I've launched a website purely as an outlet for my creative work. The idea is to use that as a sort of vehicle for self-promotion while keeping this as a diary. All comments are welcome.
Check it out at: http://scottrichardsonwriter.com/
Saturday, 17 November 2012
Saturday, 25 August 2012
Another doorstop for the collection?
This week I completed my novel. Again.
Before I started my English degree about a hundred years ago now, I wrote a supernatural thriller entitled 'The Dead Field'. I made a few half-hearted approaches to literary agents, who had the good sense not to be remotely interested.
So I ventured a toe in the waters of academia instead. And very enjoyable it has been too. Hard work, but I can genuinely say it's been fun. And there are two more years still to go.
Visitors to this blog will have spotted I'm about to start an OU Creative Writing module. Lots of other like-minded students are keeping diaries, free-writing journals and other evidence of their creativity. I'm not as assiduous. So I hefted my novel from the dusty bookshelf and had another tilt at making it saleable.
And that's when I realized how vital those four years of editing TMAs have been.
The writing is in the editing. I've managed to give a little more life to 'The Dead Field' by using the ruthlessness I developed whilst editing essays. The result is about a thousand words have gone missing from it.
There are at least another couple of drafts in the work. If I can tighten it up I might be courageous enough to send it out to those agents again.
More on this soon.
Before I started my English degree about a hundred years ago now, I wrote a supernatural thriller entitled 'The Dead Field'. I made a few half-hearted approaches to literary agents, who had the good sense not to be remotely interested.
So I ventured a toe in the waters of academia instead. And very enjoyable it has been too. Hard work, but I can genuinely say it's been fun. And there are two more years still to go.
Visitors to this blog will have spotted I'm about to start an OU Creative Writing module. Lots of other like-minded students are keeping diaries, free-writing journals and other evidence of their creativity. I'm not as assiduous. So I hefted my novel from the dusty bookshelf and had another tilt at making it saleable.
And that's when I realized how vital those four years of editing TMAs have been.
The writing is in the editing. I've managed to give a little more life to 'The Dead Field' by using the ruthlessness I developed whilst editing essays. The result is about a thousand words have gone missing from it.
There are at least another couple of drafts in the work. If I can tighten it up I might be courageous enough to send it out to those agents again.
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
Me and writing (or why am I such a lazy toerag)
At one time you couldn't stop me writing. I'd write novels, novellas, short stories, long stories, poems, articles, sketches, letters, vignettes - anything to dispel the inner tension of unreleased ink.
Now I'm hard pushed to do a shopping list.
What's wrong with me? Easy - I'm a lazy toerag. I'm a creative NEET - Not Enough Energy Today. And I hate myself for it. A pile of blank notebooks and unused pens stand on the shelf above my desk like a rank of pissed-off soldiers, waiting for an exciting engagement.
I write like I read - sporadically, with sudden bursts of intensity that cover a lot of ground. Presently my creative impulse is in a valley, steep walls of inertia around me. This blog is an attempt to lift me out of it.
I also need targets, deadlines, inspiration. So I subscribed to two writing magazines. They advertise competitions that invite submissions on various themes. So I dug out some old guff written many years ago and re-hashed a few pieces. Then I fired them off for consideration. Since then I've written nothing, except Facebook posts and kak like this.
But today came a scintilla of inspiration. I've picked up two followers from my E301 group on FB! These poor unsuspecting ladies will have many more interesting and useful things to do than read my literary excrescences. But for as long as there's a chance they may be there in the ether, 'following', then I'll feel more encouraged to contribute to these pages.
In the meantime, in the long run-in to my next OU module (A215 Creative Writing), I'll be trying to make writing a daily habit. And hopefully will be adding a few poems to Woden's Moanings on this blog.
Now I'm hard pushed to do a shopping list.
What's wrong with me? Easy - I'm a lazy toerag. I'm a creative NEET - Not Enough Energy Today. And I hate myself for it. A pile of blank notebooks and unused pens stand on the shelf above my desk like a rank of pissed-off soldiers, waiting for an exciting engagement.
I write like I read - sporadically, with sudden bursts of intensity that cover a lot of ground. Presently my creative impulse is in a valley, steep walls of inertia around me. This blog is an attempt to lift me out of it.
I also need targets, deadlines, inspiration. So I subscribed to two writing magazines. They advertise competitions that invite submissions on various themes. So I dug out some old guff written many years ago and re-hashed a few pieces. Then I fired them off for consideration. Since then I've written nothing, except Facebook posts and kak like this.
But today came a scintilla of inspiration. I've picked up two followers from my E301 group on FB! These poor unsuspecting ladies will have many more interesting and useful things to do than read my literary excrescences. But for as long as there's a chance they may be there in the ether, 'following', then I'll feel more encouraged to contribute to these pages.
