Writing about words about writing

This is my favourite dictionary. My infuriating eye for detail compels me to tell you it weighs in at sixteen pounds and has 450,000 definitions. If it isn’t in here, it hasn’t been coined. Sometimes the words tumble over each other in their excitement to get out, at others they must be coaxed gently...

Writing scares me. I fear the blank page and the blinking cursor so I am forever noting interesting potential titles and preparing subject matter. A tall glass of ice-cold Diet Coke, beaded with condensation sits at my side as I trawl my list. Music off to permit total concentration. If the family is in I wear tight elbow/forearm support against my dreaded RSI and type, if they’re out I plug in the mic and speak aloud and freely to the PC.

Ready, steady go...

Once I thought more words made better sense. Now I understand they only confuse. The clever trick is to make your point using the fewest words possible. I can’t banish adjectives and adverbs entirely from my page, so I try to choose them carefully. A noun improves with qualification but becomes muddy with an adjectival clause. A verb is perhaps not the right verb if it requires an adverb.

An image forms in my mind, part of a story I want to tell. I want to describe the view so the reader sees it too. I Imagine videotape rolling, describe exactly what I see, especially the trivial and keep to the plot. Painting a picture with words that approach the subject from an unusual angle can make it spring off the page in colour.

I select a recent photograph (from the five or six I take every day) relevant to my thoughts. Next I define the limits of my subject. Now I plot a beginning, a middle and an end. Finally I am ready to write. The shorter the better, a reader will grow bored after a thousand words. I dream up enough phrases to attract attention but hold some back. Over-egg the cake, and that rich diet makes everyone bilious. The best results come quickly and without effort. No good hurrying the words, the harder you chase them around your head the deeper they hide.

Kill the PC, slip on my trainers and take a walk. I pick up my MP3 player on the way out, press in the ear-buds and scroll through four hundred albums. ‘Kaiser Chiefs’ will do today. Listen hard to the lyrics (don’t forget I need a lyric quote for my blog too.) Today’s words will emerge later, when I have stopped thinking so hard and the coast is clear.

Middle-aged forgetfulness often robs me of my best, most startling thoughts. Now I know I must snatch them from the space between eyes and screen and commit them to Word© before they are lost forever. Spell-check, proof read etc... I want beautiful prose, deep thinking and iron-clad, copper-bottomed accuracy. Mostly I fall short of my aspirations. I pour another impossibly tall glass of ice-cold Diet Coke.

I am a true Virgo, demanding perfection in myself as well as others. I keep writing and refuse to admit I am human...

"I know, I feel it in my bones,
I'm sick, I'm tired of staying in control."
Kaiser Chiefs - Everyday I Love You Less and Less

My New Black Rocket

 

I started riding motorcycles in 1979. I rode three hundred and sixty five days a year, rain or shine. My fingers turned yellow with poor circulation. Everywhere I went I arrived cold, wet and asking for somewhere to hang my leathers. We did the weekly shop by bike and rode the bus when we took the kids out. Finally in 1987 I succumbed to the inevitable pull of four wheels and a roof. I sold my last bike, a Yamaha XS750 and bought a Ford Cortina.

Eighteen years later I am hopping nervously from one foot to the other in a Yamaha Dealership. The guy says I can test ride the FZ6 just by showing him my licence! Thank fuck I passed my test in’79. Nowadays it’s all Compulsory Basic Training, Practice and Theory and wiggling between traffic cones. Even if you pass they make you ride a miniature sewing machine for two years!

Slinging my leg over the seat I start to feel apprehensive, Eighteen years off a bike is a long time. These things go like rocket-ships now don’t they? What if I’ve lost my nerve? The guy thumbs the starter for me and the four-stroke burbles.

“It’s running in, keep it below 5,000rpm.” He advises. “See you in an hour!

I peer at the dial, hell this baby sings all the way to 14,000rpm!

With just a touch too much throttle and a precautionary glance over my shoulder I pull out onto the highway. For ten minutes I snake through a deserted industrial estate, familiarising myself with balance, weight and power at low speeds. This is all coming back to me...

