just a song

So I've been holed up in our friends' cottage (swanky, I know) just a stone's throw from Bamborough Castle and how lucky am I? Very. Not a holiday, but a rather feverish week of song writing and snatched meals. Well, sort of snatched. In fact not snatched at all. I'm just trying to sound like a consumptive poet in a garret. We had very nice meals in fact, cooked in the main by Colin, who can turn his hand to most tasks - even whilst fading one thing, sliding another, balancing this and thumping that (sound-engineering and percussion, in case you're wondering). He rustled up Thai curry, fish soup, and something with rice, not sure what, but it was gorgeous. As for me, my famous ham and lentil soup and a rather dodgy looking but tasty sausage, bean and black pudding mess, with enough left over to have on toast next day at lunchtime. Odd combination, but hey! If all else fails I could market that. We didn't attempt the belly buster breakfast in Seahouses. In fact, who does? Half a pig, a plantation of tomatoes, a mile of sausage and anything else you want to try, all thrown into a stotty the size of Kielder. Who can eat all that? The mind boggles. We had the mini version, which was just fab and it made a change from brekkie at 'home'. Great place, by the way, the cottage. Guinea fowl in the garden, peacocks on the lawn (well, not our lawn, exactly)with that weird call of theirs, and just over the dunes, the sea with a deserted beach. Bit cold for a plodge, mind you, but an early morning canter over the sands and an early dusk amble across the fields to the pub (rather more of the latter admittedly) was just about enough to keep us together over the days. My friends wouldn't have recognised their neat little cottage in the dunes after we'd festooned it with leads, trailed it with wires, plastered it with blank pages and turned it into a recording studio. Never worked so hard! Nonetheless exhilarating. And years of lyrics collecting like cobwebs on my desk and in my computer swept out and put to use with the excellent tunes of Tony S. Now though, back home, I feel like my brains have been scrambled. The next step is mixing down ( I know the terms, get a load of that!). Hmm. Is it mixing up...? Anyway that's going to take someone a very long time to do. So be patient, dear reader. (You are out there, aren't you?) And if I ask you to become a 'dear listener', if we can persuade ourselves to UTube some of this, would you do me the honour and give us marks out of ten? No. On second thoughts, just listen. I wouldn't want any of that Simon Scowl judgementalism aimed at our songs. No siree.

too much

It feels like these months have whizzed by. Too much work, not enough writing time, too much waiting for things to happen, not enough writing time, too many emotional family moments, not enough writing time, too much of this, that, and the other. And so it goes on. Life, you may say. Just a few more weeks at the university to go but have started a ten week stint at a school, and about to start a four week stint with elders of the city. You know, that's the politically correct term but to me elders are trees, but there you go. Meanwhile, so as not to appear totally inadequate and paralysed by the stuff of life, I have been writing short stories, selling a few, rewriting rejected ones and sending them back out. Hey, I like these stories and refuse to just bin them and plodding on is a major part of my character. Anyone important out there, just remember that. Which brings me to the vague worry that there isn't anyone out there, not at all. You could prove me wrong, of course. And yet why worry? There's a whole world of worry out there all crammed into one country, and a minute's silence at a rugby match just shows you. House of card, paper, bamboo, home of the Haiku, I salute you. Worry too.

technology technology

So I've just set up my songwriting computer package, designed for Luddites like me, apparently, only judging by the tutorial video, they don't know what a Luddite is. Whizz whizz, click click, move the mouse and Bob's your uncle. No. No. No. Take me through the switching on, the finding of the actual switch, the actual clicking, flicking glory of making it go. I mean it guys, I can write a story and I can write a song, but sometimes I can't find the switch to turn things on, and you know I'm not the only one, so just tell me where the button is first. Is that too much to ask? Take it slowly, monosyllabically, through to the next teensy weensy step and so on. Don't care how long it takes. Just get me there, toe by toe.

like a dog at a bone

It seems to me that if you really like a story, just hammer away at it till it's the shape they want. They meaning the editors. There's a poem about that somewhere. John Donne I think. Only he was referring to something entirely different and probably more important. Yet, my elephants were important to me, and now they've been accepted. Let's hear it for the baggy skinned, bun eating, feet the size of tyres (and some) favourite animal of mine. I have a mantle-piece full of them, as those who follow my every word will know. Ha! As if! Anyway, they were marching up to the manger last Christmas, now they're walking down a village street in post-war England, ready to wow an audience which hasn't seen a circus for a very long time and isn't sure it wants to. Third time lucky. The first rejection was to do with it being unrealistic. OK it was told through the eyes of a donkey (where'd that come from, you might ask; read the story when it comes out and you'll see), so I stopped donkey thinking and made man think instead... and some who know me know my thoughts on that... talk about a reality check... but then his actions seemed unrealistic. Second rejection, tempered with -but we liked it - so I changed his actions too. Anyway, acceptance at last. So hey ho. Off to the bank I go. By the way, there are some sniffers out there who rail at the very idea of (me) writing for money. I nursed for money. I stacked shelves for money, once upon a teen time, and I sing for money. Does that make me a bad person? Answers on a post card please. Or here would do. Can of worms time, perhaps.

clarinet

So, because once I played the soprano sax, I now have a clarinet. Christmas present. Those who claim to know all, and in fact don't, told me -the fingering's the same, babe. A doddle. You can do it. Well, it's not, as it happens. And up till now I can get a very nice tone on the lower register but murdering cats on the upper and it's a mind warp thing, cos the register shift key doesn't rack you up to another octave, at least not the one you're expecting. So. Not the same. Not nearly the same. And so many blinking levers. You could drive a plane with all those levers. Not to worry. Perseverance is my middle name. My writerly friends can tell you that I stick like dog do to any project till Ive seen it through. However long it takes. Though not a button accordion. I gave that up. After a year. Is there a Clarinet and Accordion Shelter anywhere? Ebay probably. Back to the easier task of shaping Megan so that they love her to bits and can't wait to put her in a book and shelve her. Shelve her? That can't be right. Isn't the English language a marvellous puzzle!

the ghost is dead

So this is how it goes. Major storyline now surgically removed from Megan's story. Not quite as painful or traumatic as I thought and after three weeks agonising over it just sat down and did the darned things cos that's what you have to do. Less is more. And I think it is more.
Meanwhile off to uni to teach a semester in creative writing, off to school to teach eight year olds creative writing and tell some stories to little munchkins in first and second year primary. Also just talked myself into taking a week and recording some new material with ace guitarist Tony. At least, that's the plan as long as our friends who own that nice cottage near the sea can spare it for five days. Crikey, can't believe I've initiated this! But I can feel songs just ready to go, having been buried catacomb-like. If you want to know about the ghost well maybe that's Megan, book 2. But let's just get this one sorted first. Time to spell check. Hiya France. How're you doing? You OK? Happy new everything to you all, where ever you are. And my resolutions come tumbling down cos, well they were built on shifting sand. As always.

spellings

Did a spell check by the way and yes, I know. Inspecified. How did that slip through? I'll tell you how. Easy peasily.