would not know him now
Tuesday 23 October 2007
Wednesday Prompts
A broken flower-stem, a broken vase
A man riding horseback raises dust
A thousand mountains without a bird
At last his guilt became apparent
Autumn in California, mild, anonymous
Before the end they chatted with friends over a glass
Careless for an instant How we edge away
Clean, white, starched sheets
Flung across a room An old man, black face
Four or five years ago Romance never returns
From the scrotum of the Yak
He doesn't care he looks strange
He let tears fall and wandered off alone
He speaks from the corner of his eyes
Hours are a small thing A lighthouse
I am a man with few ambitions and no friends
I can stare at him, ashamed, shameless
I have a standing order called "surrender" in case of war
I have surrounded you, I was as cold as stone
I must go back to her, to her embrace
If only we could throw you away
It is impossible to see anything
It is your loneliness, not mine
My head, my shoulders, my arms
Night came and they became more anxious
Nobody knows what love is any more
Pedro has the shoes
She poured the tea. Vaguely I watched her hands
She's big, and big, and full of love
So whisk me off out of here and down some road
Sympathy comes between shit and syphilis
The day before he died Rising from the toilet seat
The ebb run and the flood flow
The isolation hospital Suicide isn't always easy
The morning changed grew chilly and transparent
The nervous hum of danger
Then stand, say nothing; nothing you believe
Then the lights went out Unpacking
This was once an innocent country
This was the end of a man who also died
Twice daily, maybe thrice. It depends on luck
Under a winter streetlamp near a bus-stop
We banged on the pipes, but no-one knew the code
We beat it shitless
We know what's funny and unfunny
We look for communion A wind is blowing
We slept naked, on top of the covers
When I grow up I want to be connected
When she was still alive, we often walked
A man riding horseback raises dust
A thousand mountains without a bird
At last his guilt became apparent
Autumn in California, mild, anonymous
Before the end they chatted with friends over a glass
Careless for an instant How we edge away
Clean, white, starched sheets
Flung across a room An old man, black face
Four or five years ago Romance never returns
From the scrotum of the Yak
He doesn't care he looks strange
He let tears fall and wandered off alone
He speaks from the corner of his eyes
Hours are a small thing A lighthouse
I am a man with few ambitions and no friends
I can stare at him, ashamed, shameless
I have a standing order called "surrender" in case of war
I have surrounded you, I was as cold as stone
I must go back to her, to her embrace
If only we could throw you away
It is impossible to see anything
It is your loneliness, not mine
My head, my shoulders, my arms
Night came and they became more anxious
Nobody knows what love is any more
Pedro has the shoes
She poured the tea. Vaguely I watched her hands
She's big, and big, and full of love
So whisk me off out of here and down some road
Sympathy comes between shit and syphilis
The day before he died Rising from the toilet seat
The ebb run and the flood flow
The isolation hospital Suicide isn't always easy
The morning changed grew chilly and transparent
The nervous hum of danger
Then stand, say nothing; nothing you believe
Then the lights went out Unpacking
This was once an innocent country
This was the end of a man who also died
Twice daily, maybe thrice. It depends on luck
Under a winter streetlamp near a bus-stop
We banged on the pipes, but no-one knew the code
We beat it shitless
We know what's funny and unfunny
We look for communion A wind is blowing
We slept naked, on top of the covers
When I grow up I want to be connected
When she was still alive, we often walked
Tuesday Prompts
Only the Lonely
Long, thick, creamy fingers
Bloodless coup a real letdown
Pressing the smoothness out of cushions
Leaving Birmingham behind
It pulses sometimes. It throbs.
Bob Marley rises from grave
The bathroom on the bus is Out of Order
The boy with a sparrow in his hand
Friends Reunited
A difficult woman
Night at the end of the tunnel
Long, thick, creamy fingers
Bloodless coup a real letdown
Pressing the smoothness out of cushions
Leaving Birmingham behind
It pulses sometimes. It throbs.
Bob Marley rises from grave
The bathroom on the bus is Out of Order
The boy with a sparrow in his hand
Friends Reunited
A difficult woman
Night at the end of the tunnel
Monday 22 October 2007
Monday prompts
Sad stories of the dearth of kings
Moods of the Sea
In the footsteps of courage and catastrophe
Pi
He did not lift the sheet
Four Cows
Purr
The year shifted a little. The blossom fell.
Lit only by a sunbeam
Pure
The smell of the unburied dead
The peacock had gathered its courage
Puree
Warning my father
Purse
You are History. You are Legend
Pursed
Moods of the Sea
In the footsteps of courage and catastrophe
Pi
He did not lift the sheet
Four Cows
Purr
The year shifted a little. The blossom fell.
Lit only by a sunbeam
Pure
The smell of the unburied dead
The peacock had gathered its courage
Puree
Warning my father
Purse
You are History. You are Legend
Pursed
Sunday 21 October 2007
Sunday prompts
Can you handle the angry?
The bustle of waitresses and the chink of silver on china
The second thing that killed my father off
Saturday morning film club with Angela Dawkins
A sweetness of powder and scented things
He stepped around the pie in the driveway
I wish you'd rub my legs and talk to me
Gospel truth
Everything was swept away
Crackling
Killing sparrows was the most festive event
Fingermouse
The bustle of waitresses and the chink of silver on china
The second thing that killed my father off
Saturday morning film club with Angela Dawkins
A sweetness of powder and scented things
He stepped around the pie in the driveway
I wish you'd rub my legs and talk to me
Gospel truth
Everything was swept away
Crackling
Killing sparrows was the most festive event
Fingermouse
Friday 19 October 2007
Prompts for 20:00
There's some of yesterdays here and some openings to novels.
If there's not something for you here, you're DEAD
At sunrise, the small expedition meets beneath a giant fig tree.
During the war years when I was still in school,
Fear presides over these memories, perpetual fear.
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream.
I am a white man and never forgot it, but I was brought up by the Cheyenne Indians from the age of ten.
In order to pay off an old debt that someone else had contracted, King said yes when he knew he should have said no.
It was in the summer of 1988 that my neighbour, 71, confided in me that he was having an affair with a 34-year old cleaning woman
Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.
My name is William Warlick House, residing at Chokoloskee Island, in Lee County, Florida
On the went, singing "Eternal Memory", and whenever they stopped, the sound of their feet, the horses and the gusts of wind seemed to carry on their singing.
Sea birds are aloft again, a tattered few.
She was deeply embedded in my consciousness.
The day didn't begin well.
A stag, proud as a screaming penis
Aardvarks
Abracadabra
After all, he was Welsh
An itch
Avocado
Between you and me
But you, of all people, should not
Cats are contradictions
Chestnuts, Chestnut hair
Cold marble
Crawling
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda?
He was lost in thought as he steered his Sierra through the quiet streets
Hobson's Choice
Horses, snorting, sensing deaths in the field
Human ash is a fine fertiliser
I am considering becoming an astronaut
I count on you naturally I remember, I remember
I dream of gas chambers
I thought my youth would last forever
It's not my vault Let her finish as calmly as possible
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
Moira was in the computer room
My astrologer told me Saturn has been flopped over me like a giant cosmic fried egg
My five senses
No financial disasters
On the whole toads are more interesting than frogs
Of those at the table in the café
Once upon a time there were three little foxes
One for sorrow She must not be anxious
Richmond was a good hour's drive
She could smell it!
Steam spitting from stainless steel pipes
Sybille is in the hands of monstrous crooks
That sweet, watch-baking angel
The air electric The tiny fish enjoy themselves
The buggy lurches in frost-stuck ruts
The first movement is singing
There was a small maiden named Maggie
They get her as little as possible as late as possible
This is a secret final letter This is glorious news
Trees grow like insults
Visiting the poet
Which must absolutely be kept from that angel
Who will honour the city now?
Why soffits are brown, black, white and never pink
You without beginning, you always in between
Your official membership is enclosed
Your sweetness and patience and kindness
If there's not something for you here, you're DEAD
At sunrise, the small expedition meets beneath a giant fig tree.
During the war years when I was still in school,
Fear presides over these memories, perpetual fear.
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream.
I am a white man and never forgot it, but I was brought up by the Cheyenne Indians from the age of ten.
In order to pay off an old debt that someone else had contracted, King said yes when he knew he should have said no.
It was in the summer of 1988 that my neighbour, 71, confided in me that he was having an affair with a 34-year old cleaning woman
Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.
My name is William Warlick House, residing at Chokoloskee Island, in Lee County, Florida
On the went, singing "Eternal Memory", and whenever they stopped, the sound of their feet, the horses and the gusts of wind seemed to carry on their singing.
Sea birds are aloft again, a tattered few.
She was deeply embedded in my consciousness.
The day didn't begin well.
