Frustration

Photo by Diana Morrison 25-09-12

What a frustrating morning! I sat down to write a new Morning Tale, but decided that the idea I had was too big for a short story. It would have to be a novel. Now, as I have mentioned before, I have been writing a never-ending  novel for many years now - never-ending because it has no structure and is basically going nowhere. So, I thought, maybe it is time to write a structured one based on my idea. A very scary prospect - but wait! About 10 years ago, I bought the first version of "Newnovelist" - the creativity software that claims ' it doesn't feel as though you are writing a book'! Whoopee, thinks I! It's been installed on my computer for a long while now and I've dabbled with it, but never really used it.

I located it on my computer and opened it. There is so much rigmarole involved with it and certain elements were not working - I believe its on its third version now - that by the time I'd done character profiles and settings - I had convinced myself the original idea was so lame and could not be slotted into the convenient little sub-categories that I couldn't be bothered to take it further. 

I know that there has to be a certain amount of planning involved but it seems to me now, that just getting something down on paper is the most important thing. Ideas can be re-worked and twisted and deleted. My characters can grow as they are being written and the spark stays alight throughout the process. I'm not sure if there is a right or wrong way to produce a credible piece of fiction - but for me spontaneity is definitely the key! 

I shall now take my frustration into a nice hot bath!

Reading v Writing

Photo by Diana Morrison 21-09-12

Considering I call myself a writer - I have actually only just begun to read in the last eighteen months or so. It's not that I couldn't (obviously), I just didn't get any enjoyment out of it. It was on a solo trip to the UK, last year for a funeral that I decided I wanted something to read on the plane. I made for the bookshop at Cork airport and headed for the non-fiction section, as usual. But being only a small bookshop, the array of books, mainly self-help, aimed at  empowering women (you know the ones I mean!) did not appeal to me at all,  and I found myself in the unfamiliar territory of trying to choose a novel. What genre was I interested in? Did I like crime stories, historical, chick-lit? The truth was, I hadn't a clue! I pulled books from the shelf, read the blurb and put them back, I wasn't interested enough to find out what would happen. 

I thought of my own attempts at writing fiction, my never-ending novel and how I always strived to use the best language that I could in order to make it come alive. I thought good writing wins prizes! So I looked through the books again and picked up "The Tiger's Wife" by Téa Obreht, noticing with satisfaction that it had won The Orange Prize for Fiction that year. So that was it. I bought it, I read it, I loved it! This is now how I choose all the books that I read - the novel or at least the author must be the winner of or  long/short listed for a reputable prize (that doesn't include the Richard and Judy Prize!!!!) and I have not been disappointed, well with only a couple of exceptions. I am now an avid reader of what I think is quality fiction. Call me a snob if you like and yes I may be doing myself out of reading some cracking novels, but to have come to reading so late, there is nothing more annoying to me than to read something that has been poorly written, no matter how good the story is.

I am reading Sebastian Barry's "A Long Long Way" at the moment and I have been unable to put it down all morning. I love it when that happens but there is that ever present niggle, that I should be writing. I justify it though by making myself believe that reading other authors is the best form of research  there is!

My recommended authors just now are David Mitchell, Alan Hollinghurst, Howard Jacobson, Anne Enwright, Peter Carey, Kate Grenville and of course, Sebastian Barry.

The Pain and Pleasure of Gardening

Photo by Diana Morrison 20-09-12

During 2010/11 I completed Fetac Level 5 in Horticulture, gaining distinctions in all eight modules. I was very proud of myself. I have always enjoyed gardening. I love the spring time when it is time to sow all my seeds and I love the summer time when my vegetables reach maturity and I can cook them fresh from my garden. The Runner Beans are splendid this year, despite the lousy summer and we got a good crop of potatoes and onions as well. In the polytunnel, the tomatoes and cucumbers are doing well too. 