In the meantime, in the long run-in to my next OU module (A215 Creative Writing), I'll be trying to make writing a daily habit. And hopefully will be adding a few poems to Woden's Moanings on this blog.
Friday, 15 June 2012
Creativity, academically speaking
It's taken four years, but just a little over a week ago I sent my final essay - my EMA - into the void that is the OU's marking system. The final essay of my current module, that is. (That's E301 The Art of English, by the way). I still have 2 years to do.
I submitted my EMA 6 times. Honestly. I couldn't let it go. It was like a troublesome teenager. I was glad to see the back of it, yet I couldn't help welcoming it back and sorting out its problems. But now the little git is booted out for good. Let's hope it doesn't shit on my doorstep in August.
So far, the degree has been a slog. Insightful, occasionally stressful, often confusing. But enjoyable. Many thousands of words, 29 essays and 2 exams later, I'm ready to move from the exclusively academic into the more artful last third of this degree - creative writing.
There are 2 modules: A215 Creative Writing, and A363 (wait for it, waaaait for it...) Advanced Creative Writing. Naturally. The first is my 'free choice' module to gain the 60 points I need for my Honours; the second is my Level 3 Literature module.
I've been preparing for A215. Apparently it's important to write something every day, whether it's in a diary, a journal, a poem or even a story. I've got more journals than Samuel Pepys, so I've been scribbling all sorts of crap in those. And I've got even more crap in the form of poems and stories. I've rehashed a couple and actually submitted them to be considered for publication in Writing Magazine and Writers' Forum. But I'm no longer the know-all young writer I was back in the late 80s. I've now got the realism, humility and thick skin that writers need to deal with rejection.
To paraphrase the late writer David Eddings: if you want to become a writer, first write about a million words. Then burn them. Now you're about ready to start.
I submitted my EMA 6 times. Honestly. I couldn't let it go. It was like a troublesome teenager. I was glad to see the back of it, yet I couldn't help welcoming it back and sorting out its problems. But now the little git is booted out for good. Let's hope it doesn't shit on my doorstep in August.
So far, the degree has been a slog. Insightful, occasionally stressful, often confusing. But enjoyable. Many thousands of words, 29 essays and 2 exams later, I'm ready to move from the exclusively academic into the more artful last third of this degree - creative writing.
There are 2 modules: A215 Creative Writing, and A363 (wait for it, waaaait for it...) Advanced Creative Writing. Naturally. The first is my 'free choice' module to gain the 60 points I need for my Honours; the second is my Level 3 Literature module.
I've been preparing for A215. Apparently it's important to write something every day, whether it's in a diary, a journal, a poem or even a story. I've got more journals than Samuel Pepys, so I've been scribbling all sorts of crap in those. And I've got even more crap in the form of poems and stories. I've rehashed a couple and actually submitted them to be considered for publication in Writing Magazine and Writers' Forum. But I'm no longer the know-all young writer I was back in the late 80s. I've now got the realism, humility and thick skin that writers need to deal with rejection.
To paraphrase the late writer David Eddings: if you want to become a writer, first write about a million words. Then burn them. Now you're about ready to start.
Friday, 1 July 2011
Eric
On the discovery of a barely living mouse in our back garden:
We thought you were a wizened flower
The breeze had brought that day
For us to find that sunset hour
Within our garden you did cower
All motionless and grey
Perhaps you stole in like a thief
Afraid of some dark prey
You lay upon our flags in grief
And quivered fearful like a leaf
'til evil crept away
I walked out heedless with a brush
Quite certain you were dead
But as those bristles roughly pushed
Our voices quietened into hush
You raised your fevered head:
'Don't let me go! O let me stay!'
Your eyes seemed to implore
'And let me keep that fiend at bay
'Who led my path so far astray
'And brought me to your door'
'A soft white towel and cardboard home
'Will keep me warm and dry
'But please put down your telephone
'For now I'm out of danger's zone
'It's here I'd rather die'.
Now free from harm, we let you sleep
As night fell warm and slow
And from those skies those moonbeams steep
Guide up your soul for stars to keep
Now safe from all below....
© Scott Richardson 2011
You nestled quiet within that bed
We thought you were a wizened flower
The breeze had brought that day
For us to find that sunset hour
Within our garden you did cower
All motionless and grey
Afraid of some dark prey
You lay upon our flags in grief
And quivered fearful like a leaf
'til evil crept away
I walked out heedless with a brush
Quite certain you were dead
But as those bristles roughly pushed
Our voices quietened into hush
You raised your fevered head:
'Don't let me go! O let me stay!'
Your eyes seemed to implore
'And let me keep that fiend at bay
'Who led my path so far astray
'And brought me to your door'
'A soft white towel and cardboard home
'Will keep me warm and dry
'But please put down your telephone
'For now I'm out of danger's zone
'It's here I'd rather die'.
