It’s been too long. I know. The reason? I’ve been writing,
and working, and going places.
Here is a sample of interesting things I’ve been doing or
seeing since my last post in September:
Iain M Banks book signing and talk. 70% of the evening was
spent on a train or train platform, 5% walking from the train station to
Toppings and back again, 25% in Toppings listening to Iain M Banks talk about
the Culture, which is something I know little about because I’ve never read any
Iain M Banks sci fi, other than State of the Art. The portion of the talk I
caught was interesting more for learning his writing processes than anything
else. He’s a wing-er. He belongs to the “because it’s cool” category of popular
writers.
Shaftesbury Arts Week, map making competition, hanging out,
putting on prose and poetry evenings in small places. http://storyslingers.blogspot.co.uk/
Wimborne Literary Festival, a talk from fantasy author
Suzanne McLeod and Sci Fi writer Jaine Fenn. It was pretty poorly attended, but
pretty rich in how interesting and entertaining it was. People missed out on a
high calibre event there.
I’m getting some informal and occasional mentoring help from
Winchester Uni lecturer Amanda Boulter. She’s been helping me hone my skills on
my current novel.
I’ve been writing said novel, a fantasy set in Arthurian
Britain in 508AD.
And reading a lot of history books and doing countless
character profile worksheets and exercises.
DWN’s Nell Leyshon workshop: Finding Your Character’s Voice.
This was a well-pitched workshop with plenty of practical exercises that not
only got the creative juices going there in-session, but can be re-used out of
the workshop. For the first time in a long time I came away from a workshop with
new ideas, new techniques and newly inspired.
Listening to Alt J, Marbert Rocel (and remixes), The Dead
Weather.
Stephen Coles is a sculptor with an MFA from Alfred, New York State, and now has a studio on his dad's Dorset farm. A couple of weekends ago Mr Kite and I went over to help him with an iron pour. My role was pretty safe and easy: take photos. Everyone else was kitted out in full leathers and visors; sand and water easy at hand.
The moulds ready for molten iron
Pouring.
Exciting stuff! I think the next pour will be bronze; casting a mince pie among more practical things. More on that later.
Dorset is a great place to live. We're surrounded by beautiful countryside, inspiring people and soul-enriching music and literature. I've only recently come across PJ Harvey, and now she's won the Mercury Prize I'm starting to pay her proper attention. After listening to Let England Shake, and then quickly downloading White Chalk, I can really feel Dorset in her lyrics and in the quality of her music.
When I write stories there is something I want to capture, and I think that PJ Harvey has managed to capture something very similar. I hope that someday I will be as eloquent as she.
Yes, PJ Harvey does Dorset proud, and I get the feeling that Dorset does PJ Harvey proud.
Listening to Let England Shake makes me think that no one who truly feels patriotism would chose to go to war, other than to defend their land. To attack another territory is about as un-patriotic as you can get. We need nothing more than this glorious land. No other territory can match it.
I made a new bear for Mary's birthday: Dorset Bear! She's wearing the flag of dorset, on a ribbon around her neck is a mammalian skull found on a walk, as well as a beaded necklace that can double as a bracelet for Mary.
I have to go on a walk everyday otherwise I start to loose connection with what’s important and what isn’t. The only days that I don’t go on walks is if it’s raining heavily or I have become too neurotic and sucked into what I am working on, which usually happens when I haven’t gone on a walk in a while.
Yesterday it rained all day. I did not go for a walk. My words started to slip and get lost somewhere between my animus and my ego.
The day before yesterday I went for a walk. I thought I was gone less than an hour, but when I came home it was already 6pm. I’d been walking for almost three hours. When I walk I try hard to push verbal thoughts out of my head, to live only with what my eyes see, my ears hear, my nose smells, my skin touches, my tongue tastes. Anything beyond this, anything verbal, I try to dispel. I am a verbose person, I guess that’s why I choose to write stories. If I’m not careful I start to drown in words. It isn’t good. It isn’t healthy. I have to take a break sometimes.
I am very fortunate to live in a stunningly beautiful place. The things I feel for this land are extremely primal and powerful. I love this land more than I love almost anything else. Within walking distance of my little white cottage there is so much to see. Here are some photographs of just a tiny amount of the treasures they lay in the surrounding three miles of my house. I don’t often photograph my walks because the process of photographing what is around me detaches me from my surroundings. I get stuck in Plato’s Cave. But I’ve walked these paths so many times that I think it’s now ok to respond to them from a reflective, detached point of view, on occasion.
This is the foundry. It’s been slowly decaying for 14 years, left abandoned. In 1860 the largest water wheel in Europe was in operation at this foundry (60ft diameter), and this was where the wheel was made. Bomb casings for WW2 were made here. It’s had countless uses, and now after hundreds of years of operation this place lies silent; a window into our history. A lot of the villagers want it to be demolished, because it's been decaying like this for 14 years and they think it is ugly. I think it is beautiful. It's a magnet, it draws in young creative people from all over. Music videos have been filmed here, art and photography projects inspired by it, graffiti artists turning the peeling white paint into a huge canvas for their work.
In a small wood beyond the foundry, up past the golf course, there are a number of underground bunkers that were built in WW2. They have something to do with the nearby Zeals airfield, which was in operation at that time. When myself and my siblings were children we’d play here, afraid that tramps lived in the bunkers. Even to this day I approach them with caution, terrified some bedraggled old man will stagger out into the light.
A view of the forest.
New Lake. I sat here on the shore for a long while, watching the herons and a strange black bird. Not sure what that was. It was huge and hulking and beautiful, nesting in the corner of the lake I think. This lake is very close to the famous Stourhead gardens.
This forest is quite large and stretches from here up to Longleat. One day I will walk from home, from the most Southerly point of this forest, right up to the most northerly point.
This is my favourite place in the whole world. It doesn’t capture well on the camera because its beauty is subtle. I can sit in this coombe for hours on end and never feel bored. A small stream bubbles down the trough of the valley, dragonflies darting across the water. Beyond the valley is a small copse in which is a witch’s cottage.
And here we are parallel with the foundry, back near the start of the walk. The distant view of Shaftesbury across the vale. That’s a town where most of my friend’s live. Sometimes I wish I lived there too, because though I am very shy, I like to be in the company of my friends. I don’t have a car. The town is up a steep hill. I am not fit enough to comfortably cycle it yet.
Where will I walk today? I don't know. I try to let my feet guide me and not plan it out in advance.
It seems to take me 2 weeks to process things and then remember I sometimes keep a blog and that maybe I could put something up on my blog.
About 2 weeks ago my local free-sheet paper published a review I wrote of a musician I saw at a local town fair. I've been to loads of local town fairs before, and they always play the same second-rate local cover band crap/ wannabe Raging Speedhorn freaks who should stick to playing in their daddy's barn. That sounded really mean, sorry if you have a death-metal band in North Dorset with five groupies who look like this:
The band I wrote a review for was very different. For a start it was a one-man band, and secondly, he makes awesomely good music. Here's the review (click on picture to read):