A stag, proud as a screaming penis
Aardvarks
Abracadabra
After all, he was Welsh
An itch
Avocado
Between you and me
But you, of all people, should not
Cats are contradictions
Chestnuts, Chestnut hair
Cold marble
Crawling
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda?
He was lost in thought as he steered his Sierra through the quiet streets
Hobson's Choice
Horses, snorting, sensing deaths in the field
Human ash is a fine fertiliser
I am considering becoming an astronaut
I count on you naturally I remember, I remember
I dream of gas chambers
I thought my youth would last forever
It's not my vault Let her finish as calmly as possible
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
Moira was in the computer room
My astrologer told me Saturn has been flopped over me like a giant cosmic fried egg
My five senses
No financial disasters
On the whole toads are more interesting than frogs
Of those at the table in the café
Once upon a time there were three little foxes
One for sorrow She must not be anxious
Richmond was a good hour's drive
She could smell it!
Steam spitting from stainless steel pipes
Sybille is in the hands of monstrous crooks
That sweet, watch-baking angel
The air electric The tiny fish enjoy themselves
The buggy lurches in frost-stuck ruts
The first movement is singing
There was a small maiden named Maggie
They get her as little as possible as late as possible
This is a secret final letter This is glorious news
Trees grow like insults
Visiting the poet
Which must absolutely be kept from that angel
Who will honour the city now?
Why soffits are brown, black, white and never pink
You without beginning, you always in between
Your official membership is enclosed
Your sweetness and patience and kindness
Thursday 18 October 2007
Three Flash Blasts Tonight!!
and the first is at 7PM
(then 9PM and 10:30)
Here's a list
A brief sickness, a need to get to Paris
A cruising milk-float, the clink of crates
A gap between money coming in and money going out
An itch
As I know with my whole heart
Between you and me
Cats are contradictions
Crawling
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda?
Evelyn, dear
First there was silence
Heroes
I always have plenty of month left at the end of the money
I am a nice, affable woman
I am bored now, with the condescension of my inferiors
I am sending you this little cheque
I cannot ever thank you enough for your generosity
I count on you naturally
I do not want to leave
I gloat and also mourn
I remember, I remember
I thought the Nile was blue, and sane bright yellow
I wanna be a star, I wanna go far
It dripped off though on Octover 22.
It's not my vault
Let her finish as calmly as possible
Let me know if anything grave happens
My astrologer told me Saturn has been flopped over me like a giant cosmic fried egg
No financial disasters
Oh to be in England
On the whole toads are more interesting than frogs
Once upon a time there were three little foxes
One for sorrow
Saris hang on the washing line
She must not be anxious
Sybille is in the hands of monstrous crooks
That sweet, watch-baking angel
The air electric
The small things can ruin one's nerves
The tiny fish enjoy themselves
There was a small maiden named Maggie
They get her as little as possible as late as possible
This is a secret final letter
This is glorious news
Unless I am sure you two are OK
Which must absolutely be kept from that angel
Your sweetness and patience and kindness
(then 9PM and 10:30)
Here's a list
A brief sickness, a need to get to Paris
A cruising milk-float, the clink of crates
A gap between money coming in and money going out
An itch
As I know with my whole heart
Between you and me
Cats are contradictions
Crawling
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda?
Evelyn, dear
First there was silence
Heroes
I always have plenty of month left at the end of the money
I am a nice, affable woman
I am bored now, with the condescension of my inferiors
I am sending you this little cheque
I cannot ever thank you enough for your generosity
I count on you naturally
I do not want to leave
I gloat and also mourn
I remember, I remember
I thought the Nile was blue, and sane bright yellow
I wanna be a star, I wanna go far
It dripped off though on Octover 22.
It's not my vault
Let her finish as calmly as possible
Let me know if anything grave happens
My astrologer told me Saturn has been flopped over me like a giant cosmic fried egg
No financial disasters
Oh to be in England
On the whole toads are more interesting than frogs
Once upon a time there were three little foxes
One for sorrow
Saris hang on the washing line
She must not be anxious
Sybille is in the hands of monstrous crooks
That sweet, watch-baking angel
The air electric
The small things can ruin one's nerves
The tiny fish enjoy themselves
There was a small maiden named Maggie
They get her as little as possible as late as possible
This is a secret final letter
This is glorious news
Unless I am sure you two are OK
Which must absolutely be kept from that angel
Your sweetness and patience and kindness
And More Good News
Not "Boot Camp" but great news for Joel in Finland who wins a top advertising First Place and cash. October is looking pretty good and the drinks are definitely on Joel.
Next up Matt has been awarded £3,000 to launch a magazine in Brighton. (Please note, should any Boot Campers place in Matt's Magazine they will NOT count as hits.)
Third, yours truly will be judging next year's City of Derby Short-Story Competition. This year's second and last year's second were Boot Campers! Boot Camp stories will not be eligible for the comp.
Next up Matt has been awarded £3,000 to launch a magazine in Brighton. (Please note, should any Boot Campers place in Matt's Magazine they will NOT count as hits.)
Third, yours truly will be judging next year's City of Derby Short-Story Competition. This year's second and last year's second were Boot Campers! Boot Camp stories will not be eligible for the comp.
$500 Second Place for Joel etc
Congrats to Joel based in Finland for his $500 second place in City of Derby's Short-Story Competition
Following are the last few hits. That's a thousand bucks won this month!
OCTOBER
142 Joel wins $500 Second, City of Derby
153 Lexie wins HISSAAC $500
154 Tom named shortlist in HISSAAC
155 Jenny Jackson shortlisted at Leaf (and in print anthology)
156 Jason Jackson shortlisted at Guildford
157 DMW's flash "Zombie Jesus: taken by Four Volts Print Magazine
Following are the last few hits. That's a thousand bucks won this month!
OCTOBER
142 Joel wins $500 Second, City of Derby
153 Lexie wins HISSAAC $500
154 Tom named shortlist in HISSAAC
155 Jenny Jackson shortlisted at Leaf (and in print anthology)
156 Jason Jackson shortlisted at Guildford
157 DMW's flash "Zombie Jesus: taken by Four Volts Print Magazine
Wednesday 17 October 2007
DON'T CHEAT. Prompts for 22:00
I'm not feeling brilliant so may not last until 10PM
So here are the prompts
He sold the caravan to a melancholy priest
Kissing old women
A cruise missile passing, just below our balcony
I saw a poodle, crucified
Ten million rooms, all smelling of cigarettes
When you woke, you were more or less insane
The art of losing isn't hard to master
Flour
Driftwood blackened by old fires
A year ago I fell in love with a tailor's dummy
Bogies
Listen to me. I know a lot about melons
We were going to drive to Wales
I inspect her room while she's away
Home is so sad
You passed me as if you hadn't seen, but then you stopped
I think you're an asteroid
Chinese Taxi
Pill
My husband and I
Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday
Answering Back
Zurka the pickpocket was sitting on a bench in a Budapest park
It all started the day of Frankie's accident
Lily once told me that…
Is there anything sadder than an empty station?
I met Eric when he was thirty-eight and I was turning forty.
"I'm here to see the owner."
"So, Franco…"
I served in France, you know.
Every morning she comes on deck early.
A Little Pussy
Honey, I saw your note and understand you're a little upset.
David Time's view of himself began at the station platform, his polished boots.
The Moon has eyes, a nose and a mouth
My greeting protocol is faultless
We live in a cabin next to the river
I am obscure, middle-aged, heterosexual and white.
I'm holding Mamoo's hand. I can't stop shaking
He lay in bed listening to the cat-flap clacking
Social Workers!
He was thinking about Michael Jackson again
She writes her name in ketchup
When I got to school this morning there was dogshit all over the grass.
I grew up like any other clown
On Jericho Beach
I'll tell you a story about two soldiers
They tell you a lot about a person, their stains.
So here are the prompts
He sold the caravan to a melancholy priest
Kissing old women
A cruise missile passing, just below our balcony
I saw a poodle, crucified
Ten million rooms, all smelling of cigarettes
When you woke, you were more or less insane
The art of losing isn't hard to master
Flour
Driftwood blackened by old fires
A year ago I fell in love with a tailor's dummy
Bogies
Listen to me. I know a lot about melons
We were going to drive to Wales
I inspect her room while she's away
Home is so sad
You passed me as if you hadn't seen, but then you stopped
I think you're an asteroid
Chinese Taxi
Pill
My husband and I
Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday
Answering Back
Zurka the pickpocket was sitting on a bench in a Budapest park
It all started the day of Frankie's accident
Lily once told me that…
Is there anything sadder than an empty station?
I met Eric when he was thirty-eight and I was turning forty.
"I'm here to see the owner."
"So, Franco…"
I served in France, you know.
Every morning she comes on deck early.
A Little Pussy
Honey, I saw your note and understand you're a little upset.
David Time's view of himself began at the station platform, his polished boots.