The down side, of course is the general maintenance and most especially the weeding. I was at "m'lady's" the other day, where the weeds are stubborn and very extensive and seem to be taking over the garden. I attacked them with great ferocity, freeing up the established plants from wild strawberries, over-exuberant mint and tenacious violets. It was a hot day and I was wearing just a t-shirt (and jeans, obviously!) My hands were protected with my trusty gardening gloves, but my arms were bare. I was fairly hungover and not paying too much attention to anything other than the nasty little plants that needed to be pulled. I failed to notice the vicious teeth on the leaves of some magnificent shrubs, whose name escapes me just now (see picture above) and each time I plunged into their midsts, they caught at my arms and tore the skin. I just saw them as little scratches at the time and paid them no heed. They stung a bit, but nothing my addled head couldn't handle. It wasn't until I got home that I noticed the swelling and the awful burning sensation on my arms. Each tiny scratch was surrounded by rings of dark red and I thought I was having some sort of allergic reaction. I immediately found and took an anti-histamine (which was six years out of date!) and on the advice of the "Significant Other" rubbed my arms with a slice of lemon. I nearly went through the roof. The stinging was unbearable and I rushed to the cold tap to rinse off the sticky juice that was causing the most unbelievable pain. Next, he made up a concoction of bicarbonate of soda and water and told me to smear it over the rash. I tested a little on one patch, but it burnt as much as the lemon juice, so it too was hastily removed. I decided to leave it and see how it went - I felt reasonably certain that I was not going to go in anaphylactic  shock, as this would have happened much earlier - but I was panicking slightly, wondering about blood poisoning and the like. Oh, I forgot to say, that I'm a hypochondriac! Anyhow, I went to bed, hoping that my body would  sort it out! However, in the morning, it was still angry looking, although no worse. I took another out-of date anti-histamine and had a bath heavily laced with Tea Tree oil. Within ten minutes of the bath, my arms were merely covered in scratches - there was no angry swelling or burning. I was very relieved.

Another down side to gardening are the insects, grubs and spiders that are inevitable in the great outdoors. I am terrified of them all. But yesterday, I came across such a beautiful creature, that I had to take a photograph of it, (see below). There are always pleasures to counter the pains.

Photo by Diana Morrison 19-09-12

New Story

I have just posted my newest short story on my fiction pages. It is called "Ginger Nuts and Peedy Pants" :)

Blackberries

Photo by Jonathan Harvey 16-09-12

"Blackberry picking in West Cork"

Well despite my lamentations yesterday, the rain cleared away and the sun came out. So I was able to go on my blackberry quest. (Although, I didn't trust it enough to go without my waterproof!) At first, I feared I had missed the season, most of the blackberries along the coast road were withered and hard or else tiny and mangled by maggots. Further down the road, is a town land called  Farrandaw (or Farrandau, depending on who you are speaking to.) We hopped the gate into overgrown fields that run along the top of the cliffs and found that the crop was plentiful. The sun beat down on us, as we scampered through the twisted gorse and brambles, filling up our bags and staining our hands. I saw a splendid Dog Fox scurrying along the far edge of the field, obviously enjoying the change in the weather as much as we were. It was a beautiful, lazy afternoon and such a contrast to the hours I spend, poring over my computer screen, willing something exciting to happen on FB or frazzling my brain trying to write a new story. The only downside is my latent apprehension that there might be a bull in the field. The farmers here very rarely put "Beware of the Bull" signs on their gateposts - but that doesn't mean that there isn't some monstrous beast lurking in a corner ready to charge! Thankfully, there wasn't one and I could relax and greedily grab the luscious berries from their thorny stems! We managed to pick over two and a half pounds of them and they are now sitting in my newly cleaned fridge (I didn't get around to defrosting the freezer as well, I can't do it all!) and will be turned into jam later today.

It is dry today and I have to go to the old lady's garden again for a couple of hours this afternoon, so you can guarantee it will rain again then! The price to pay for living in West Cork!

Photo by Diana Morrison 16-09-12

"The Harvest"

A Change in Season

Photo by Diana Morrison 04-09-11

It was too good to last. After a couple of weeks of the summer that should have come in June/July/August (but didn't!), Autumn has arrived in style - lashing rain, blustery winds and a significant drop in temperature. Having gone completely mad, and blitzed my kitchen and living room yesterday, whilst the sun was shining and the temperature was a pleasant 18°C, my plan for today was to go blackberry picking - (yes, I know I might have left it a bit late)- and get the jam pan out. So it's on to Plan B - the less exciting cleaning of the fridge and defrosting of the freezer. 

