Ideas Bank (MA MS)

I've started my MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa.
It's a lot of work.

I'm collecting things for my novel or a future novel or a short. The stuff below is actually for my own benefit, so I can find these links again in the future. If I email them to myself the emails will get lost in amongst boring stuff. So that's the justification for this post, which to other people will probably seem out of place.

Character scrapbook: older man, well dressed:

http://www.chictopia.com/HajimeTakahashi



character scrapbook:
point of interest: cardigan.



Fi's housing estate

The world/ the kinds of people who populate it:

Most of my novels have a playlist attached to them, or a style of music or a particular musician that represents something about that world or a character within it. The idea behind this is that I begin to form an association between that music and the novel, so if I need to work on it and I'm struggling to get into the zone, I can put on the associated music and be instantly in that zone. It's always difficult at the beginning because I've not yet formed that association. Here's some music that I think will form the association for my MA novel

character association: Ross (and Fi)

(four tet in general, as well as the four tet/ Burial collaborations.)

(awesome video!)

character association: Fi

Balam Acab's entire Wander/ Wonder album 

character association: Mark

Geofiction, author talk, art shows, story slam, book launch, cvhf: Busy times.

Since I last wrote the following things have occurred:

I've been busy over at Storyslingers organising a geofiction competition, fictional worlds event and exhibition of fictional maps. Here's just two of my personal favourites:


Winner, Jeffery Bebee:  http://jeffreybeebe.com/?v=collection&collection=4

Map of Western Refractoria

original: inks on watercolour paper

Jeffrey Beebe,

b. Indianapolis, IN

Lives and works in NYC, USA

Kvraagetaan

original: coloured ink on 60 sheets of black paper

Juli Martí Casals

b. Barcelona, Spain

https://www.facebook.com/undixmillieme?fref=ts

Check out the rest of the winning and shortlisted entries over on the Storyslingers blog. This collection of various geofiction is (to my knowledge) one of the first in the world.

We've also hosted authors Jaine Fenn and Susan McLeod (both published by Gollancz) who came to talk about their work and experiences in the world of professional authorhood. We may have a blog post coming about that talk, keep checking back at the Storyslingers blog.
Talking of which, that's where I've been blogging recently, so if you're ever wandering what I'm doing, chances are you can find out over there.


(image by Dan Morison, go over to kickstarter and look at his awesome forthcoming tabletop card game, The Agents. Pledge a little money to the project and you get to be one of the first owners of this game along with the stretch goals, which are fast unlocking because the project is very popular)

I'll be moving to Bath in October to start an MA in Creative Writing, so looking for a place to live is top of my list right now. On a recent house-hunting trip I popped over to Bristol for the preview of Antlers' new show Spatial. Check it out this week, it's worth taking a look - the show continues until the 10th of August at Temple Studios, near Bristol Temple Meads station. Antlers is a roving art gallery representing some really talented young artists.

http://www.antlersgallery.com/artist/geoff-diego-litherland

http://www.antlersgallery.com/artist/matthieu-leger

Earlier in the month I went to London to see another art show: http://www.fleeceshow.com/ which was excellent. 

photo by Matthew Heaton-Blankley

http://fleeceshow.com/artists/Matthew_Heaton-Blankley.html

 And I've been invited to co-organise another story slam at Bridport Open Book Festival, so keep a look out for that - it'll be on October 16th at the Beach & Barnicott, It's an open mic event. Judges include YA author Katherine Kelly, Julie Musk - editor of Roving Pree and flash fiction expert - Gail Aldwin of What the Dickens Magazine et al. 

Also, I attended Winchester Writers Conference, Neil Gaiman's launch of the Ocean at the End of the Lane (my good friend Jennifer K Oliver wrote about it on her blog: http://jenniferkoliver.livejournal.com/56388.html

And I went to Chalke Valley History Festival, which was fantastic. Storyslinger Amanda Thyme wrote a review for Do More magazine http://www.domoremag.com/Dorset/All+Towns/News/News+-+Festivals/Chalke+Valley+History+Festival/33419.html

Who needs to write a blog when you can link to all your friends' blogs?

(image by Jennifer K Oliver: http://jenniferkoliver.livejournal.com\)

Documented Walk May 2013

I went on a decent cycle and walk on Tuesday and documented it visually and aurally. 

I cycled from Madjeston to Pen Selwood: 

I've admired these gates for years. 

Soundscape for this view:

Soundscape: 

Soundscape:

Walking:

I've set some of my novel in this combe: my favourite place in the world.

Soundscape:

soundscape: 

http://tmoliff.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/hambledon-n.html

Hambledon (n.) The sound of a single-engine aircraft flying by, heard whilst lying in a summer field in England, which somehow concentrates the silence and sense of space and timelessness and leaves one with a profound feeling of something or other.

soundscape: 

soundscape without visual documentation of a horserider and his dog: 

View from Coit Mawr to Ynys yr Afalon (Selwood to Glastonbury Tor)

cycled through the forest. This road is great to cycle along: very exhilarating.

view over Coit Mawr towards Caer Pelladwr (Selwood to Shaftesbury)

soundscape:

First Impressions poster

check out this poster I designed for the artists Amanda Keyte and Marie De'Ath. If you're in Shaftesbury from May 13-18, then pop along to the arts centre and look at their exhibition. 

Fictional Map Making Competition

I love maps of fictional places. Such creativity and imagination! 

I'm running a fictional map making competition with my writing group. Check it out. I've had maps from across the world coming at my inbox and I like it. 

The deadline is May 21st.

http://storyslingers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/fictional-worlds-map-making-competition.html

https://www.facebook.com/events/116005088581822/

In other news: I'm writing. Last week I was mostly gardening, professionally. This week I will be mostly writing, non-professionally (for now). 

I am writing a fantasy novel set in Dark Age Britain. Think Wells Towers, think Samurai Champloo, it's not those things but those things are good things. 

Tunes

Writing is going well. I'm listening to a lot of new music (new to me). 
The garden is not doing so well. 
But who cares!
When we have words
and funky music

Ideas Bank

Here's an ideas bank for a forthcoming project that is based on a really old project.

Kids coming together into edgelands to create new spaces, to learn about themselves and each other, to make something from nothing without interference from an institution or state: freedom (consider Society of the Spectacle/ Guy Debord). These spaces are more important than council created skate parks, more inventive, less controlled, a place where man and nature meet. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zq87b

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00vdxt5

“A core element in virtually all these developments remains a dissatisfaction with the nature and design of the modern environment and a desire to make the everyday world more interesting.”

Nature/ bio-diversity thrives in transitional areas. 

photography, the sublime, edgelands, Jung, psychoanalysis, The Uncanny, Freud. 

http://www.weareoca.com/photography/edgelands/