The Moon has eyes, a nose and a mouth
My greeting protocol is faultless
We live in a cabin next to the river
I am obscure, middle-aged, heterosexual and white.
I'm holding Mamoo's hand. I can't stop shaking
He lay in bed listening to the cat-flap clacking
Social Workers!
He was thinking about Michael Jackson again
She writes her name in ketchup
When I got to school this morning there was dogshit all over the grass.
I grew up like any other clown
On Jericho Beach
I'll tell you a story about two soldiers
They tell you a lot about a person, their stains.
Prompts for 20:00
All these years and I still don't understand
Acorns
Black handprints
But let that wait.
Consider the escaped leopard
Dogs etc
Eggs, unfertilised
Fuck You
Great Britain
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me.
Hassocks.
I marinated it in soy sauce and champagne
Jesus Smith, Traffic Warden
King Fred
Lose it before you use it.
May a good wind blow him to hell.
Names so silly they must be made up
Oh for a muse of fire!
Pissing on the flames
Queen Anne
Roasted Hedgehog
Someone tossed a condom into it
He used a lot of vowels
UP
VERILY, verily
XXX Love Hilary
Yanks
ZZZZZZZ
Here I am on the Brighton Line
He's an excellent cook, especially of people
I felt like a quartered chicken
A year ago, I stood at the window, crying
I remember him best with my skin
An unfortunate accident with a circular saw
If they piss you off, shoot the fuckers
I think this is psychologically acute advice
If music be the food of love, what's a boy band?
My suffering left me sad and gloomy
So, while the light fails
The children are exploring by the stream
The naming of cats is a difficult matter
The ship sank
The sorrow will pass but not the conviction
The voices of dead children singing
This book was born because I was hungry
We do not die
To the Indians who died in Africa
Travel is a contrary thing.
We are an old and wise organisation
Well, romance is not unknown here
What we call the beginning is often the end
When I tell you a cat must have three different names
You have proved nothing
You may think, at first, I'm as mad as a hatter
Now that the year has come full circle
Acorns
Black handprints
But let that wait.
Consider the escaped leopard
Dogs etc
Eggs, unfertilised
Fuck You
Great Britain
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me.
Hassocks.
I marinated it in soy sauce and champagne
Jesus Smith, Traffic Warden
King Fred
Lose it before you use it.
May a good wind blow him to hell.
Names so silly they must be made up
Oh for a muse of fire!
Pissing on the flames
Queen Anne
Roasted Hedgehog
Someone tossed a condom into it
He used a lot of vowels
UP
VERILY, verily
XXX Love Hilary
Yanks
ZZZZZZZ
Here I am on the Brighton Line
He's an excellent cook, especially of people
I felt like a quartered chicken
A year ago, I stood at the window, crying
I remember him best with my skin
An unfortunate accident with a circular saw
If they piss you off, shoot the fuckers
I think this is psychologically acute advice
If music be the food of love, what's a boy band?
My suffering left me sad and gloomy
So, while the light fails
The children are exploring by the stream
The naming of cats is a difficult matter
The ship sank
The sorrow will pass but not the conviction
The voices of dead children singing
This book was born because I was hungry
We do not die
To the Indians who died in Africa
Travel is a contrary thing.
We are an old and wise organisation
Well, romance is not unknown here
What we call the beginning is often the end
When I tell you a cat must have three different names
You have proved nothing
You may think, at first, I'm as mad as a hatter
Now that the year has come full circle
Wednesday Flash prompts 1800
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
BYE BYE MCLAREN?
In my craft and sullen art
In the undergrowth, a woman's clothing
In which nothing need happen particularly
It can't be October already?
It is the road now, but I know not where it goes
It isn't just one of your holiday games
Later, bikes leaning against an old tree
Lay your head upon my pillow
Let's go, knock on a good woman's door
A deer, trapped, the dogs loose
A sherbert fizz
About suffering…
After that it was a little easier
Alone, the last legionnaire, afraid
Apples, rotten every one
As the door closes, as the dark envelopes
Before, before there were souls, what then?
Black handprints
Brass Band
Bright and early, fine in his intent
But let that wait.
Consider the escaped leopard
Cycling for bluebells near St Mellons
Duct Tape
Hassocks.
He used a lot of vowels
Here I am on the Brighton Line
He's an excellent cook, especially of people
His was the first corpse I ever saw
I am not respectable or industrious
I felt like a quartered chicken
I had somewhere to get to
I had to move
I have been walking, walking
I have heard that freedom exists
I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by MFI
I'll come, no matter where you're going
In an effort to keep day and night together
Marrakesh
May a good wind blow him to hell.
Midgets demand their cake.
Miss Beatty's Moustache
Mr Justice Gray
My dad just left it by the shed
My mother waits too long
My suffering left me sad and gloomy
Names so silly they must be made up
Not everybody's childhood sucks
Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Passing strangers on underground escalators
BYE BYE MCLAREN?
In my craft and sullen art
In the undergrowth, a woman's clothing
In which nothing need happen particularly
It can't be October already?
It is the road now, but I know not where it goes
It isn't just one of your holiday games
Later, bikes leaning against an old tree
Lay your head upon my pillow
Let's go, knock on a good woman's door
A deer, trapped, the dogs loose
A sherbert fizz
About suffering…
After that it was a little easier
Alone, the last legionnaire, afraid
Apples, rotten every one
As the door closes, as the dark envelopes
Before, before there were souls, what then?
Black handprints
Brass Band
Bright and early, fine in his intent
But let that wait.
Consider the escaped leopard
Cycling for bluebells near St Mellons
Duct Tape
Hassocks.
He used a lot of vowels
Here I am on the Brighton Line
He's an excellent cook, especially of people
His was the first corpse I ever saw
I am not respectable or industrious
I felt like a quartered chicken
I had somewhere to get to
I had to move
I have been walking, walking
I have heard that freedom exists
I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by MFI
I'll come, no matter where you're going
In an effort to keep day and night together
Marrakesh
May a good wind blow him to hell.
Midgets demand their cake.
Miss Beatty's Moustache
Mr Justice Gray
My dad just left it by the shed
My mother waits too long
My suffering left me sad and gloomy
Names so silly they must be made up
Not everybody's childhood sucks
Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Passing strangers on underground escalators
Flash Tonight?
Boot Camp wil have two flash sessions tonight (Wednesday) at 8PM and 10PM
Prompts will be posted here. Why not try this? Give yourself around an hour and just freewheel, unplanned, driven by some response to one or more prompts.
You'd be amazed. Many BCers get their best work from flash sessions.
Post an answer here if you'd want to join us for the evening
alex
Prompts will be posted here. Why not try this? Give yourself around an hour and just freewheel, unplanned, driven by some response to one or more prompts.
You'd be amazed. Many BCers get their best work from flash sessions.
Post an answer here if you'd want to join us for the evening
alex
Morning Prompts
A sherbert fizz
After that it was a little easier
Alone, the last legionnaire, afraid
Apples, rotten every one
Black handprints
But let that wait.
Consider the escaped leopard
Duct Tape
Hassocks.
He used a lot of vowels
Here I am on the Brighton Line
He's an excellent cook, especially of people
His was the first corpse I ever saw
I felt like a quartered chicken
I had to move
I have been walking, walking
I marinated it in soy sauce and champagne
I remember him best with my skin
I think this is psychologically acute advice
If music be the food of love, what's a boy band?
In an effort to keep day and night together
It can't be October already?
It isn't just one of your holiday games
Marrakesh
May a good wind blow him to hell.
Miss Beatty's Moustache
Mr Justice Gray
My suffering left me sad and gloomy
Names so silly they must be made up
Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Passing strangers on underground escalators
People die in fires, the unlucky ones live
She giggles and pulls the trigger
So, while the light fails
The children are exploring by the stream
The musky smell of urine
The naming of cats is a difficult matter
The ship sank
The sorrow will pass but not the conviction
The voices of dead children singing
This book was born because I was hungry
This story had a happy ending but it was going to be too long
To the Indians who died in Africa
Travel is a contrary thing.
We are an old and wise organisation
Well, romance is not unknown here
What we call the beginning is often the end
When I tell you a cat must have three different names
You have proved nothing
You may think, at first, I'm as mad as a hatter
After that it was a little easier
Alone, the last legionnaire, afraid
Apples, rotten every one
Black handprints
But let that wait.
Consider the escaped leopard
Duct Tape
Hassocks.
He used a lot of vowels
Here I am on the Brighton Line
He's an excellent cook, especially of people
His was the first corpse I ever saw
I felt like a quartered chicken
I had to move
I have been walking, walking
I marinated it in soy sauce and champagne
I remember him best with my skin
I think this is psychologically acute advice
If music be the food of love, what's a boy band?
In an effort to keep day and night together
It can't be October already?
