I thought I'd just ...

I thought I'd write a poem
But I couldn't make it rhyme,
I thought I'd write a novel,
But I didn't have the time.
I tinkered with a tune,
But I couldn't write a verse,
Then I wrote this ditty,
And things got slightly worse...

The Heros

It had been a long journey - many days in fact. As time had passed, they had become more and more irritated with each other. Armstrong, with his strong-arm personality was as domineering as Buzz was with his incessant humming. But the pale green globe lured them on in the darkness of sheer space and they knew that they would ultimately reach it or perish in the attempt.

And it had been a journey not without risk. The launch had always been the most dangerous part and had been nerve racking. If they'd lost speed or been even a single degree out - they'd have fallen into the darkness of space and to certain death. The angles - the trajectory - had to be spot on. It all had to be planned to the nth degree and implemented with mathematical precision. And it had been.

They had orbited their target globe several times before the final approach. The brightly lit side was chosen so that they could set down safely. Great holes and craters offered both promise and threat, but the time for deliberation had passed and anyhow, it really didn't matter where they landed so long as they landed safely.

Some back home had labelled it a luna-tic plan and said they were aiming for the stars. Yet others called it a stellar journey. But everyone knew that - regardless of the outcome - they would go down in history as adventurers and heros. The first to ever try to reach that great globe of green cheese in the blackness.

And so now they had landed and landed safely. And with the dignity that such an occasion warrants, carefully explored the surface. And ate the surface. Most importantly, ate the surface. The launch from the top shelf onto the reject cheese bin had been carried out perfectly and Armstrong Rat together with Buzz Mouse were entitled to gorge themselves.

A small cheddar for mouse, a large cheese for rat-kind.

Egypt uncovers 4500 year old tomb

....... and the seal shall be broken ..... sekkara...... and (shall) come the birth of death..... beast unknown..... and darkness shall break the light.....

A Good Imagination ...

It's hard to know where to draw the line. Do writers actually become their characters? Are feelings and emotions based in fantasy, or in the writers experience? Being schizophrenic essentially means not being able to tell fantasy from reality. But how many of us haven't cried at a sad film, or cheered when the hero beat the villain? How much of our life is actually imagination - how much is real and how much is fantasy? And where, and when do we draw the line?

I like winter - all those dark nights. You see, in the shadows of the night can be found the best mysteries.

But that has nothing to do with the problem at hand which is : what to cook for dinner? Perhaps braised steak, I thought, as I opened the cupboard door to hang up my overcoat. A huge bloody-eyed vampire loomed out at me with teeth bared. Yes, steaks would be nice.

In the kitchen, I opened the freezer and the fur-lined claw of an abominable snow man struck wildly at me. Damn. Only a frozen chicken and some of that terrible vegetable protein muck : Soylent Green. Yuk. I had a thought and checked the fridge - cold sausages I'd fried the day before! OK then, sausages it is.

A good imagination. That's what everyone has always said about me. A good imagination. I guess that's true. I know the things I see are only just that - imagination. They are not like hallucinations because I choose to imagine what I do. Life would be pretty dull without them.

As I was chopping up the sausages, I accidentally sliced off several fingers of a zombie who had sidled up to me. I put the sausages into a casserole dish with a little gravy. I may have added a little too much pepper because a banshee sneezed and fell off the top of the cupboard.

Having a good imagination is a very powerful tool. It certainly helps me get through the day which, I must admit, would be pretty mundane and boring otherwise.

I switched on the oven and roasted alive a couple of fairies who had been perched on the element. Almost at the same time, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a pterodactyl swoop down and steal one of the sausage slices but of course I was wrong. It was an alien spacecraft.

Mushrooms. Always good eating. I'd throw them in with the chopped sausages. I opened the larder door and took three or four large musshies, brushing off a couple of gnomes in the process. On my way back to the bench I bumped into the invisible man. I hadn't noticed him there before. I picked up the carving knife. Yes, I'll chop the mushies and add them to the sausages and gravy - a great addition to my hotchpotch hot pot! I checked the larder but apart from some rosemary, thyme, a small green gremlin and a packet of oregano, I couldn't really think of anything else to add.

Of course, I'd forgotten something. 'Taters' - potatoes. I should have peeled some but I couldn't be bothered. I took a small tin from the larder, opened it and emptied the contents (minus the 'juice') onto my chopping board. I roughly cut them into quarters and put them in with the sausages.

I turned and tossed the knife into the sink, unwittingly sticking the masked rapist in the heart in the process. I set the microwave for 2 minutes - everything was already cooked, they just needed heating up. I stepped over the warm corpse and waved aside a vulture that was trying to perch on my mixer tap. I'd leave the washing up for later.

Took out a plate ready for dinner. It was my favourite. I called it my 'John the Baptist' plate because it had a stain on it like a head. Or perhaps it was just the pattern.

The radiation alert on my mini nuclear reactor went 'ping' and then said 'Enjoy Your Meal'. I got a red tea towel out of the draw and flicked it at the bull that, true to form, came rushing towards me. I opened the microwave and took out the hot pot which smelt delicious and turning back to the bench fell over the corpse on the floor. The hotpot went everywhere.