Now I take to the main roads again. Two gear changes and its pulling seventy mph. I ease off for a roundabout and take it like a chicane, flick left, right then left and accelerate hard. I feel the old familiar buffeting of the wind and tears streak from the corners of my eyes. God this is fun!

Back to residential streets and I zip around the houses feeling the brakes and suspension working. After half an hour my gear changes are quite smooth and I’m at home again. Yep, I’m sold. This one’s for me.

---

That was two weeks ago. Right now a spanking new example sits in my garage. Nice new leathers, crash helmet and gloves too.

For the technical this is a 600cc four-cylinder fuel-injected, four stroke. Liquid cooling makes it nice and quiet and its fat 180mm rear tyre sticks to the road like glue. 98bhp and six gears haul it from 0-60mph in 3.9 seconds. Disc brakes all round stop it from 130mph on a sixpence (dime.)

I’m gonna be a fair weather weekend rider. Sure I’ll slide a knee on the road for fast, tight corners that’s what you do! But I know I’m mortal and I have no plans to bring forward my departure date! I intend to have some fast(-ish) safe fun. Twenty years ago I had a huge ‘off’ which put me in hospital so I know the limits.

---

This is an old interest rekindled, a link to some good memories and happy times. I believe this is a good move for me. I have music and now I have a bike. Life is getting richer and fuller. Not a cheap investment at all but add up what a drinker spends. In a future post I’ll explain how I saved a small fortune in the last eleven years by quitting booze.

A man of many parts, most of them faulty

Part One: Today I know there is no point to anything. Nothing I have ever done was worthwhile. I am incapable of accomplishing the simplest task to my satisfaction. Future days bring hell. I can never make myself understood. My worth is approaching zero. A glance in the mirror reveals the face of an idiot. I am my own harshest critic. A forty seven year old man speaking like an eight year old child...

Fifteen years ago I admitted defeat. My doctor prescribed Temazepam and Lofepramine. I systematically reject most offers of help and so of course I rejected these. The addictive properties of anti-depressants did not make sense to me. Detect the faint whiff of burning martyr? Yep, right on. I asked for help and when it was offered I turned my back. All I accepted was a sick note for work. I declined to talk to any form of counsel...

I am independent to the point of stupidity. I would perform my own dentistry if I knew where to buy novocaine. I don’t need help. I told the world to fuck off and I shuffled backwards into a shell of denial and misery. I lost friends. Who needs friends when you have misery to enjoy?

Part Two: I’m a lucky guy. The sun is burning my neck from high in the sweetest, bluest sky ever. I have two supportive sons and my wife, enough money and independence to indulge my passions to excess and a lovely house. I have the electronic gadgets I need and some I don’t. I am blessed with a loyal best friend.

I am free of addiction and I have reached middle age without losing any limbs. I have all my own teeth and a few remaining hairs. I have friends in the blog world. My corporate employer has yet again reached the point in the business cycle where they might consider paying off a load of old-timers. Just gimme that cheque...

Part Three: Which one is the real me? You know the answer, both are me yet both are faulty. Monday I am so pissed-off I can barely mutter a greeting to anyone. I want to hurl out all my prized possessions. Tuesday I listen to the best music ever driving with the windows down, write beautiful words and smell the sweet mown grass in my garden.

I am good at swooping from euphoria to misery, often within hours. I like the way I am. I don’t pretend to be anything I am not. Work colleagues think I’m unfathomable, I talk in riddles and appear aloof. Stuff ‘em, I know which people I value, they are right here.

And just when you think you know someone they unload all this... No, now I think about it you guys all read between the lines anyway.

"I’ve got a little black book with my poems in."Pink Floyd – Nobody Home

Strangers in London

I scribbled this several months ago and some will already have seen it. I was inspired by the sights and sounds of a recent long day out in London. Always impressive yet still good to get home...