It isn't just one of your holiday games
Marrakesh
May a good wind blow him to hell.
Miss Beatty's Moustache
Mr Justice Gray
My suffering left me sad and gloomy
Names so silly they must be made up
Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Passing strangers on underground escalators
People die in fires, the unlucky ones live
She giggles and pulls the trigger
So, while the light fails
The children are exploring by the stream
The musky smell of urine
The naming of cats is a difficult matter
The ship sank
The sorrow will pass but not the conviction
The voices of dead children singing
This book was born because I was hungry
This story had a happy ending but it was going to be too long
To the Indians who died in Africa
Travel is a contrary thing.
We are an old and wise organisation
Well, romance is not unknown here
What we call the beginning is often the end
When I tell you a cat must have three different names
You have proved nothing
You may think, at first, I'm as mad as a hatter
Tuesday 16 October 2007
Too Good?
A question to more experienced writers...
Over the last X years I've experienced the black hole which (I think) is between good beginner/intermediate work and serious writing. You can improve the quality, depth and breadth of your short-stories until they become too good to pick up the previously-regular prizes and publications but you're either not-good-enough or not "in" enough to break into the seriously big places.
You start out a wannabee and sub, sub, sub, then begin to hit. Flushed with success you get a higher ratio of hits and in better outlets. You win a lot of prizes.
Then, suddenly, it dries up.
But you KNOW that this story blows away that winner, and that. You're experienced. You edit, judge, critique, teach. Frankly you can now "churn out" the kinds of stories you had to work hard to create (and then won prizes)...
One obvious answer (wrong, but obvious) is that you, as a writer have "disappeared up yer own arse". You fancy yourself, you've forgotten what story-telling is.
EXCEPT THAT YOU STILL DO PRODUCE PUBLICATIONS AND PRIZE-WINNERS It's just that they are casual, "throw-away" flashes or "games" or fun-stories. Easy stories which gratify very quickly and are soon forgotten.
MANY MOONS AGO I always entered three stories in every competition. In Boot Camp we grade stories and give a mark based on craft, the plot etc. I used to predict the following.
The top scorer (the "best" story) would place NOWHERE.
The intermediate story would make the longlist/shortlist/final.
The LIGHTEST, most trivial story would win a prize.
That must have happened for 75% of the competitions I entered.
One possible explanation is this. READERS for comps.
What level of writing and critiquing skill will most competition readers have? If they are "Joe Public" do they seek to choose absolute quality or "an easy read"? The bigger the comp and the larger the entry the more the problem (if it is a problem) is enlarged. Readers have to read fast and often and QUICKLY choose YES-NO... Do they therefore not have the time to savour the more subtle stories or stories that challenge?
Have YOU Blog-Reader sent more than one story in to a comp and found your makeweight winning while your classy pieces disappear without trace?
Second thought is this, especially where readers are beginning/intermediate writers. I bel;ieve that beg/Int WRITERS will choose writing which is close to what they believe they could write on a very good writing day, downhill with the wind behind them. That is they RELATE to this level of writing. It's currently SLIGHTLY beyond them (but not by much) and so they feel good about the work, identify-with/relate-to it.
But send them a serious work, a slightly heavier work or a very talented work that in the next writing year they could not DREAM of writing, what then? My belief is it scares them or makes them angry, or "pisses them off" or "makes them uncomfortable". The quick and easy solution is to reject.
I know in my own reading, when I was developing as a writer, I "rejected" the great writers as boring and pompous, and over-rated. I began to read stuff that was good general fiction (but not literary) because that felt "classy" but achievable.
That is, what I felt I liked and admired was what I could REALISTICALLY aspire to write. I believe now, looking back, that I rejected truly great work because it made me feel desperately inadequate. No way would i write like that (ever) so what better than to reject it out of hand?
I seriously worry that the UK market for short-stories is not a market for readers of shorts but a market for beginning amd intermediate writers. I read many of the magazines and though stories are often competent it is a very rare story indeed that stays with me for as long as an hour.
They are bland, safe, easy to read, quick to absorb.
I believe that if we modernised a Chekhov story or posted a Ray Carver story, or Alice Munro, or Saul Bellow, or William Trevor, or any one of twenty-thirty recognised top names THEY WOULD BOMB IN UK COMPETITONS.
If Boot Camp is having a flash session (usual max time 75 minutes but often shorter) and I join in, bang out a really fast story, sometimes using all the prompts as a challenge... if I remove typos but don't edit, if I send out that rough, there's a very good chance it will win something or place somewhere.
But if I WORK it. If I write, draft, build, sculpt. if I produce something that's ten times more satisfying, then it will take years to place.
And don't think it's lack of editorial skills. On countless occasions I've pointed out flaws in stories (in Boot Camp, in Seventh Quark submissions, in my work editing for payment and do on). I know what I'm doing.
I'll return to this, but would love to hear YOUR thoughts.
Alex
Over the last X years I've experienced the black hole which (I think) is between good beginner/intermediate work and serious writing. You can improve the quality, depth and breadth of your short-stories until they become too good to pick up the previously-regular prizes and publications but you're either not-good-enough or not "in" enough to break into the seriously big places.
You start out a wannabee and sub, sub, sub, then begin to hit. Flushed with success you get a higher ratio of hits and in better outlets. You win a lot of prizes.
Then, suddenly, it dries up.
But you KNOW that this story blows away that winner, and that. You're experienced. You edit, judge, critique, teach. Frankly you can now "churn out" the kinds of stories you had to work hard to create (and then won prizes)...
One obvious answer (wrong, but obvious) is that you, as a writer have "disappeared up yer own arse". You fancy yourself, you've forgotten what story-telling is.
EXCEPT THAT YOU STILL DO PRODUCE PUBLICATIONS AND PRIZE-WINNERS It's just that they are casual, "throw-away" flashes or "games" or fun-stories. Easy stories which gratify very quickly and are soon forgotten.
MANY MOONS AGO I always entered three stories in every competition. In Boot Camp we grade stories and give a mark based on craft, the plot etc. I used to predict the following.
The top scorer (the "best" story) would place NOWHERE.
The intermediate story would make the longlist/shortlist/final.
The LIGHTEST, most trivial story would win a prize.
That must have happened for 75% of the competitions I entered.
One possible explanation is this. READERS for comps.
What level of writing and critiquing skill will most competition readers have? If they are "Joe Public" do they seek to choose absolute quality or "an easy read"? The bigger the comp and the larger the entry the more the problem (if it is a problem) is enlarged. Readers have to read fast and often and QUICKLY choose YES-NO... Do they therefore not have the time to savour the more subtle stories or stories that challenge?
Have YOU Blog-Reader sent more than one story in to a comp and found your makeweight winning while your classy pieces disappear without trace?
Second thought is this, especially where readers are beginning/intermediate writers. I bel;ieve that beg/Int WRITERS will choose writing which is close to what they believe they could write on a very good writing day, downhill with the wind behind them. That is they RELATE to this level of writing. It's currently SLIGHTLY beyond them (but not by much) and so they feel good about the work, identify-with/relate-to it.
But send them a serious work, a slightly heavier work or a very talented work that in the next writing year they could not DREAM of writing, what then? My belief is it scares them or makes them angry, or "pisses them off" or "makes them uncomfortable". The quick and easy solution is to reject.
I know in my own reading, when I was developing as a writer, I "rejected" the great writers as boring and pompous, and over-rated. I began to read stuff that was good general fiction (but not literary) because that felt "classy" but achievable.
That is, what I felt I liked and admired was what I could REALISTICALLY aspire to write. I believe now, looking back, that I rejected truly great work because it made me feel desperately inadequate. No way would i write like that (ever) so what better than to reject it out of hand?
I seriously worry that the UK market for short-stories is not a market for readers of shorts but a market for beginning amd intermediate writers. I read many of the magazines and though stories are often competent it is a very rare story indeed that stays with me for as long as an hour.
They are bland, safe, easy to read, quick to absorb.
I believe that if we modernised a Chekhov story or posted a Ray Carver story, or Alice Munro, or Saul Bellow, or William Trevor, or any one of twenty-thirty recognised top names THEY WOULD BOMB IN UK COMPETITONS.
If Boot Camp is having a flash session (usual max time 75 minutes but often shorter) and I join in, bang out a really fast story, sometimes using all the prompts as a challenge... if I remove typos but don't edit, if I send out that rough, there's a very good chance it will win something or place somewhere.
But if I WORK it. If I write, draft, build, sculpt. if I produce something that's ten times more satisfying, then it will take years to place.
And don't think it's lack of editorial skills. On countless occasions I've pointed out flaws in stories (in Boot Camp, in Seventh Quark submissions, in my work editing for payment and do on). I know what I'm doing.
I'll return to this, but would love to hear YOUR thoughts.
