Waxing Violet

25Jan09

I always like people who push writing as far as they can. The use of an unexpected piece of imagery, putting words together that shouldn’t work but that suddenly do in the right environment. In fact there is nothing better than when someone does something that it has been said can’t be done.

It being Burns Night, what better example that the great Scottish bard performing a feat of magic himself. It has long been said that there is nothing to rhyme with purple. Rabbie begs to differ:

“For you, no bred to barn and byre,
Wha sweetly tune the Scottish lyre,
Thanks to you for your line:
The marled plaid ye kindly spare,
By me should gratefully be ware;
‘Twad please me to the nine.
I’d be mair vauntie o’ my hap,
Douce hingin’ owre my curple
Than ony ermine ever lap,
Or proud imperial purple.
Fareweel then, lang heel then,
An’ plenty be your fa’;
May losses and crosses
Ne’er at your hallan ca’.”

Right there in the last verse of “To Mrs. Scott of Wauchope” he gets out the word ‘curple’, which is a type of strap that goes around a horse’s hindquarters. Full marks to him.

In celebration I am going to look for something to rhyme with orange.

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Tags: curple, poet, purple, Robert Burns, Scottish, writing

Beginning In The Middle

24Jan09

All books have a birthday. But just like a human creation it’s not at the point when they were first thought of. I’ve been asked several times when I came up with the idea of what I wanted to write, almost as if the outline for a novel appeared fully delivered in my mind one morning. A book in a flat pack perhaps.

I am a strong believer in the view that we are a composite of our experiences and learnings. While you’re dealing with whatever is going on, somewhere in the back of your mind you’re examining events from a different angle. You may think you’re watching a documentary on the Discovery Channel but while sniggering at the idea that the pyramids were built with lots of stripped logs along with even more stripped slaves, another part of you is processing other ideas. The TV is talking about how these structures were built – but what you might be working on is why.

What purpose did they serve? Their size and complexity says they were more than a holiday home. Fanning the fires of an interest, you read some more about them and find out they could build to a level of precise construction that we would have difficulty meeting today. There is talk of hidden chambers and research teams thrown of sites as they get close to suspected discoveries. The conspiracy alerter goes off in your mind. You start to think about who knows what and why they would want to keep it secret. A lead character appears in your mind and demands your attention.

Small seemingly unrelated things are overheard in unexpected places, which all feed the fire of the story. Tipping point is reached and there are suddenly too many ideas to hold in your head. It is around this time that the rash phrase ‘I’m going to write a book’ may be muttered out loud.

Not wanting to jinx things, you use high levels of stealth to open a new Word document.

A strange outline that would not mean anything to anyone else appears. Filled with excitement you rapidly type 1000 words. Feeling rather smug, you tell yourself this is nothing – you just need to do that 100 times again. Oh yes, this puppy will be knocked over in three months or so.

Time passes.

More time passes.

mynovel.doc keeps catching your attention as it sits there accusingly on your desktop awaiting attention. At random moments you scroll through the outline and nod sagely to yourself that this will be a great book once you’ve written it. Friends and colleagues enquire about your plans.

Now the point has been reached. Not so much to be or not to be. More to write or to develop a new excuse why you can’t get around to it yet.

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Tags: book, writer, writing