Narrated Songs

http://homepage.mac.com/alternativeman/sounds/songfiles3/theghosts/index.html

Ooberman's Honeydew - http://www.ooberman.net/wm/honeydew.m3u

Can anyone else think of any narrated songs: prose stories rather than spoken poems/ raps.

Jenny The Obscure

I’ve been struggling a little bit over the past week with my (short story) writing. My shorts writing tends to be obscure, very niche and experimental. Whatever market these kinds of shorts of mine have, it’s very limited. So I’m almost wondering if it’s worth developing such stories. I think I will always write them because they help me learn and they inform my more mainstream novel writing. But I wonder if it’s worth sharpening them for submission to magazines and publications. I’m not sure I should bother showing anyone these stories at all.

Yesterday at one of the two writing groups I attend (the cliquey one), I read out one of my particularly obscure pieces that I am considering sending somewhere. It did not get a good reception. One member was actually quite rude about it. No one there understood the piece. Their reaction was ironic, given the meaning of the piece. I guess in some ways the piece was like a Buddhist Koan (sort of!) and they were reading it from a rational angle.

I think the story failed because it really needs to work on both a rational level and also on a deeper level. I’m still learning, but yesterday’s reaction was off-putting.

Murakami is one of my favourite authors. This is because you can read many of his stories on those two levels. When I first read Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World I thought it was amazing, but I only got hints of the deeper meanings. Since the first reading I have researched into Jungian theory, and now I see that Murakami’s story is very heavily influenced by Jungian theory, to the point that it’s pretty much a narrative version of the Ego/ Shadow/ Animus theory. I’ve also started to research into Semiotics and there’s stuff about that hidden in there too.

I’ve got a lot to learn and it’s pretty daunting. I have no teacher, so it often feels like stabbing in the dark and I feel that I won’t reach the levels I aspire to for a very long time and I’ll have to continue on in this same intense full-time level if I’m ever going to get there.

I think I will take Murakami’s words below to heart and accept that I cannot please everyone, but I have to make sure that those that share my philosophy really, really like it.

This quote is from Murakami comparing running a jazz club to writing a novel:

Even when I ran the club, I understood [that you can't please everybody]. A lot of customers came to the club. If one out of ten enjoyed the place and decided to come again, that was enough. If one out of ten was a repeat customer, then the business would survive. To put it another way, it didn’t matter if nine out of ten people didn’t like the club.

Realizing this lifted a weight of my shoulders. Still, I had to make sure the one person who did like the place really liked it. In order to do that, I had make my philosophy absolutely clear, and patiently maintain that philosophy no matter what. This is what I learned from running a business.

wedding

Mr Kite's sister got married on Saturday. I think it was the best wedding ceremony I've been to. It was a humanist ceremony and they'd done all the boring legal registry stuff the day before, so there was no waiting around for dinner and fun. The whole thing was awesome, except maybe the DJ, who was less awesome.

Bride versus Groom in a tug of war. He didn't let her win. He has much to learn.

raaayyy! Free booze.

In This Garden

The garden is coming along:

salad garden with peas, spring onions, rocket, mixed lettuce, spicy salad mix, winter puslane and red beet.

spicy salad. excellent in hummus sandwiches.

Jostaberry flower

blackcurrents getting some colour now

mustards have bolted, but the flowers look beautiful and taste good in salads too.

All in pots waiting to go into the ground.

A misty morning a week or two ago.

Current Project Research: collected massive attack shorts #1

I’m currently working on a new short story project that has formed out of an experiment with a Massive Attack song. I was listening to my MP3 player and Babel came on random. Martina Topley-Bird’s lyrics are hard to decipher, but something in the song captured me and gave me a clear sense of narrative.

I tried to find the lyrics online, but most sites ignored the last couple of stanzas or clearly got bits wrong. After listening to it very loudly for a few hours I managed to basically figure out what she might be saying:

Say "it was her babel"
Said it was my babel
It was my babel
Tell all people

Now you know it's over
Rolling off her shoulder
You can take a lighter to the shadows and forget
Was it how she kissed you and then dismissed you
Was it purposeful and was it just to hook you in

Hallucinating, chasing, changing, racing
Breaking, hating till you lost it all
Well you lost your girlfriend, she was not going
Where you were going, you are on your own

He was quick to burning
He was slow to learning
Though his eyes were misted
He still kissed her when she cried
You did your best to replace her
You didn't up and leave her
You befriended the harsh way it ended
Now sleep tight

Hallucinating, chasing, changing, pacing
Bracing, breaking, if you lost it all
Was it all your good
Reachin into it
That lead you to me
I would have craved the love

I wanna be the one that should've said "Truth and not dare"
I'm running so far out of my head
This rain of heart that ripples my day
Can never said what was thinking, wait
Mmm...

So this was the starting point. Here are some other elements I wanted to bring in:

Semiotics/ Saussure/ Lacan

Misunderstandings/ Miscommunication

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Plus some other stuff. Despite all of these influences, it’s really a simple YA story that reflects the narrative that I interpreted from the lyrics. I'll post it up in a few months when it's sharper.

Now Babel is drafted, I’m starting research work on the next short; either Atlas Air or Splitting The Atom.

Cooking in the Woods

Myself and Mr Kite went to the woods over the weekend to cook for a bunch of hungry woodworkers who were learning how to make stools using green wood, shave horses and pole lathes.

The kitchen.

the workshops

log cabins/ campsite

we slept in this one.

The bath area (in progress). The bath is heated by a fire underneath.

Kukaw!

A story of mine titled Kukaw! has been featured on the excellent lit blog Cherrypicked Hands. Read it by clicking here. There are lots of other amazing literary things over there, mostly poems, and also an amusing email exchange.

It's the first Shaftesbury Arts Centre Creative Writing Group* meeting today. I am a co-organiser of the group along with awesome fantasy/ sci fi writer Jennifer K Oliver who initiated everything. We've got an amazing programme lined up for the group, there will be biscuits, and we will learn things. I'll link you to our website when it's in operation.

*working name. It'll be shorter and punchier when we think of a shorter and punchier name.