Thought for the Weekend - Scott Adams

After my 'Novel Madness' blog post yesterday, I suppose it is only right that this week's 'Thought for the Weekend' should be inspirational in the creative sense, and also because fellow blogger TITUS reminded me that in order to have success, you have to be prepared to make a complete arse of yourself, and if necessary do it on a daily basis.

So this weekend's thought is:-

'Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.'

- Scott Adams -

Novel Madness - Courage of a Lion

I doubt I've invented a new phenomenon, but of late I've started to consider which is worse, 'writers block' or 'action block', the latter being the affliction that I'm currently suffering from, although by logical reasoning, if I am suffering from 'action block' then I am not writing either, which means it's writers block without having to stare at the blank page.


Now being a person who likes to think long and hard about things,(and also someone who fails to come up with answers most of the time), I started to wonder 'why' I'm in a state of 'action block'? Could it be that I have no more interest in writing?  Has it all been a waste of energy?  And if I am not writing, why did I write in the first place?


Sometimes I think it's because thoughts comes inside my head, like this morning for example when I remembered something from way back when I was a kid and we lived in a flat.  Obviously we had no front garden, but we did live on the ground floor and therefore we had a front step.  Now a step may not be a big thing, but not having a garden, and others not having a front step, made it special, special that was to my mother who used to get us to scrub it.  This wasn't a bad thing, cause I loved making all the white suds, creating circles with the wire brush and in the process cleaning the said front step.  Anyhow years later we moved to a house and got a front garden with a hedge.  Now a hedge might not seem like a big thing, but when you're used to just a step, to my father, a hedge must have been special because the ritual of cleaning the step for my mother was replaced by trimming the hedge for my father, hence my thought this morning (after years of it festering somewhere dusty in my head), that when we moved, we swapped my mother's step for my father's hedge and perhaps the reason my mother stopped asking us to clean steps, was because everyone else had them.


Okay, so now you are getting the gist of it.  Sometimes these daft and sometimes not so daft things come into my head and I get the urge to write them down.  Other times I bravely believe that maybe something I write will make a difference or become mindblowingly 'popular', something that a reader will enjoy.  But whatever the reason, none of these explain why I have 'action block'.


Now blocks of the non-building kind are something that sound as if they require clearance, but to do so, we need to know what it is that we need to clear, which made me ask another question.  What am I afraid of?


Once the question was out, albeit inside my head 'out', it required an answer.  The best one I could come up with was that old devil 'the fear of failure', and I must admit as soon as I said this inside my head, it started to grow in a rather too familiar comfy manner.


What if people think my work is rubbish, what if no one ever says 'yes' that is worth sending out to the world to be read by many, what if it does not fit into what's popular, interesting, cutting edge, blah, blah and just for good measure more bloody blah!


At this point, I would love to say 'so what', but then I would be lying, and lying doesn't do one any real good.


So I figured if I can't say 'so what', and I am still worried about failure, maybe I need something else, like maybe a bit of courage.


Courage is not an easy thing to find, and I don't have a yellow brick road or anything like it, but I would imagine it's like most things, being an emotion that is there if you look for it.  So I did.


This afternoon after I finished all the 'jobs that pay the bills things', and a few necessary domestic obligations, I sat down and did work on the novel.  I read the blasted first 3 chapters AGAIN, edited them a little more and sent them off to 3 victims, I mean 3 loyal literary friends for feedback.  Now it might not seem like much, but it was an ACTION, which means in part, I have beaten my 'action block'.

I am really hoping it is not going to pounce on me again soon, but just in case it does, I've created my own version of what courage means, especially in relation to fear of failure in the writing world -

 Just do it, regardless of the bloody consequences, because not doing it, will certainly achieve nothing. 

Walking/Photo Journal - Crazy as Trees

When life feels as crazy as some trees,

or as withered as old leaves,

it can hail a new beginning.

Miriam O Callaghan meets Roddy Doyle 24th March

Miriam O’Callaghan in conversation with Roddy Doyle and his parents at County Library Tallaght.

Thursday 24th March at 10.30am

The ever popular RTE Radio series “Miriam meets…” is coming to the County Library Tallaght!

In this series, Miriam interviews individuals who have a strong connection, whether through family, business or otherwise. Miriam’s conversation with Roddy Doyle and his parents will be the first time that the programme is recorded in front of an audience, to be broadcast on RTE Radio 1 on Sunday 27th March.

If you would like to go along and be part of the audience for this event on Thursday 24th March at 10.30am, bookings will be taken from Monday 14th March via online booking service at www.southdublinlibraries.ie. To book online, a unique email address will be required for each individual booking.

International Woman's Day - A poem from the past

As today is International Woman's Day, I decided to post this poem about a woman whom I had the utmost admiration and love for.  The poem was written shortly after my Mother-in -law passed away from a difficult and painful condition, and today seemed like a good day to honour her.

Plus as a woman who still darned socks,  she would get a great kick out of the name of this blog!