Alex
NOT Happy
Today has been TORTURE, not very typical of my writing emotions.
Since starting this blog I've become far too aware of process and now I feel it's stopping me writing fresh stuff
Day Seven (Day Three of Year)
001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story part-Done (Torturous Writing)
888 007,670 Words Other Writings
999 017,119 Words TOTAL
999 002,445 Words Daily Average
01 Submissions
Since starting this blog I've become far too aware of process and now I feel it's stopping me writing fresh stuff
Day Seven (Day Three of Year)
001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story part-Done (Torturous Writing)
888 007,670 Words Other Writings
999 017,119 Words TOTAL
999 002,445 Words Daily Average
01 Submissions
Latest on Children in Need
01 Alex, Berkshire
02 Claire, Cumbria, England
03 TomC, Yorkshire
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, England
06 Caroline, England
07 Britbird, Brighton, England
08 The Secretary!
09 Colin, England
10 Missy, England
11 Ants, Leeds, England
12 Ralph New Zealand/London
13 Dave Prescott, Herefordshire, England
02 Claire, Cumbria, England
03 TomC, Yorkshire
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, England
06 Caroline, England
07 Britbird, Brighton, England
08 The Secretary!
09 Colin, England
10 Missy, England
11 Ants, Leeds, England
12 Ralph New Zealand/London
13 Dave Prescott, Herefordshire, England
Tuesday Prompts at 08:00
An artificial tiger
And now look at the results
Dad had gone out in the rowing-boat
Darkness like tunnel walls
Each day we must reckon
Eggs in the cuckoo clock
God is writing a novel
He felt there wasn't enough guilt in the world
He sang the brightness of mornings and green rivers
He wakes, he calls her name
His staring glass eye
I have never visited him in his quarters
I try to imagine "poor"
I went into the bathroom to see
It happened much as he expected, but he was wrong about when.
It was a strange atmosphere on the plane.
Jumping barbed wire fences on an old German motor-bike
Life is a hospital ward, lovers in every bed
Love of art, not others
My mother's wedding ring
Next to her deathbed, a large white fish
Nine months and then you let me out
On top of a wardrobe, his old vest
She screamed for England but lost to a Pole from a dark forest
She was cleaning
Sun. And sky. And in the sky, white clouds
The ankles were tied
We should plan ahead for being dead
Yet you have come here to rescue her
You confront yourself
You had a fancy coffin, go fast stripes
And now look at the results
Dad had gone out in the rowing-boat
Darkness like tunnel walls
Each day we must reckon
Eggs in the cuckoo clock
God is writing a novel
He felt there wasn't enough guilt in the world
He sang the brightness of mornings and green rivers
He wakes, he calls her name
His staring glass eye
I have never visited him in his quarters
I try to imagine "poor"
I went into the bathroom to see
It happened much as he expected, but he was wrong about when.
It was a strange atmosphere on the plane.
Jumping barbed wire fences on an old German motor-bike
Life is a hospital ward, lovers in every bed
Love of art, not others
My mother's wedding ring
Next to her deathbed, a large white fish
Nine months and then you let me out
On top of a wardrobe, his old vest
She screamed for England but lost to a Pole from a dark forest
She was cleaning
Sun. And sky. And in the sky, white clouds
The ankles were tied
We should plan ahead for being dead
Yet you have come here to rescue her
You confront yourself
You had a fancy coffin, go fast stripes
Monday 15 October 2007
Monday Morning 07:50
Big isn't it?
Blue and Green is not unusual
By the St Lawrence
Cousins
Dark Blue Jeans, White T-Shirt
Does Your Mother Know?
Early Morning Coffee
Edward was explaining to Carl about levels
Even Better Than the Real Thing
Get Up, Get Up, Get Up
Goodbye Argentina
Grasshopper
He always wore one glove, carried the other
He had a heart attack and crashed his bus
Here, have this loaf of bread
I AM communicating with you
I am Old Enough to leave, So I Will
I think it was St Mary's but I'm not going to argue
I'm not DENYING anything
It was in those days when I wandered about hungry.
It's a nice addiction to have
Keep On Running
Learning Kung Fu
Leaving the Yellow House
Looking for Mr Green
Marjorie and Emily Short-cutting to school
Miss Jones wants to make love to me
Neighbours
Potassium Permanganate
Reading Chekhov
Sensible Shoes
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window
Sign Here, and Here, and HERE
Sometimes, I think I can hear him
Standard jewel case
Tears Flowed at the Chapel Funeral
They live in cracks, under, behind
Tigger!
Today we have a fire drills
What Kind of day Did You Have?
Whose side, your father's or your mother's?
Whose turn for the shit
Without Poetry it just isn't the same
A Silver Dish
A theft
A very small bone, broken
Air on a G String
Angel of the Great White Way
Bellarossa
Blue and Green is not unusual
By the St Lawrence
Cousins
Dark Blue Jeans, White T-Shirt
Does Your Mother Know?
Early Morning Coffee
Edward was explaining to Carl about levels
Even Better Than the Real Thing
Get Up, Get Up, Get Up
Goodbye Argentina
Grasshopper
He always wore one glove, carried the other
He had a heart attack and crashed his bus
Here, have this loaf of bread
I AM communicating with you
I am Old Enough to leave, So I Will
I think it was St Mary's but I'm not going to argue
I'm not DENYING anything
It was in those days when I wandered about hungry.
It's a nice addiction to have
Keep On Running
Learning Kung Fu
Leaving the Yellow House
Looking for Mr Green
Marjorie and Emily Short-cutting to school
Miss Jones wants to make love to me
Neighbours
Potassium Permanganate
Reading Chekhov
Sensible Shoes
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window
Sign Here, and Here, and HERE
Sometimes, I think I can hear him
Standard jewel case
Tears Flowed at the Chapel Funeral
They live in cracks, under, behind
Tigger!
Today we have a fire drills
What Kind of day Did You Have?
Whose side, your father's or your mother's?
Whose turn for the shit
Without Poetry it just isn't the same
A Silver Dish
A theft
A very small bone, broken
Air on a G String
Angel of the Great White Way
Bellarossa
Sunday 14 October 2007
Sunday Morning prompts
Handkerchiefs from Auntie Maisie
Memories of Birthdays Past
Recycled cards
Bumps
Mouth Like a Parrot's Cage
Daddy, I made this for you …
Rumbleguts
Why Josephine Can't Come to the Party
Annual Excuses
How many candles?
Cardigans and Slippers
The Skin I'm In
Conspicuous Consumption
Four Weddings and a Birthday
Not Old, Merely Mature
The Man Who Saved All His Wrapping Paper
Forgetfulness
Memories of Birthdays Past
Recycled cards
Bumps
Mouth Like a Parrot's Cage
Daddy, I made this for you …
Rumbleguts
Why Josephine Can't Come to the Party
Annual Excuses
How many candles?
Cardigans and Slippers
The Skin I'm In
Conspicuous Consumption
Four Weddings and a Birthday
Not Old, Merely Mature
The Man Who Saved All His Wrapping Paper
Forgetfulness
Eleven Children in Needers So Far
One more this morning, 11 so far
JOIN US!
One more, Ants Davies from Leeds
01 Alex, Berkshire
02 Claire, Cumbria, England
03 TomC, Yorkshire
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, England
06 Caroline, England
07 Britbird, Brighton, England
08 The Secretary!
09 Colin, England
10 Missy, England
11 Ants, Leeds, England
JOIN US!
One more, Ants Davies from Leeds
01 Alex, Berkshire
02 Claire, Cumbria, England
03 TomC, Yorkshire
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, England
06 Caroline, England
07 Britbird, Brighton, England
08 The Secretary!
09 Colin, England
10 Missy, England
11 Ants, Leeds, England
Saturday 13 October 2007
prompts at a Ridiculous Time
A breakfast egg and Otis Redding
A particularly hard stool evacuated from an aeroplane
At gravesides priest will say, "I don't give a fuck."
Bad dreams of old cars
Cream Crackers
Dermatitis
Everytime
Fish and chips on winter nights
Gathering
Girls in bikinis, moonbathing
How she sews.
I have, here, in my pocket…
I want to paint murdered kings
I was born in the village of Much Bickering
If I was ever faithful
It's not true, there ARE intelligent women
Jeffrey Archer, Poet Laureate
Jelly-babies
Kill the thing
Loose
Moths and Lamps
My father planting potatoes
Negro postmen, money, dreams
Old poetry books turn brown and make me remember sadnesses
On a tour of public lavatories
Pick yer Paris Tunnel
Please don't put out the light
Quickly, Press
Refuse
Schoolgirls waiting at a crossing
Since there is no help, let us kiss and part
The dead will quietly bury the living
The first daffodils of autumn appear
There it is, word for word
This line of thinking brought me back to his letter
Tiger!