Now free from harm, we let you sleep
As night fell warm and slow
And from those skies those moonbeams steep
Guide up your soul for stars to keep
Now safe from all below....
© Scott Richardson 2011
What a load of mystical bollocks. Alternative end verse follows:
You nestled quiet within that bed
That box we put you in
But once we saw your soul had fled
A scruffy mouse who lay quite dead
We dropped you in the bin.
Saturday, 25 June 2011
In the words of Captain Sensible...
...'Glad It's All Over'.
But in fairness, the exam for A210 Approaching Literature (with trepidation) went tons better than I dreamed. I used a totally different strategy to last year. This time I didn't give it a thought from getting up on Thursday 16 June at 6.30am until sitting at my 'ittle desk at Salford University 3.1/2 hours later.
Last year, I stressed like an Adrenalin-Soaked Duracell Bunny high on ketamine. This year, your own A-SDB was just a little more chilled on water and mints.
Then ye olde braine chemistrye locked in. I did a little planning, sketched a few notes in pencil, actually read the exam paper in this insouciant way I have when my bowels are loosening. And it actually worked. I wrote like a dervish and tangented like a tangential tangent from tangenton, whose tangy shunts shouldn't be tingly. And it all made sense. It even had a little relevance to the questions.
I sat back after 170 minutes of solid scribbling, downed 300ml of water and 300kg of Trebor, and thought about how I felt. I was actually pretty damn pleased. I'd blathered about Austen, Blake and Shelley like I personally knew the buggers, and wrote about Aphra Behn's The Rover as though she was just my amanuensis.
I said last year that if someone had loomed out of the shadows and whispered '62%!', I'd have shat ma duds - I mean I'd have been well chuffed. I'd certainly be satisfied with that for Aggravating Literature. But if I'm honest, I'd love 70% minimum. That'll give me a Grade 2 pass, and ameliorate the gutting feeling of a Grade 3 for last year's U211.
But for the next 6 weeks, I'll be happy reading what I want. I've just buried the fantastic Wuthering Heights, and now I'm easing through Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. I really don't like schleping through books I'm told to read. That's the problem with studying. It's so totalitarian.
But in fairness, the exam for A210 Approaching Literature (with trepidation) went tons better than I dreamed. I used a totally different strategy to last year. This time I didn't give it a thought from getting up on Thursday 16 June at 6.30am until sitting at my 'ittle desk at Salford University 3.1/2 hours later.
Last year, I stressed like an Adrenalin-Soaked Duracell Bunny high on ketamine. This year, your own A-SDB was just a little more chilled on water and mints.
Then ye olde braine chemistrye locked in. I did a little planning, sketched a few notes in pencil, actually read the exam paper in this insouciant way I have when my bowels are loosening. And it actually worked. I wrote like a dervish and tangented like a tangential tangent from tangenton, whose tangy shunts shouldn't be tingly. And it all made sense. It even had a little relevance to the questions.
I sat back after 170 minutes of solid scribbling, downed 300ml of water and 300kg of Trebor, and thought about how I felt. I was actually pretty damn pleased. I'd blathered about Austen, Blake and Shelley like I personally knew the buggers, and wrote about Aphra Behn's The Rover as though she was just my amanuensis.
I said last year that if someone had loomed out of the shadows and whispered '62%!', I'd have shat ma duds - I mean I'd have been well chuffed. I'd certainly be satisfied with that for Aggravating Literature. But if I'm honest, I'd love 70% minimum. That'll give me a Grade 2 pass, and ameliorate the gutting feeling of a Grade 3 for last year's U211.
But for the next 6 weeks, I'll be happy reading what I want. I've just buried the fantastic Wuthering Heights, and now I'm easing through Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. I really don't like schleping through books I'm told to read. That's the problem with studying. It's so totalitarian.
Monday, 7 March 2011
Love literature. Just hate studying it.
It's been almost six months since my last post, and that's because I've been up to my axillaries in English Literature.
I was looking forward to it all, being in thrall to Romantic poetry and realist novels. Even took a slew of set texts away to Turkey last August to get myself out of the blocks. But October brought me earthbound pretty hard. I hadn't done EngLit at school, so my grounding was almost zero. And I felt it.
I'm rubbish at interpreting texts and wheedling out possible hidden meanings. I like literature for its own sake. I enjoy the process of reading, the creation of scenes in the imagination and the pleasure derived from that. I don't enjoy having to search for and explain something that may or may not be there.
As someone who's done a spot of scribbling over many years, I understand one aspect of literary theory: how characters are created, and how they have personalities shaped by their environment. They have ambitions and driving forces, secrets and desires. And the forming of these imaginary people occurs in an imaginary world, within which exists an imaginary situation that creates conflict between these people. The interaction of these factors forms a story, within which run other discrete stories. The interconnectedness of these subplots becomes apparent, until the reader is left (hopefully) with a satisfactory resolution. But as I say, that's the theory.