Pitch black lark calls, buttered toast with blackest coffee
Drying roads and pale blue skies call strangers to the smoke
Limo ditched at regal Kew and silver tube to town
Riding grey steel rails we are ticket-holding folk.

Vaulted halls hold timeless works of brush and oil
A nation’s treasures staring back with tired eyes
Guards of ancient age asleep by priceless charge
Room by giant room we mark them off, each prize.

Heavy surge of grey and green slides under famous bridge
Bobbing craft ply upstream against its mighty weight
Then turn and race the homeward leg with ease
Pavements mirror skies as dark as grey wet slate.

A pin-stripe holds his lunch in tiny carrier bags
Power-dressing blonde clicks by in tall black heels
White beard tinged with yellow smoke stares as
Rider swoops through red lights, locks his wheels.

Canary Wharf recalls the days of cutters hauling loads
Of ginger spice from islands never seen
No dockers carry barrels now but still the traders profit
Their wares remain unseen except on screen.

Isle of Dogs now glitters, a city of glass and steel
Half a million souls at work from fifty storeys high
Peering over Limehouse Reach or gazing over Greenwich
So far over London that I think a man could fly.

Eyes smarting from the wind, feet numb tired and sore
So Hampshire seems a better place to spend the evening hours
Say farewell to crowded roads and streets of shabby style
A shire boy has had enough today of spires and towers.

"London calling at the top of the dial,
After all this won't you give me a smile?"
The Clash - London Calling

A tiger by the tail

Meet 'Smartie.' He is our new nine-week old kitten and he's absorbing way too much of our time. His coat is dark chocolate with just a few creamy grey stripes. Although not purebred, there is a high percentage of Maine Coon in him. Despite being a lover of animals I have resisted pets until now, I would like a dog but it just isn't fair when you are out all day. The dogs that I know appreciate and even demand a lot of attention. A cat is much more self-sufficient.

He runs like the wind, jumps at his own shadow, climbs into the tiniest spaces and inspects everything. Around the house he has found various small objects that have become favourites for attack! He has also discovered several secret, dark hiding places. He is litter tray trained too, which is a real bonus. Cat owners among you will know all these sentiments but bear in mind I'm still a learner...

I wake up during the night to find a soft ball of fur sharing my pillow. In the morning I awake to see a small tiger's face staring at me from inches away, purring happily. After only ten days it already seems like he has always been here. Today he went for jabs, micro-chipping and a general health check. The injection has left him sleepy, miserable and less friendly although we are told this will pass. (My eldest son and his fiancee took two from the same litter to their new rented bungalow.)

There are more photos of Smartie on Through the Lens. What a little sweetie!

Forever touched and changed

Enough of frivolity let's get back to bleak issues... I took these bottles out of a cupboard especially to photograph them. I keep them as a reminder. Someone who drinks twice a week for pleasure may never see the full horror which alcohol can visit upon a human being. Please continue drinking twice a week and enjoy the chemical high and the stimulus to your conversation. You have no problem and never will have. In fact there is no need to read this warning. You are so lucky.

 

Anyone who used to drink to control shaking and who could not manage a single day without eventually passing into a stupor might read on. Despite eleven long years of sobriety I am astonished how near temptation always is. The inner voice still murmers “Just one won’t hurt.” Oh dear my friend no, that way lies madness. Let me tell you without prettying it up: That’s fucking crap it’ll kill you. You see once you have been touched by this curse you have it forever.

Last week I had my recurring dream. I am swallowing two or three cans of beer an evening and waking early with no hangover. I’ve cracked it, social drinking is a reality again! But all that euphoria evaporates as soon as I’m on the hook, I quickly move on to total loss of control and drink everything in the house. I am at square one again. It cheated me. I awake in a sweat, scared but sober.

My work colleagues know I never attend Christmas parties, leaving parties, birthday lunches, retirement get-togethers or social evenings. They know my reason and I think they respect it. I hate the sight of people losing self-restraint, I would rather drink bleach than sit in a bar with a Perrier while my colleagues drink. I hold strong views but hell I joined the fucking club, I think that entitles me.