Tonight at noon
Truth limits man
Untamed Danish Pastries
Virgin
We are waiting for the end of eternity when this guy turns up shouting
When the leaves fall upwards to the trees
When the room is emptied, heat remains
When vegetables retreat
X marks the blemish
Yesterday I believed
Zoo
A particularly hard stool evacuated from an aeroplane
At gravesides priest will say, "I don't give a fuck."
Bad dreams of old cars
Cream Crackers
Dermatitis
Everytime
Fish and chips on winter nights
Gathering
Girls in bikinis, moonbathing
How she sews.
I have, here, in my pocket…
I want to paint murdered kings
I was born in the village of Much Bickering
If I was ever faithful
It's not true, there ARE intelligent women
Jeffrey Archer, Poet Laureate
Jelly-babies
Kill the thing
Loose
Moths and Lamps
My father planting potatoes
Negro postmen, money, dreams
Old poetry books turn brown and make me remember sadnesses
On a tour of public lavatories
Pick yer Paris Tunnel
Please don't put out the light
Quickly, Press
Refuse
Schoolgirls waiting at a crossing
Since there is no help, let us kiss and part
The dead will quietly bury the living
The first daffodils of autumn appear
There it is, word for word
This line of thinking brought me back to his letter
Tiger!
Tonight at noon
Truth limits man
Untamed Danish Pastries
Virgin
We are waiting for the end of eternity when this guy turns up shouting
When the leaves fall upwards to the trees
When the room is emptied, heat remains
When vegetables retreat
X marks the blemish
Yesterday I believed
Zoo
Friday 12 October 2007
Friday Prompts 0800
.
Clarity is brief, the world is mostly dark confusion
Clothes not immediately in use etc.
Do not stand at my grave and laugh
First rehearse the easy things
Fish understand
Glass
He slept with his suitcase which didn't snore
he was knocked down by a rabid dog, bitten ten times
Hendre Hall
Hide behind trees, climb into wardrobes
His rapid growth has left him less rugged
Humidor
I have been walking by the harbour
I have purchased Tom a low steamer trunk
I should like very much to have him keep it under his bed
IF they build a by-pass
My nephew was in Germany and had a terrible time.
Night reunites the house with silence, death walks
Blessing
Not the memory but remembering
Now nothing is scattered, nothing divided.
Tell lies: I love you. I'll be back in half an hour. I'm fine
That was his favourite chair, that his book
The abdominal muscles are still weak
The dogs have stopped barking
The sky is deep but welcoming
Tom's sister died in just such a pool
Unless it is an infringement to the rules
We don't know why Brownlee left, only that he is gone
We have a prejudice against quarry ponds
We hope, in a few years, he will be completely normal
You wake up taller, the day presses you down
Clarity is brief, the world is mostly dark confusion
Clothes not immediately in use etc.
Do not stand at my grave and laugh
First rehearse the easy things
Fish understand
Glass
He slept with his suitcase which didn't snore
he was knocked down by a rabid dog, bitten ten times
Hendre Hall
Hide behind trees, climb into wardrobes
His rapid growth has left him less rugged
Humidor
I have been walking by the harbour
I have purchased Tom a low steamer trunk
I should like very much to have him keep it under his bed
IF they build a by-pass
My nephew was in Germany and had a terrible time.
Night reunites the house with silence, death walks
Blessing
Not the memory but remembering
Now nothing is scattered, nothing divided.
Tell lies: I love you. I'll be back in half an hour. I'm fine
That was his favourite chair, that his book
The abdominal muscles are still weak
The dogs have stopped barking
The sky is deep but welcoming
Tom's sister died in just such a pool
Unless it is an infringement to the rules
We don't know why Brownlee left, only that he is gone
We have a prejudice against quarry ponds
We hope, in a few years, he will be completely normal
You wake up taller, the day presses you down
Thursday 11 October 2007
CIN Update
We now have TEN. We'd like FIFTY
01 Alex, Berkshire
02 Claire, Cumbria, England
03 TomC, Yorkshire
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, England
06 Caroline, England
07 Britbird, Brighton, England
08 The Secretary!
09 Colin, England
10 Missy, England
01 Alex, Berkshire
02 Claire, Cumbria, England
03 TomC, Yorkshire
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, England
06 Caroline, England
07 Britbird, Brighton, England
08 The Secretary!
09 Colin, England
10 Missy, England
Thursday Afternoon Prompts
Pink!
We should have been gallopping on horses
Chocolate Eclairs
Their hooftprints splashes of light
Red Wine
Hauling up lobster pots in a wake of sparks
PERK!
We should have been doing more with our lives
Hunger
She ate monotonous food and thought the world was flat
If I knew, I'd SAY
A card game where a nose was broken
TINSEL
A wedding where the bride punched the groom
BRASS
or a child's purse full of anything
FEWOSHUS
A few peanuts, an orange
HALT
Stop all the clocks
JAM
A wristy buisness
They have dragged the river but my heart is still missing
A one-legged man always puts his best foot forward
Did you say gas?
Father, brother, husband, lover, friend
I smell his shirts, the toilet seat is always down
Since you died, I notice things
After the hospital rang we sent Dad's stuff to a jumble. It was a wrong number
Cars white with frost
I don't feel well
The vacuum-cleaner sulks in a corner cupboard
I expect him many minute now
We should have been gallopping on horses
Chocolate Eclairs
Their hooftprints splashes of light
Red Wine
Hauling up lobster pots in a wake of sparks
PERK!
We should have been doing more with our lives
Hunger
She ate monotonous food and thought the world was flat
If I knew, I'd SAY
A card game where a nose was broken
TINSEL
A wedding where the bride punched the groom
BRASS
or a child's purse full of anything
FEWOSHUS
A few peanuts, an orange
HALT
Stop all the clocks
JAM
A wristy buisness
They have dragged the river but my heart is still missing
A one-legged man always puts his best foot forward
Did you say gas?
Father, brother, husband, lover, friend
I smell his shirts, the toilet seat is always down
Since you died, I notice things
After the hospital rang we sent Dad's stuff to a jumble. It was a wrong number
Cars white with frost
I don't feel well
The vacuum-cleaner sulks in a corner cupboard
I expect him many minute now
Wednesday 10 October 2007
Fresh Prompts
Ashby-de-la-Zouch
Billy Fucking Bremner
Dai K lives at the end of the valley
Eventually it feels like Ireland
GUN
Everyone hates the English (and so they should)
From Wales, the mostly English sector
SPATULA
He said I had a servant's soul and spat into the grate
He seemed like a hollow oak-trunk, covered in ivy
THREE CARDS
I had a coffee, one coffee, with Marilyn Munro
I live in a spelling error
I thought it made me look more working class
It was your lightness that drew me
TURKEY
My father and mother, my brother, my sister
My six year-old said "bomb". They sent an armoured car.
Old damp soaks through the wallpaper
Sewing machine
She makes a quiet breakfast for herself
GONG
She must be from another country
Some say love's a little boy
Three weeks of bad drugs, badass jazz, bad religion
SEVEN
Two fairies skittered behind the bar
We will know who they are by their absence
ROUNDABOUT
What are we waiting for, assembled in the form?
What manner of dying is this?
Where a gunshot scatters acres of birds
Yes, that is the door and behind it they live
Billy Fucking Bremner
Dai K lives at the end of the valley
Eventually it feels like Ireland
GUN
Everyone hates the English (and so they should)
From Wales, the mostly English sector
SPATULA
He said I had a servant's soul and spat into the grate
He seemed like a hollow oak-trunk, covered in ivy
THREE CARDS
I had a coffee, one coffee, with Marilyn Munro
I live in a spelling error
I thought it made me look more working class
It was your lightness that drew me
TURKEY
My father and mother, my brother, my sister
My six year-old said "bomb". They sent an armoured car.
Old damp soaks through the wallpaper
Sewing machine
She makes a quiet breakfast for herself
GONG
She must be from another country
Some say love's a little boy
Three weeks of bad drugs, badass jazz, bad religion
SEVEN
Two fairies skittered behind the bar
We will know who they are by their absence
ROUNDABOUT
What are we waiting for, assembled in the form?
What manner of dying is this?
Where a gunshot scatters acres of birds
Yes, that is the door and behind it they live
Eight Signed Up So Far
01 Alex, Berkshire
02 Claire
03 TomC, Yorkshire
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, England
06 Caroline, England
07 Britbird, Brighton, England
08 The Secretary!
02 Claire
03 TomC, Yorkshire
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, England
06 Caroline, England
07 Britbird, Brighton, England
08 The Secretary!
CIN Night Diary
TomC recorded his experiences of CIN night last year
http://tomconoboy.blogspot.com/2006/11/children-in-need-writing-d_116377669694740422.html
http://tomconoboy.blogspot.com/2006/11/children-in-need-writing-d_116377669694740422.html
CIN Night Sign-Ups
We already have:
01 Alex, Berkshire, England (Writing for Wales!)
02 Claire, ?? England
03 TomC, Yorkshire, England
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, ??? England
99 The Secretary!!!
01 Alex, Berkshire, England (Writing for Wales!)
02 Claire, ?? England
03 TomC, Yorkshire, England
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, ??? England
99 The Secretary!!!
CHILDREN IN NEED NIGHT
For the last few years Boot Campers have joined with other flash-writers to write their hearts out and raise money for UK Charity "Children in Need". Last year I said "Never Again."
