Avoiding the Titanic!

The hardest thing about sitting down and getting that book or article written is motivation. Staring at your coffee as it gets colder and colder, with a minature Titanic playing hide and seek with an imagined iceberg will not get you there. Nor will that old, but extremely reliable friend, procrastination!

So what's my secret? I don't really have one, I just sit down and write, anything, whatever comes to mind and then « little by little, bit by bit » what the heck is that song doing in here? To continue, the flow begins to take hold and the words appear as if by magic! Well, not really, I sometimes have to stop and think about certain words or phrases but if I spend too much time doing this I find that any motivation I had will suddenly decide to go on holiday. But I'm still in front of my computer screen and I haven't given up. Perhaps that should be the most important thing to keep in mind, never giving up. Any kind of artistic creation, is there to be shared with as many people as possible. What you create, nobody else can, so let yourself be inspired by each and everything around you. Go to a bar, watch and listen as customers interact with each other. Try to imagine what they live outside and why they've decided to come and have a drink. Perhaps some of them are celebrating whilst others are there to drown their sorrows in « one more drink before they go to the valley below! » Ok it should be one more cigarette but the beauty of writing anything is that even if you can't change the world, you can change the rest to suit your mood. The allusion to the Titanic earlier on is there to help you understand that unlike the ship you are unsinkable even when life gets you down. Just hang on in there, and get pen to paper.

To help in keeping motivated I found this video which I'm sure the other person will be only too glad to share. Enjoy, and keep on writing.

KAFKA (1991) ADAPTATION (2002) BARTON FINK (1991) THE INVISIBLE WOMAN (2013)
LIMITLESS (2011) STRANGER THAN FICTION (2006) 

STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING (2007) FINDING FORRESTER (2000) SUBMARINE (2010) HEMMINGWAY AND GELHORN (2012) THE GREAT GATSBY (2013) RUBY SPARKS (2012) MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011) ANONYMOUS (2011)RAVEN (2012)

Just a bit of Erotica.

Life is made of dreams and reality. Personally I prefer my dreams, they help to escape from reality. Writing is a way to make your dreams become reality,your reality. Then it's up to your readers to decide if the reality you write about is really real! Still following? I said in a previous post that I was just that little bit crazy, you have to be in order to write. How many people are stuck in their day to day routine,their nine to five jobs surrounded by what can only be described as working boredom. Suffering from multiple reunions,kowtowing to the big and the little bosses in order to stay in, and comply with the rat race. I've lived through that and survived,that was what I talked about in my last post « Going crazy and Surviving! » Today I'm back to what I was meant to do,write!

Yesterday I posted a nice poem, today it's going to be a « cheeky one! » Why cheeky? Well because it's a little bit erotic. I can see you all waiting with baited breath and impatient to read it, or at least some of you are. Writing Erotica is probably one of the higher, if not the highest paying markets for those of you who are looking to make a few dollars from you favourite pastime. I'm evidently talking about writing,not Erotica!

Here's my small contribution to the above. Love it or loathe it, but it's all mine. It came from a dream to become a reality on a virgin white piece of paper.

Summer Night.

Her
soft down
covering
the secret
passage
that led to
unexplored
liquid bliss,
sweet kisses
that brought
me back to life,
her hands
caressing
what my body
had to offer
and
the
thought
of
yet
another
sleepless
night.

Keep on writing.

Hope you like the video that goes with this. I know the song is in French but you can't tell me that it's not erotic.

I Am a Rock - Simon

Going Crazy and Surviving!

Quite a few years ago a french workmate said the following to me during a short break:- « Il y a un tel bordel là dedans je voudrais pas y habiter! » Don't worry, here's a rough translation:- « It's such mess inside your head I wouldn't like to live there! » We were talking about the way we think, and how we adpat to different situations in life. As someone who has written lots of different things over the years I'm beginning to think that he might have been right! Why? Well, simply because as a living,walking,talking human sponge I've swallowed and stored an enormous amount of emotional criteria which I've used in my writing. That's ok when you are alone with your thoughts and ready to pull them out to be used in a story or a poem, but when you try to explain the process to someone who has never written a word they start looking at you as if you're just that little bit crazy. Not that it bothers me a lot I'll keep on writing because I understand where I'm going! Just to give you all an idea about what I write I thought I'd post the following poem. Someone, I don't remembe said reading my prose was like falling down stairs! Why not? So be prepared to tumble!

 Contemplation 
  I know that you are there hiding behind a smile,
 a fleeting look
 a shared word,
 a coffee, growing cold on a pavement café.
 I know that our paths have yet to cross
 the signal yet to turn to green,
 but I know that you are there
 innocent as one can be
 time and tide having drawn lines on our world worn faces.
 In a crowd,
behind an unopened door
 In a dream
 before daylight brings
 remorseful wakening,
 leaving that look
 that said yes to my every desire,
 the hand that touched my soul
 before my aching body.
 Wrapped in quiet solitude
 I contemplate what will never be.



 All the best and keep on writing.

UK Authors.

I thought I'd tell you about one of the best Writer's site on the Internet. It's a place where you can meet lots of fellow writers and be inspired by the diversity of things written and shared. You'll find constructive criticism along with a friendly and open attitude from all of the participants. I have a few things on there and I have also had the chance to be published twice in their annual anthology. Why not pop in and have a look round I'm sure you'll find something to please. It's here. Drop me a line to tell me what you think but not too heavily please I can be a bit fragile at times.

Back again,Iknow how boring is this guy going to be today? Well not too much I hope! I wanted to know if any or a lot of you knew about Wordweb? It's something I use everyday and when you see how it works I'm nearly damned sure that you'll all rush to download it. The best thing about Wordweb is that it's absolutely free. Yep! FREE now even the richest amongst us like free stuff "by the way I'm not rich!" so why hesitate? When you are typing out any kind of copy it's always useful to have a dictionary close at hand to check and doublecheck the vocabulary you've used in the document. Heavy paperbacked dictionaries are ok but cumbersome, online ones are better, but for me Wordweb beats them all. Give it a try and let me know what you think. Get it here Not sure if I have anything else to say this morning which I find is the best time for writing anything be it copy or the opening lines of a short story. I might be back later on as I have a few things to attend that have nothing to do with writing. Until then cheers for now.

Just in case a lot of you forgot yesterday was Sunday so I decided to take some time off and leave my computer tucked away in it's favourite corner. However, today is another day so here I am again,like it or loathe it! A while back I talked briefly about using photographs as inspiration for your writing today it will be about paintings that stimulate the creative process. Just to show what I mean I'm going to use the song « Vincent » by Don McClean to illustrate my point. The video below has been seen by over ten million viewers. The reason is simple, joining this song to the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh shows just how two different subjects can be brought together to give us a real moment of pleasure. You'll have to admit that the verses of the song reflect with perfection the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. If only we could dig in to all of the emotions that other artists use to create their works I wonder just how many other songs could be found that would have the same resonance? So what do I suggest outside of reading books about Hopper or Egon Schiele or others is to go to your local art gallery with your notebook and write down any and all the emotions that you encounter when being gathered into the painting. I say gathered in because a painting is like a book, you have to lose yourself in it's interpretation in order to feel any kind of emotion. As you are all writers this should not be an unfamiliar thing to understand.