Most people do a Spring clean, but for me, Autumn is the time to get my house in order. I always have an idyllic image of the house being tidy and cosy for the long winter months. I imagine myself sitting in front of my open fire (with plenty of fuel to keep it burning) and the room snug and toasty - whilst I sip hot whiskies and spend many pleasant hours with my pens and notebooks and an abundance of fresh ideas. It never happens like that though. Within a couple of days, the house will be back to its former untidiness, the fire will be meagre from lack of fuel. I'll be back to my stressed and neurotic self and all creativity will have gone up the chimney, with most of the heat! Perhaps this year will be different. Ha ha, I always say that! 

Right, I'm off to tackle the monsters in the fridge!

Mews and the Butterflies

Mr Mews

Photo by Diana Morrison 14-09-12

Not having a very productive day today. The computer is on a go-slow whilst the anti-virus is performing its scan and the words will not come. It's always a mistake going on line before I've completed the Morning Tale. But I needed to check for an email and of course, one thing led to another - oh, it doesn't help that my internet home page is FaceBook! The Bell Song from Lakmé came on the radio and I felt the need to share it on FB, which demanded a visit to YouTube and - well you know yourself, how it goes from there. So the tale about the mistress about to be jilted and the other one about the runaway husband running out of petrol on the way to Gretna Green never stood a chance. No matter, I'll leave it for today or maybe try again later. At least I can say I had a go. The screwed up bits of paper around my feet are testimony to that. I suppose I better pick them up in a minute!

I've also spent time, staring out of the window. It is a bright, blustery day in West Cork, and my Buddleia bush is in full bloom. The sweetly scented, lush purple flowers are swamped by a rabble of Red Admiral butterflies and Mr Mews is running around, completely beside himself with joy at having something live to chase. I smile to myself as he patiently positions himself in clumps of weeds, picks his moment, waggles his arse, pounces and...misses! They are too quick for him. I howl with laughter as he unexpectedly leaps into the air, paws flailing pathetically at his quarry, back-flips and lands once again, empty pawed. He played this futile game for half an hour or more - trying not to let them get the better of him. There's a lesson in that somewhere and I know that some time soon, he will present me with his catch - well unless he eats it first! 

Ha Ha - who needs TV when you have a cat not long out of kitten-hood!

Photo by Diana Morrison 14-09-12

Praying for Rain

Photo by Diana Morrison 10-02-12

Well I won't do that again! 

I had  some paid gardening work on Monday. I had planned to start at 12, but I felt so lethargic when I got up, I spent the morning willing it to rain , so I could legitimately cry off! The showers came and went but at the designated time, the sun was out and I had no excuse not to turn up. I arrived at the house and set to work. As always, I am fine once I get going. About ten minutes into my two hour stint, the deities belatedly answered my call and the heavens opened. I worked on for a while, slowly getting wetter and wetter, before deciding I should seek shelter until the shower had passed. After five minutes, it appeared to be letting up and I thought I should continue. No sooner had I recommenced my work, down came the rain again. This time, I felt I ought to carry on and within no time, I was soaked right through to the skin and feeling very uncomfortable. The shower lasted for about 15 minutes before the sun came out again but I fear the damage was done. I can feel a cold coming on - my first in over a year. I guess that serves me right for being so lazy!

I wrote another reasonable Morning Tale yesterday. It tripped very lightly and effortlessly from my pen - always a good sign! It is curiously titled "Ginger Nuts and Peedy Pants" - but I'm giving nothing away! As soon as I have submitted it for a competition, I will post it here in my fiction pages. 

I'm just loving my spasmodic creativity at the moment!

Paralympics

Well done London on the success of the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. When London landed the bid, I was not without a great deal of scepticism and doubt that they could pull it off. I am so happy to have been proved wrong. I'm not usually interested in the Olympics, but this summer I have been glued to it!