There was a corpse on the floor.

There actually was a corpse on the floor. A real one. With a mask. And a carving knife sticking out of him. And he was covered in potatoes.

And sausages.

Aunty's Present

A cautionary tale with a spin...

It was a nice present. I expect. Hard to say for sure when the Aunt you never see sends you something you can’t explain.

It was carved out of wood and included just a tiny slip of paper saying ‘RANG A BOOMER’. Years ago, she sent me a computer club – it was padded and used for hitting the computer as a joke. With me being dyslexic, the computer always seems to need a good thump! Good old Aunty. I figured this was obviously similar - a telephone banger!

So, later when I called my friend and I got the digits mixed up, I gave the phone a satisfying whack with the boomer. They were right about the ‘boom’. I’d smashed the phone to pieces!

Angrily, I took the wooden phone-boomer thing to the rubbish dump and threw it as hard as I could.

And that's when it hit me.

The Peeping Tom

So I was at a loose end. So what to do? Then I thought, check out that new camp - True Eden. So that's what I did.

Well, what a sight to see. I just couldn't believe my eyes - everywhere I looked, there they were. How can I put it? Well, there's no delicate way of putting it. Nudes. Everywhere, naked people! My eyes nearly popped out of my head.

Everywhere I wandered, there were old men with crinkles all over. And old women too! And young girls, totally stark naked. You could see everything. I had to look away when I spotted them playing leap frog, I can tell you. There were even kids running about just as naked as they were born. And they didn't care. None of them cared. There they all were, not a stitch on, and they just didn't care.

I tried not to look offended - I tried not to look at all! But I'd just got most of the way through the camp when they all suddenly started jumping up and down, pointing at me and screaming. I tried to hurry up and just as well I did, cos one of them came after me with a shovel. Honestly, you'd think they'd never seen a porcupine before.

Diabetes of the Pen.

The days of story-telling seem to have passed.

It really has to do with superficial degeneration and growth. By empowering the candy and leaving the bread to fend for itself, we are abandoning a rich heritage-to-be for today’s sugary high.

It’s a sign of the times, I suppose, that people grossly underestimate the importance of the written word. They have vocabularies of five hundred words (with F being every second one). They spell late ‘L8’ because their brains have become fried with false simplicity. They prefer icons to images because they are only able to digest the big bits.

Language, and especially the English language, is a rich tapestry – not a printed t-shirt. It lies on the floor in a heap going musty and decaying while the mindless crowd around their iPhones admiring the 640×480 snapshot of tomorrows forgotten yesterday.

We need Wordsworth and we need Dr Seuss.
We need Tolstoy and we need Enid Blyton.
We need Van Gogh and we need Charlie Brown.
We need bread and we need sugar.

But all too often, today's entertainment is sugar. Pure sugar.

To Write or Not To Write - which is right?

Should you, as a writer, adopt the policy of writing every day? Forcing the words out, if necessary, putting down word after word without joy, without weight and without meaning? Is there really any benefit to that?

Most in the writing industry will tell you that writing - good writing - comes from practice. They will actively encourage you to write each day. They will insist on it. Only through such good habits and developmental practices will you improve.

But is that always true? Should you always write - even when you don't feel like it?

The big question here comes down to you - you as a writer.

What differentiates a Writer from a writer (note the capitalization) is pretty well the same thing that differentiates an Artist from an artist.

A Writer (capital) is essentially an Artist (capital) because they literally live, eat, drink and breath their work. The thought of not producing that work is unimaginable. They literally are born to perform, so to speak. It's not so much a matter of a Writer writing than being a channel for the writing. Try to stop breathing - it's easy. OK, well it isn't easy, but it's about as easy as it is for a writer to stop writing.

If you are not driven then you are not a Writer. Or an Artist.

So having said all that, is it necessary to write every day?

The short answer is that - when the urge to write occurs - it is impossible to not write every day. If you don't do it then you feel incomplete.

At least, most days.

Some days even Writers don't have the urge.

And on those days, they do not write.

Which I think answers the question.

Kindling will start a fire

The new Kindle, more than the iPad, is literally kindling for a new revolution - the electronic book. More, it promises to deliver something that the mainstream publishers cannot - i.e. choice.

The big thing with the kindle is its Electronic paper. Oh, and the size of the Amazon store behind it. iPad might end up with the might of iTunes but the electronic paper will definitely win out, imho, in terms of reading. It literally IS an electronic book.

But the less commented plus with the kindle (and to some extend all the other 'readers' available) is the ability for those who are ignored or rejected by mainstream publishers to actually get their work online and in your face. And this is a big revolution.

For the first time in history, the world will be able to choose what they read rather than having their options limited by short-sighted publishers interested only in peddling existing authors and short-term profits.

The Kindle is kindling for every unpublished author. It's time to get crackling!

Unfaithful

A moment's fancy, sought with Nancy,
Foolish man's desire.
Now the other-woman's panties,
Subtly do conspire.

Roaming penis, takes his pleasure,
Jester dressed as King,
He pays the cost o' fem'nine treasure,
Snared by a ring.

Forbidden Union has its dues,
Her silence he to crave.
A husband with too much to lose,
A secret to the grave.