Never say Never!
CIN Night is Friday November 16th but we have a lot of practice nights!
The basic format is this. people sign up to write as much as they can (shorts, poems, articles, flashes) between the hours of 6PM Thursday and Midnight Friday (15-16 November)
They do so inspired by emailed prompts which also appear on a few sites.
The prompts will be posted on a one-hour cycle and a 90-minute cycle.
A number of members attempt the straight thirty hours, others 24 Hours, some do both evenings from 6-12,
What is important is that THE GROUP is active for the thirty hours.
We tie up with magazines who print the best stories and we also produce an anthology either in-house or via a publishing house. Two years ago LEAF produced the work in an amazingly short time.
Many of you reading this will know of "CIN NIGHT", how it works and the amazing work it produces. We are still getting "hits" from work written for CIN last year. For some reason the intensity and craziness produces a lot of very very good work!
WHAT WE ASK OF PARTICIPANTS.
Entry itself is £25 or $50.
This is broken down as follows.
£10/$20 for Children in Need
£10/$20 for a prize fund. 100% payed out.
£5/$10 for a single copy of the anthology (overseas post extra)
We also ask participants to raise sponsorship independently. Two years ago we raised over £10,000 and we would like to beat that this year.
WHAT DO YOU GET OUT OF IT?
It's a big challenge, very exciting and demanding.
It teaches you something, that stories WILL come and they will surprise you. More than a few participants have told us that they wrote their best work ever in the 30 Hours of "CIN"
You have a life-experience.
You raise money for Children.
WHAT HAPPENS BEFORE?
We raise the troops. Nobody is registered without the payment as otherwise we get a lot of "time-wasters"
We open up some forums on line for practice nights
We practice (many practice stories are sold)
Some choose to meet up in Newbury at Kingfisher Barn for group-support on the night.
We post actual totals raised, and projected sponsorship amounts
ON THE NIGHT
You get prompts every thirty minutes. use them as you see fit.
You forward stories to the secretary so that they are anonymous, unnattributed.
You write write write.
AFTERWARDS
The group works on line reading and rating flashes to shortlist them down to 50/100/150
The stories are rated "author-blind"
The magazines/publications read (say) the top 100 and select from these, award a prize.
Previously this was done by "Eclectica' a top ezine.
We also produce the paper anthology which will of course be for sale.
Last year we sold 500
WE STILL HAVE ANTHOLOGIES FROM LAST YEAR AND 2005, AVAILABLE FOR £5 EACH PLUS £1 POSTAGE, SHOULD YOU WISH TO SEE WHAT CAN BE DONE.
YOU CAN ALSO LOOK AT THE CIN FLASHES AT ECLECTICA. (GO TO ARCHIVES)
To join us email Alex at
alex.keegan (at sign) btinternet.com
Payments can be made by bank transfer, UK cheque or PayPal
Please note the bulk of monies raised (the individual sponsorships) go direct to Children in Need as we have no desire to handle tens of thousands of pounds. We only deal with the entry fees.
JOIN US!
Never say Never!
CIN Night is Friday November 16th but we have a lot of practice nights!
The basic format is this. people sign up to write as much as they can (shorts, poems, articles, flashes) between the hours of 6PM Thursday and Midnight Friday (15-16 November)
They do so inspired by emailed prompts which also appear on a few sites.
The prompts will be posted on a one-hour cycle and a 90-minute cycle.
A number of members attempt the straight thirty hours, others 24 Hours, some do both evenings from 6-12,
What is important is that THE GROUP is active for the thirty hours.
We tie up with magazines who print the best stories and we also produce an anthology either in-house or via a publishing house. Two years ago LEAF produced the work in an amazingly short time.
Many of you reading this will know of "CIN NIGHT", how it works and the amazing work it produces. We are still getting "hits" from work written for CIN last year. For some reason the intensity and craziness produces a lot of very very good work!
WHAT WE ASK OF PARTICIPANTS.
Entry itself is £25 or $50.
This is broken down as follows.
£10/$20 for Children in Need
£10/$20 for a prize fund. 100% payed out.
£5/$10 for a single copy of the anthology (overseas post extra)
We also ask participants to raise sponsorship independently. Two years ago we raised over £10,000 and we would like to beat that this year.
WHAT DO YOU GET OUT OF IT?
It's a big challenge, very exciting and demanding.
It teaches you something, that stories WILL come and they will surprise you. More than a few participants have told us that they wrote their best work ever in the 30 Hours of "CIN"
You have a life-experience.
You raise money for Children.
WHAT HAPPENS BEFORE?
We raise the troops. Nobody is registered without the payment as otherwise we get a lot of "time-wasters"
We open up some forums on line for practice nights
We practice (many practice stories are sold)
Some choose to meet up in Newbury at Kingfisher Barn for group-support on the night.
We post actual totals raised, and projected sponsorship amounts
ON THE NIGHT
You get prompts every thirty minutes. use them as you see fit.
You forward stories to the secretary so that they are anonymous, unnattributed.
You write write write.
AFTERWARDS
The group works on line reading and rating flashes to shortlist them down to 50/100/150
The stories are rated "author-blind"
The magazines/publications read (say) the top 100 and select from these, award a prize.
Previously this was done by "Eclectica' a top ezine.
We also produce the paper anthology which will of course be for sale.
Last year we sold 500
WE STILL HAVE ANTHOLOGIES FROM LAST YEAR AND 2005, AVAILABLE FOR £5 EACH PLUS £1 POSTAGE, SHOULD YOU WISH TO SEE WHAT CAN BE DONE.
YOU CAN ALSO LOOK AT THE CIN FLASHES AT ECLECTICA. (GO TO ARCHIVES)
To join us email Alex at
alex.keegan (at sign) btinternet.com
Payments can be made by bank transfer, UK cheque or PayPal
Please note the bulk of monies raised (the individual sponsorships) go direct to Children in Need as we have no desire to handle tens of thousands of pounds. We only deal with the entry fees.
JOIN US!
Prompts 07:17 Wednesday 10th
A one-eyed troll in front of a joyless fire
As we fall into step I ask , "A penny for your thoughts?"
As we made love for the third day running, as it rained and rained
Because you didn't go. It's because you never left.
Deep, far off, in the strangest pits
Eeney Stannit!! Eeney Stannit!!
For this, and this reason only I will return your deposit,
He finds the public phone is vandalised
Her lightness drew me, after so many heavy, dark days with you
I feel extremely disappointed that you have to lie and hurl unfounded accusations.
I have put the dogs out, hosed away the shit
I trust we need have know further dealings from this point forward.
If, at your desk, you put aside your work
In front of the mirror in my parents' room
In the middle of the night, if we got up
it is my house, yet one room is locked.
It will be sent to you in the form of a cheque.
LINEN
MUD
No sacred amulets, just a memory of fields in spring
Pity is for the moment of death and the moments after.
Prams, supermarket trolleys, mattresses
Sea-fog, gunsmoke
Since you left, since you left, why, better, better!
Suddenly, after the quarrel
The next day I am almost afraid
The point is how to find a use for anger, like in Monsters Inc. but that was fright.
They are at that stage where the desire that comes between them is obscene
They were queueing for their pensions. It came out of nowhere.
What do you think of my hat?
While the room's stillness deepened, deepened
You gave, and now you say you're poor.
You make a noise like a dog dreaming.
As we fall into step I ask , "A penny for your thoughts?"
As we made love for the third day running, as it rained and rained
Because you didn't go. It's because you never left.
Deep, far off, in the strangest pits
Eeney Stannit!! Eeney Stannit!!
For this, and this reason only I will return your deposit,
He finds the public phone is vandalised
Her lightness drew me, after so many heavy, dark days with you
I feel extremely disappointed that you have to lie and hurl unfounded accusations.
I have put the dogs out, hosed away the shit
I trust we need have know further dealings from this point forward.
If, at your desk, you put aside your work
In front of the mirror in my parents' room
In the middle of the night, if we got up
it is my house, yet one room is locked.
It will be sent to you in the form of a cheque.
LINEN
MUD
No sacred amulets, just a memory of fields in spring
Pity is for the moment of death and the moments after.
Prams, supermarket trolleys, mattresses
Sea-fog, gunsmoke
Since you left, since you left, why, better, better!