The Paralympic games were truly inspirational - true life stories of courage and triumph through adversity. Well done to China topping the medal table with 231 medals, Team GB with 120 and The Russian Federation with 102. Even Ireland shined, having their most successful Paralympics ever, placed 19th on the medal table with 16 medals, 8 of which were gold and Michael McKillop (Irish runner) was presented with the Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award, alongside Mary Nakhumicha Zakayo of Kenya.

The only disappointment for me was the closing ceremony. Why did it turn into Coldplay, live at the Olympic Stadium? With "special guests" Rihanna and Jay Z - why? It was dull, it was bland and it detracted from The Festival of Flame, that was supposedly the theme of the closing. It might have been more bearable if Coldplay had written music especially for the ceremony but shamelessly churning out their own hits and plugging their most recent album, did not sum up the spirit of the games. The marvellous British Paraorchestra should have been centre stage and the music for the Festival of Flame should have been composed for them to play. Channel 4's sloppy presentation of the Ceremony centred  on the uncharismatic Chris Martin so much, that all the elements of the theme appeared as incidental lighting to the poorest live (although noticeably lacking in animation) show, I have ever witnessed on TV. I don't know who cobbled together this effort, that should have focussed more on the dancers and acrobats, but I'm sad to say, that it didn't work for me! London bowed out with a whimper!

Rant over!

I completed a new Morning Tale this morning - I will re-write it and post it here in the next day or so.

Resting on my Laurels

Well I had such lovely feedback on my short story "A Strong Coffee and a Cigarette" that I began to rest on my laurels somewhat. So this morning, I had to force myself to write a new Morning Tale. I did it, but I know that it is nowhere near the standard of the last one. Still, I only do them to conjure up ideas and keep the creativity ticking over and of course, no one will read them unless I want them to. It's only practice and I'm sure that another one will just leap out of me again at some stage, but I've been a bit spoilt - "Coffee and Cigarette" was effortless - I wrote it in less than an hour and re-wrote it in less than half that time. Oh to be so lucky again! 

I have noticed that all my tales tend to be bleak and sad and very emotion centred. I don't know whether that is a good thing. Maybe, tomorrow I will try to write something light-hearted - that should be fun - I don't think I've ever written anything light-hearted in my life. Oh dear, what is that saying about me?

Anyhow, I will check the competition rules and their policy on publishing entries on a personal blog and if it doesn't violate the rules I will post "A Strong Coffee and a Cigarette" on my fiction pages here.

Watch this space!

New Fiction

I have just posted another piece of fiction, The Song of the Siren -  an excerpt from my never-ending novel!

The three excerpts that I've posted all come from one chapter entitled 'Horse Latitudes' - a sequence of disturbing dreams encountered whilst my protagonist is in a coma.  

Changes Afoot

As I seem to be getting a few people coming here and hopefully reading my blog rather than just arriving here by chance and then running away, screaming - I have decided to implement a few changes.

I set this up primarily as a show case for my writing and seem to have done precious little of that. So now, anything fictional will appear on separate pages - the titles of which will appear in the sidebar. Anyone who has actually read through the blog will recognise the ones that are already there, but I will endeavour to include more as soon as I can.

I promise!

Competitions and Rats!

Well that's it then! I've done it! I've just submitted my new short story to InkTears.com Short Story competition! OMG! I must admit I was very pleased with it - which, for me, is saying something. I am not very good at praising my own work. It's very difficult to hear your story in any other voice but your own - if you see what I mean, but I would be too shy to ask someone to read it aloud to me - in case it really did sound like an utter pile of shite! But The Lad read it and said it was "really good" which means he either genuinely liked it or he wanted something! The Significant Other read it and his immediate response was to ask a question about the ending, which I was thrilled about because obviously he was still thinking about the story after it had ended! He also said it was a nice piece of writing - never sure about the word "nice" though! And my lovely friend, gave me some useful feedback, said it was grand and was supportive, as ever. They do say that you should never ask opinions on your work from friends or family as they are likely to be biased and afraid of hurting your feelings - sometimes I just need my ego feeding!!! Fingers crossed for me - please!