The woman who still darned socks

I heard a creature cry down a phone line,

then later the shake of her daughter’s head

that said the pain was still there

to warp, rage and battle against all humanity could bear.

A moment’s respite when sleep came,

when breathing eased with rhythms of comfort,

false teeth hung, worn skin nestled,

a body torn, bruised, stitched and swollen.

No doctor, hospital, death could wane,

a glory which lay and stood triumphant,

painted on the faces of her sons, a daughter, and a man; her husband,

painted on those that knew her for what she was,

laced, threaded, within their bones and memory.

She poured hot kettles on four colours of jelly last Christmas morn,

surrounded by trinkets, thimbles, ornaments within cabinets,

and smiled as she hemmed the final piece of a jig-sawed blue sky,

gently into place.

The happy lady sewing up her dress for the wedding of her eldest son,

the man I married,

who wants to kick every table and chair in every room, out of anger and love,

that she’s being taken, that she’s being pained.

‘I want to go home,’ she said,

her fingers intermingled with mine, soft but firm.

I knew she meant it, for she wanted to wrap me in that need,

so we could go together and I would take her to the place she most wanted to be.

‘I know,’ I said.

An acknowledgement which crossed oceans, lulled all sounds,

the ding and bang of a hospital ward, a loud telly in the corner,

muffles of a crowd; the bleep from some damned machine.

‘I know,’ I said.  It was all I had.

The woman who still darned socks,

she thought me an odd girl studying history,

what was she to make of me?

It never clouded her.

We had such joy, she and I.

We laughed, we lived,

We sat and spoke about the simple things,

woman to woman.

Thank you for being a great woman, and a great friend.

The Pornographer by John McGahern - Book Club Review



At long last the Book Club Review of 'The Pornographer' and I can tell you it was a very interesting night with many conflicting views which is what makes the whole reviewing process so intriguing, not least of which because we all are willing to do it again next month.  John McGahern's novel 'The Pornographer' of course had the added value of people feeling embarrassed reading it on the bus for fear that the wrong understanding would be taken from their choice of reading material, or wondering after they googled it at work, would someone take them to task about searching unsuitable material.  I suppose in a way this put the novel in context of how brave it was at the time of publication, that all these years on in our world of political correctness that even the choice of title is not for the fainthearted.




Really glad to have read it.  Can’t for the life of me understand why all the woman are throwing themselves at Michael.  He’s a depressive, cynical bastard who is trendy in youth and a pain in the ass when aged.  He and his country relatives drink like fishes.  Josephine is fantastic.  She, for me is the triumph of then novel – the self righteous martyrdom, the old style Catholicism is captured beautifully in her; the way she chases him, tries to corner him, the scheming, her sentences, the Oh boy, Oh boy phrase – I can feel her, touch her, see her.  I know a hundred people like her, mostly aged, but not all.  Every character is perfectly drawn except Maloney.  For me he remained a caricature, sketched in black and white upon the page with no blood pulsing through him. I think the plot was genius.  McGahern took the oldest story in the book and made it fresh by doing two things – writing it from the absconding male perspective and making Michael a pornographer.  It’s a very tightly crafted novel with one of the straightest plot lines I have ever read.  Everything is clearly foreshadowed.  There are no surprises.  Indeed that for me was the surprise.  I kept expecting some twist but there was none.  But for all that the pages turned themselves.  It might not have been a totally enjoyable read because of the pervading disenchantment which only the character of the second nurse escaped, but it was riveting and every sentence was beautifully written.  Indeed the perfection of every line, the capturing if every scene so that I could almost be an invisible presence, drove me to such maddening envy that I almost felt like flinging the book and telling myself it did not read with such sublime ease, really.  Let me just say before I go that I loved the anger in the book but I hated his bloody philosophy, his moralising.  As they say, once a teacher, always a teacher.  Also, I am not sure I would recommend this book to anyone except the oddest person.  This is due to its central thesis of the damn pointlessness of it all, the merry-go-round of life. 





                              
The Pornographer is a brave, admirable book, but its austere aesthetic left me cold. For me, its attack on all forms of Irish 'greyness' wasn't enough to override the fact that the book itself is as drab and grey as the times it critiques.  I can see that it is a necessary book - a novel about the stifled and warped national imagination and sexuality of our past helps us understand where we have come from, but I feel that McGahern's own imagination and nerve fails him - this is a very narrow, parochial book. This is my own personal preference - I would have liked some more of the visionary power McGahern displays in his final novel and in his memoir. I think The Pornographer could have been pushed much further.








                             
The Pornographer drew me in. Unsympathetic characters, in a depressing era, yet utterly compelling. This contradiction just serves to demonstrate the skill of McGahern's writing. Read this book, you may not enjoy it, but it will be hard not to be fascinated.









                              
I read it quite a while ago, the book had left a long lasting impression of superb writing on an interesting and well crafted journey.  One I'd keep in the keepers section, especially for the shock value of the title, but also because John McGahern is always good company.