So if, fifty years later, someone were to read my novel and begin to find themes and connections that I hadn't consciously included, I'd think someone was trying to headshrink me. That'd be insulting, considering they knew bugger all about me and my life. What is even more odd though, is that someone else would come along and find a completely different take on it all. And so on. Which, while being intriguing, is all completely pointless, because no one could ever fathom what was going on in a writer's mind at that time.
So for me, literature is all about entertainment. Not theories. Not psychology. Not smart-arse interpretations based on a writer's life. Just a rattling good read is all.
I was looking forward to it all, being in thrall to Romantic poetry and realist novels. Even took a slew of set texts away to Turkey last August to get myself out of the blocks. But October brought me earthbound pretty hard. I hadn't done EngLit at school, so my grounding was almost zero. And I felt it.
I'm rubbish at interpreting texts and wheedling out possible hidden meanings. I like literature for its own sake. I enjoy the process of reading, the creation of scenes in the imagination and the pleasure derived from that. I don't enjoy having to search for and explain something that may or may not be there.
As someone who's done a spot of scribbling over many years, I understand one aspect of literary theory: how characters are created, and how they have personalities shaped by their environment. They have ambitions and driving forces, secrets and desires. And the forming of these imaginary people occurs in an imaginary world, within which exists an imaginary situation that creates conflict between these people. The interaction of these factors forms a story, within which run other discrete stories. The interconnectedness of these subplots becomes apparent, until the reader is left (hopefully) with a satisfactory resolution. But as I say, that's the theory.
So if, fifty years later, someone were to read my novel and begin to find themes and connections that I hadn't consciously included, I'd think someone was trying to headshrink me. That'd be insulting, considering they knew bugger all about me and my life. What is even more odd though, is that someone else would come along and find a completely different take on it all. And so on. Which, while being intriguing, is all completely pointless, because no one could ever fathom what was going on in a writer's mind at that time.
So for me, literature is all about entertainment. Not theories. Not psychology. Not smart-arse interpretations based on a writer's life. Just a rattling good read is all.
Monday, 24 May 2010
18 days
That's all that's left before the start of the World Cup. Normally I'm counting the hours, but I just can't get my blood going this time round. And that's because I've got a sodding exam in the way.
Well, it's not exactly in the way - it's three days after the start - but it'll be at the back of my mind while I'm slugging the beers during England v USA on Saturday 12 June.
The good thing is that I've put in some decent revision. That'll all stop though come Friday afternoon on 11 June. I'll be comfortably ensconced down the alehouse and trying to enjoy South Africa getting leathered by Mexico. Why? Because I've got those very gentlemen in the office sweep. And Paraguay.
Not a good draw for me £4. But spare a thought for one of the other lads: he drew Australia and New Zealand. G'night.
Well, it's not exactly in the way - it's three days after the start - but it'll be at the back of my mind while I'm slugging the beers during England v USA on Saturday 12 June.
The good thing is that I've put in some decent revision. That'll all stop though come Friday afternoon on 11 June. I'll be comfortably ensconced down the alehouse and trying to enjoy South Africa getting leathered by Mexico. Why? Because I've got those very gentlemen in the office sweep. And Paraguay.
Not a good draw for me £4. But spare a thought for one of the other lads: he drew Australia and New Zealand. G'night.
Thursday, 13 May 2010
While my catarrh gently weeps...
Still feeling totally garbage, but I'm going into work tomorrow.
Illness aside, I've enjoyed these last few days. Crammed in some good revision, scored my highest assignment mark yet for my degree, and created this ace blog. Happy days.
No doubt when we meet again, some alcohol-infused wisdom may pass between us.
Illness aside, I've enjoyed these last few days. Crammed in some good revision, scored my highest assignment mark yet for my degree, and created this ace blog. Happy days.
No doubt when we meet again, some alcohol-infused wisdom may pass between us.
On sniffing the landlady's lactators, and other pursuits
Great fun this, isn't it?
Still
fuff as ruck with the cold, mind, but me and the 'ster are having a fine time sharing our thoughts with the online choir invisible.
fuff as ruck with the cold, mind, but me and the 'ster are having a fine time sharing our thoughts with the online choir invisible.Got my mark for my final assignment - the highest yet. So I'm in a celebratory mood. But one sniff of the landlady's lactators will knock me over the boundary, so I'll be taking it easy this weekend.
Well, easi-ish...
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Acute nasopharyngitis
Jeez, do I feel crap.
Had a stinking cold since Monday, and the only good thing to come out of it is a couple of days off work (and some well-needed revision for U211).
For those of you who don't know, U211 is "Exploring the English Language", my second OU course. I'm due to complete it with the exam on June 14th (gulp!)
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