There was a rat in a friend's garden today. It looked as though it was sunbathing. I was just helping out with a bit of weeding and was about to empty my bucket on the compost heap. I hate rats. I am also terrified of them. I dropped my bucket, having murmured a few choice expletives (in my shocked and distressed state - I'd never use language like that normally. Well not much anyway!) and rushed to my friend and The Significant Other, who happened to be there making a gate - all sweaty and panicky crying out "Rat! Rat!". They thought I'd gone a bit loopy, too much sunshine, perhaps! (We're not used to it!) My friend is like me, she hates them as well and it was left to the Significant Other to shoulder the shovel with which to smack it on the head and carry out the dastardly deed. He returned with the now lifeless but nonetheless, vile and intimidating creature balanced on the shovel looking very pleased with himself. I half expected him to drop it at my feet as a present as a cat might do. Thankfully, he didn't. I didn't go back to the weeding. We sat in the sun eating shortbread biscuits and drinking coffee whilst the deceased rat floated down the river to the sea!

How Does Your Garden grow?

This is a picture of my courgette plant taken at the beginning of July. I was very excited because it (and the other ten) looked so healthy and lush. Now here we are at the beginning of September and apart from two marrows (that were obviously too much of a challenge for the slugs!) I've been harvesting weedy little things, more akin to gherkins than sleek, long, well-shaped fruits! Why do they keep rotting at the flower end? All my books tell me it's down to slugs but I've put down pellets (organic, of course) and kept them weed free (well almost) and still they rot. I've tried pruning back the leaves so that they get more sunshine (a bit of a joke this summer!) and planting bee attracting companion plants to aid pollination - all to no avail. Could it be down to the amount of rainfall we've had this summer? No solution to that one, I guess, except to grow them inside the poly-tunnel - but I have no room. 

Most of my crops were very disappointing this year. We had to pull the potatoes early, for fear of blight and the onions, which are great but just a little too small. My broad bean harvest was meagre and short lived and as for my turnips, well they got mangled by Cabbage Root Fly! On the plus side though - my tomatoes seem to have picked themselves up and at last, the runner beans are coming. So all is not lost. I love growing vegetables but get very disheartened when things go wrong. 

I wrote another Morning Tale this morning. I think it is my best one yet and will be entering it into a competition. I had it completed in about three-quarters of an hour - well the bare bones anyway. I think I will re-write it this evening - maybe after University Challenge and Only Connect on T.V.! 

I am such a procrastinator!

Creativity

My morning tales are positively dripping from my pen! I am so happy. My main problem as a writer is finding ideas so it looks as though I've conquered that obstacle. Now, just from a sentence, the words just come and a (usually dark and sad) tale emerges. To be sure, they are just rough and need plenty of tweaking, but at least now I have things to work on and polish up and hopefully publish at some stage.

I wonder if it is just me whose brain is connected to a pen. If I try to type - nothing ever happens but put a pen in my hand, it just flows and the characters almost write themselves. This is what happens with my novel. My main character is so real to me (he lives in my head!) that he dictates how he is going to react to the situations I put him in. It's like magic. I wish this gift would make me some money soon though!

The teenager saga of the early hours of this morning went from bad to worse. Four more turned up at about 1.30 am and created noise and mayhem. They left at 2 am, just as I was descending the stairs to be really brave and chuck them out. The lad informed me that one of the girls had had too much to drink  (not in my house, thankfully) and had vomited outside my front door! I then spent the next ten minutes swilling down the pavement with buckets of water to clear the resultant mess. Just what you want to be doing at at 2 o'clock in the morning! I guess there's probably a short story in that too!

Teenagers

It's gone 1 o'clock in the morning and two teenage girls have just come to visit the lad! What do I do? I've told them that they have half an hour and then they have to go. Thank god, I have the bottle of wine up here in my room, at least they can't get drunk, unless - oh my god - they brought their own! I find it very difficult to know what is acceptable. The lad is a night owl and cannot understand other people's need for sleep. Is this my fault? Am I not firm enough? Or should I just go with the flow?

My Chemical Romance have it right when they say "Teenagers scare the living S**t out of me". 

When they're babies you can't wait for them to grow up and when they're teenagers you wish they were babies again.

One thing's for certain, my little biddable boy is no longer biddable!