Please don’t tell me I’m negative, there’s very little I’ve discovered about prolonged drinking that’s at all positive. Remember I am not talking about the lucky few who drink yet never suffer the craving of addiction. This is about the luckless souls for whom discipline is lost. Drinking has had such a profound effect on me and those around me that I’m hardly going to be ambivalent am I? Hear this message clearly: “If you pick up again you don’t start off at the beginning. The slate is not wiped clean, you pick up precisely where you left off, in the fast lane at full speed.”

 

Since quitting booze in 1993 and cigarettes in 1997 I have saved a small large fortune. I am not bragging just stating facts. The financial incentive was huge for me. I take holidays, I've paid off the mortgage early and bought things I would not otherwise have afforded. More importantly I have probably saved or potentially lengthened my life.

I have been changed irreparably by drink, I am less confident now and I feel like a huge part of my life has been hacked off and discarded. I am more emotional, alive and alert than ever before. I wish I could be a normal drinker, but I can't. I can never say 'never again.' You can’t can you, but I know I benefit enormously from the words of wisdom and encouragement that I read on the blogs of my readers, former drinkers and non-drinkers alike. Thank you all, my friends.

“I once called you my friend, now I'm stumblin' once again
I'm slurrin' words & bustin' bottles over the heads of saints.
I know it's been so long, but I still see you when your gone
I still feel the weight of that look upon your face almost every day.”

Slobberbone – Stumblin’

Tagged by Doughgirl

Normally I avoid these questionaires but when the sender is none other than Doughgirl how can I possibly refuse? I wouldn't dream of disclosing all this stuff to anyone else you know!

What time did you get up this morning? – 07:02 (approximately!)
Diamonds or pearls? – diamonds to give as a present
What was the last film you saw at the cinema? – Jurassic Park! (watching DVDs on the big TV is better than any cinema)
What is your favourite TV show? – Cracker/1990s (I've now almost stopped watching TV)
What is your middle name? – Francis
What is your favorite cuisine? – anything vegetarian
What foods do you dislike? – but not beetroot or celery
What is your favourite crisp/chip flavour? – salt and vinegar
What is your favourite CD at the moment? – it's still Green Day/American Idiot
What is your favorite song? – of all time its The Libertines/Time for Heroes (2003)
What kind of vehicle do you drive? – Ford Mondeo (old and black/green)
What is your favourite sandwich? – grated cheese and tomato
What characteristics do you despise? – arrogance, selfishness
What is your favourite item of clothing? – my leather jacket
If you could go anywhere on vacation, where would you go? – Alaska
What colour is your bathroom? – white, black and grey
What colour pants are you wearing? – long grey bermuda shorts
Where would you retire? – Mars (or anywhere with no people - but internet access!)
What is your favourite time of the day? – twilight
Most memorable birthday? – I ignore my birthday
What's the last thing you ate? – cheese omelette
If you were a crayon, what color would you be? – black
What is your favorite cartoon character? – Bart
What is your favorite flower? – tulip
What fabric detergent do you use? – Surf
Coke or Pepsi? – Coke
Do you wish on stars? – no but I do wish
What is your shoe size? – UK12
Do you have any pets? – Smartie the new kitten
Last person you talked to on the phone? – my friend
What did you want to be when you were little? – grown up
What are you meant to be doing now? – nothing at all. I have a free evening
What do you first notice about someone? – eyes, beyond any shadow of doubt
What was your favourite toy as a child? – I had none that I remember
Summer or winter? – winter (colder and darker the better)
Hugs or Kisses? – hugs. Long and tight
Chocolate or vanilla? - chocolate
Living arrangements? – married with 2 grown up sons, 1 still using this hotel
What is under your bed? – a very narrow gap
In how many cities have you lived? – Poole, Bournemouth, Truro, Southampton
Favourite movie of all time? – Memento
Mountains or beach? – mountains
Full names of your potential kids? – grown up and planning their own kids
What is your usual bedtime? – 22:46 (approximately!)

Now you know just a tiny fraction more about me.