                           
I really liked the main character Michael.  He provoked strong feelings in our group - others didn’t like him - and that made for great debate and discussion.  To me he was like a classical hero on a sort of archetypal journey with as many or more moments of blindness as there were moments of insight.  After great disappointment in love he was determined to be the prodigal son, to keep his emotions under control, to be direct, to keep things uncomplicated and simple – which is, of course, impossible. McGahern set him up wickedly when he created Josephine.  She looked great but 'boy' was she mercilessly, relentlessly vapid.  Far from keeping his emotions in check Michael grew to almost hate Jospehine. The novel had very black moments.  Michael revisited his and Josephines 'conception' scene on the Shannon by bringing his steamy fictitious characters Colonel and Mavis there and having them commit a heinous act of non consensual sex. His publisher Maloney was also a sobering, underworld, shadowy, hopeless sort of character.  But there were beautiful relationship moments in the novel too and there was was hope for Michael in the end.  McGahern gave him some beautifully poetic insights - which I'm not sure I entirely believed him capable of. I would have like to read more about this character.  I think McGahern is great and wish he had left us more than six novels.









                           
The Pornographer was a very readable novel. McGahern has a knack for telling a story, however the protagonist had too many faults and no redeeming qualities. So, although the pace and plot would keep a reader involved, the book just falls short of good.



    

The Pornographer is beautifully written, and McGahern's ability as an engaging storyteller and brilliant writer is undoubted.  He has the ability to make the most ordinary of things intriguing in their simple truth.  For me it was a page turner and one with a lot of merit.  Also it was an important novel as McGahern took risks to expose a society that may have been lost with the onset of years, an Ireland that could easily be forgotten, but one that in many ways has formed our society of today and from which we should draws many lessons.  The fact that the novel was written from a male perspective, and written with such raw truth, gave me an insight into character creation that was refreshing in it's unique honesty.  Plus we found love, like the relationship between the main character and his Uncle, that was beautiful in it's own way and surprising because of the subtlety of the writing.  All in all, I am glad I read this book, and have learned much from it.    

Walking/Photo Journal - Bare

I seem to have developed a fascination with trees these days, perhaps it's because right now they are striped back to the barest of themselves and are as individual as we are.

Old Tree Truck near Featherbed Forest



Bare

Raised from earth,

at first the narrow brittle growth

becomes aged and changed with time.

Branches hither and thither

as if to spread beyond their roots

 whilst others shade below.

On fresh clear days

striped back to barest parts of you

by season’s change

from deep within

new life will surge and prosper through

old trunk that steadfast will

caress their spring and love,

delighting leaves and blossoms grow,

another beauty

before their winter's coat.

Thought for the Weekend - George Elliot

Drawing from The Mill on the Floss

Having not had a very productive or creative week, I'm in the mood for a bit of inspiration, so this week's thought for the weekend is courtesy of George Elliot (Mary Ann Evans).





'It is never too late to be what you might have been.'

- George Elliot -

To be or not to be an Image?

The picture above is a test, as right now I feel as stupid as these cows look!!!

Does anyone know why the images I post are not appearing as thumbnail images either on my blog or on follower blogs?????

Stylish Blog Award

 

'I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure.
I make mistakes, I am out of control and
 at times hard to handle.
 But if you can't handle me at my worst,
 then you sure as hell
 don't deserve me at my best.'
— Marilyn Monroe

I've been given A Stylish Blog Award!

Seven Things About Myself:

1.
I'm editing my first novel 'Red Ribbons' and for some reason progress is so slow it is bordering on AVOIDANCE.  Perhaps it's fear of rejection, hence the delay, but by end April 2011 it will take wings and fly to it's first rejection point (now I've said it - I will do it!). 


2.
One of my favourite things is getting a brand new book, but I am fussy about covers, and I always read the first page before I buy, and of late I seldom lend a book because I guard them like personal treasures, which is why I am constantly running out of bookshelf space.


3.
I've been in the middle of a mid-life crisis for years now, my biggest fear is not working out all the things I want/need to do.  I have already completed a 'sort of bucket list', but I can't find it, so I better do another one and fast.


4.
I love my 3 children, but delighted for the 2 that have flown the nest, that they and I can be independent, interesting adults without having to live together.


5.
I cry because of anything, sadness, anger, weddings, funerals (even of people I don't know).  When I was little, I used to love 'The Little House on the Prairie' and 'The Waltons' (I can't believe I just admitted that!). My husband detested both of them! My favourite old movie icon is Marilyn Monroe, because she is.


6.
I hate driving at night, and I have the worst sense of direction of anyone I know, although rumour has it that once while drunk (being a passenger not a driver) I directed everyone else home.


7.
I am extremely competitive and do most things 110%. I hate failure, which is why I am constantly having to deal with disappointment, after which for the most part, I dust myself down and start all over again.

Thanks to Niamh at Words A Day for this wonderful AWARD

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