Suddenly, after the quarrel
The next day I am almost afraid
The point is how to find a use for anger, like in Monsters Inc. but that was fright.
They are at that stage where the desire that comes between them is obscene
They were queueing for their pensions. It came out of nowhere.
What do you think of my hat?
While the room's stillness deepened, deepened
You gave, and now you say you're poor.
You make a noise like a dog dreaming.
Tuesday 9 October 2007
Tuesday 9th Prompts
Children, fresh as new candles
I am not making a fool of myself
I heard a man shout "Jimmy!" across the street
District & Circle
Escalators, ascending, descending
Corpus Christi
I first learned to swim in my father's study
Long fat summer
You saved me, you ought to remember me
I come from my childhood
At the lake's edge a young man whoops and throws his hat in the water
In the schoolyards, in the cloakrooms, children
The landscape flowed away
He knocked downy soot through the bars of the grate
A wooden turtle
My daughter and me, a manatee
His khaki tie was perfectly knotted
Spring has been postponed
In Kosbad, during the monsoons
In my dreams I have two legs, two arms, you love me
My granny read my future, then left the room in tears
Cheese
I am not making a fool of myself
I heard a man shout "Jimmy!" across the street
District & Circle
Escalators, ascending, descending
Corpus Christi
I first learned to swim in my father's study
Long fat summer
You saved me, you ought to remember me
I come from my childhood
At the lake's edge a young man whoops and throws his hat in the water
In the schoolyards, in the cloakrooms, children
The landscape flowed away
He knocked downy soot through the bars of the grate
A wooden turtle
My daughter and me, a manatee
His khaki tie was perfectly knotted
Spring has been postponed
In Kosbad, during the monsoons
In my dreams I have two legs, two arms, you love me
My granny read my future, then left the room in tears
Cheese
Monday 8 October 2007
Monday 0800
The machinery of grace is always simple
Snow on the roof
The effortless gadgetry of love
Even before I've left I long for this place
Only by moving do we balance
"Missing you already"
I walk with ladies who throw stones
He was walking where he knew it was safe
So much agility. desire and feverish care
Blown downward to the dark
Where the old man was run down
daisies, cowpats
The frost is touching everything before the sun
Like old photographs
by dusk, a clearing
Each shadow sticks
Like a freshly cleaned bathroom,
The whine of distant bandsaws, the creak of dying trees
Snow on the roof
The effortless gadgetry of love
Even before I've left I long for this place
Only by moving do we balance
"Missing you already"
I walk with ladies who throw stones
He was walking where he knew it was safe
So much agility. desire and feverish care
Blown downward to the dark
Where the old man was run down
daisies, cowpats
The frost is touching everything before the sun
Like old photographs
by dusk, a clearing
Each shadow sticks
Like a freshly cleaned bathroom,
The whine of distant bandsaws, the creak of dying trees
Sunday 7 October 2007
Prompts for Sunday Lunch
Food, Glorious Food
The greatest of these is pity
Boiled Beef and Carrots
Isidro's bouffant cock
This is a man
Macho does not prove mucho
Stumbling from one puddle to the next
The women in the woods
Jack wears trousers with an elasticated waist
It's a wrap
Dead souls driven before the wind
I know my parsnips
Down the sides of the sofa
Class
The bitterness of pomegranate pith
A catechism for the 21st century
The greatest of these is pity
Boiled Beef and Carrots
Isidro's bouffant cock
This is a man
Macho does not prove mucho
Stumbling from one puddle to the next
The women in the woods
Jack wears trousers with an elasticated waist
It's a wrap
Dead souls driven before the wind
I know my parsnips
Down the sides of the sofa
Class
The bitterness of pomegranate pith
A catechism for the 21st century
Friday 5 October 2007
More Hits and News of Old Members
After Lexie won HISSAAC we've now heard that TomC was also on the named shortlist
Jenny Jackson is highly commended at Leaf and goes in the anthology.
Another member is shortlisted at Guildford (Results TBA)
And we've just heard that an ex Boot Camper who was with us for a long time and is going from strength to strength (cliche-warning!) has won a very nice $2,000 prize in a highly-prestigios competition. Result not yet formally announced.
Jenny Jackson is highly commended at Leaf and goes in the anthology.
Another member is shortlisted at Guildford (Results TBA)
And we've just heard that an ex Boot Camper who was with us for a long time and is going from strength to strength (cliche-warning!) has won a very nice $2,000 prize in a highly-prestigios competition. Result not yet formally announced.
Friday Prompts 0800
I wouldn't say my brother in law was fat
Amoeba
After seventeen pints of lager
I asked my wife to fill in a questionnaire
In his dreams his hair turns into snakes
There are spelling mistakes on the wall
I've been wondering about drowning
My mummy bought me an armadillo, I kept him under the bed
TOAST
Who the fuck is Jimmy Greaves?
LADDER
There's a monster in the cupboard
My killer's girdling me
How we fall
The machinery of grace is always simple
What country, friends, is this?
When I wake, the rain is falling.
The difference between a racing bike and an omelette
Death Duties
That Fucking Checkhov
After the fair I'd still a light heart
A sound like lifting an airtight lid
Amoeba
After seventeen pints of lager
I asked my wife to fill in a questionnaire
In his dreams his hair turns into snakes
There are spelling mistakes on the wall
I've been wondering about drowning
My mummy bought me an armadillo, I kept him under the bed
TOAST
Who the fuck is Jimmy Greaves?
LADDER
There's a monster in the cupboard
My killer's girdling me
How we fall
The machinery of grace is always simple
What country, friends, is this?
When I wake, the rain is falling.
The difference between a racing bike and an omelette
Death Duties
That Fucking Checkhov
After the fair I'd still a light heart
A sound like lifting an airtight lid
Thursday 4 October 2007
Thursday 07:30 More Prompts
The safe is forgotten.
They'll courier it tomorrow.
I know what the Spanish lady means.
The guilt came in waves.
When they lock me up I will hit a guard.
The first time I saw Annie was at the Pacific end of the Eastbound Interstate 80, about midway between San Fransisco and Salt Lake City.
She was crying at the window.
There are more pigs than people.
When I am asked, I say I'm a quiet lad, I pick no fights.
The school sat among maples on a hillside that sloped down to a river.
No it's the same price as last time.
She passed a sun-dark field-worker
Ian had brought fresh crusty bread from the bakery
She dropped to her haunches, waited.
But adrenalin was there now, phtt-phtt; good old flight-fight-fuck juice.
Behind her was the sea, empty sea.
Red light rushed up through her.
The woman stared. Her mouth was slightly open.
After the efficient cleanliness and the painted lines.
A wire-meshed door in the side of a blob of cream concrete.
This was a quieter week.
The doctor has warmed the speculum in her latex-gloved hand.
The chief engineer was a big, self-indulged man, about forty.
inside the restaurant had been shuttered-gloomy.
The Mother Question.
The museum is quite busy, with tourists and school groups mostly.
My mother sleeps.
I wish, sometimes, I could get at my DNA.
I've made the final cut.
Cold. Grey dawn breaking in a silver line. Lobster pots, fishing nets.
They'll courier it tomorrow.
I know what the Spanish lady means.
The guilt came in waves.
When they lock me up I will hit a guard.
The first time I saw Annie was at the Pacific end of the Eastbound Interstate 80, about midway between San Fransisco and Salt Lake City.
She was crying at the window.
There are more pigs than people.
When I am asked, I say I'm a quiet lad, I pick no fights.
The school sat among maples on a hillside that sloped down to a river.
No it's the same price as last time.
She passed a sun-dark field-worker
Ian had brought fresh crusty bread from the bakery
She dropped to her haunches, waited.
But adrenalin was there now, phtt-phtt; good old flight-fight-fuck juice.
Behind her was the sea, empty sea.
Red light rushed up through her.
The woman stared. Her mouth was slightly open.
After the efficient cleanliness and the painted lines.
A wire-meshed door in the side of a blob of cream concrete.
This was a quieter week.
The doctor has warmed the speculum in her latex-gloved hand.
The chief engineer was a big, self-indulged man, about forty.
inside the restaurant had been shuttered-gloomy.
The Mother Question.
The museum is quite busy, with tourists and school groups mostly.
My mother sleeps.
I wish, sometimes, I could get at my DNA.
I've made the final cut.
Cold. Grey dawn breaking in a silver line. Lobster pots, fishing nets.
Monday 1 October 2007
Boot Camp's Tenth First Prize of the Year
Lexie wins HISSAAC $500
add on Jason Jackson's small hit
and newbie Matt Plass at Twisted Tongue takes us to 153 Hits for the year
$5, 714 earned
add on Jason Jackson's small hit
and newbie Matt Plass at Twisted Tongue takes us to 153 Hits for the year
$5, 714 earned
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