Wednesday 24 November 2010

Stream of Consciousness

I've just seen the forecast for the next few days.  That doesn't look good.  Snow isn't forecast to start here for another day or two but because we have a power station here it always snows (due to all the steam).  I'm down at the arts centre right now.  I go to a knitting group (technically not called Stitch and Bitch any more although that's what I call it) here on a Wednesday night.  I was pretty sure that our only other regular couldn't make it tonight but I was also thinking I should come out just in case.  Being housebound because of snow really sucks.  But I do have to admit that I'm getting a bit fed up with the "get out of the house every single time you can just in case" mindset I've been in for a couple of weeks.

Anyway I'm having a j2o and one of the worlds biggest flapjacks (seriously they could sell them half the size and you wouldn't moan they were small - or I would having seen how big they are now).  They have Christmas carols playing and they've put their Christmas tree up.  It's nice.  Although when they asked me what I thought of the Christmas tree I did suggest it was a little early for that.  I particularly like the fact that they haven't put any tinsel on their tree.  It's particularly bizarre that I like that given that I usually love tinsel but there you have it.

Oh actually Pulp's common people has just come on, that's not a Christmas carol but it is a song I like a lot.  Probably because I've heard and seen some really cool parody versions of that and I really like parody songs.  I was never really a huge pulp fan but I did like another song of theirs or at least I think it was theirs (the lets all meet up in the year 2000 song).

One of the things my creative writing tutor talks about a lot is something chaos writing where you just sit and write.  You don't worry about what you are writing, you don't edit, and you don't stop.  if you can't write you write about why you can't write.  It's supposed to spark creativity.  I do it quite a lot and I do find it works really well. And it's where this blog entry which is some what of a stream of consciousness has come from.  One of the ways I often do it is to take a line from a song or a comment from the TV and use that as a prompt.

I sit in here and write fairly often which I really enjoy, I do find getting out of the house can get me writing more and easier then sitting in the house where I'm distracted easily.  It's a bit bizarre given that it's usually the internet which distracts me and they do have wifi here but that's what it is.

Anyway, Common People has finished playing now and has another song which wasn't a Christmas Carol either but I wasn't sure what it was.  Now Elvis Blue Christmas is playing.  But going back to Common People and the parody songs I was talking about, it occurred to me as it was playing that it might be fun to do a "Disabled People" version

So you wanna live like disabled people
Do whatever disabled people do

etc etc.

I'll have to sit down and think about it (I know, I know, when am I ever not sat down - when I'm in bed, that's when) but don't hold your breath to see it here, parody songs aren't very easy and I don't think I'm good at them.  But then again I did write a haiku about how syllables confuse me and I hate them and can't write the damn things - then realised afterwards it was exactly right, syllables and all.

NaNoWriMo is but isn't going well.  And I do realise that also doesn't make sense.  I have 30K words which is huge but I'm stalled a lot and not sure I can hit 50K in the next week.  It is doable but I'm not very motivated right now if I'm honest.  And I should be honest in my blog.  I did take part in a 7K all day writing event over on Introverted Words last Saturday which I succeeded in and which was huge fun.  Rochelle is running another one this Saturday which I think I'll do - it should be fun and it'll really help beat that wordcount into submission.  It wasn't as hard as I thought it might be either.  Possibly because I can type so fast, I don't know.

The fact that I gave up on my novel as being an idea which needed too much research and work to be a NaNo novel also played a lot there I think..  So I'm counting every word I write for anything (including blogs) in November and being a rebel.

Oh! I just remembered that I meant to go back over the the 7K all day page and write down all of the prompts that were given (once an hour or so). I didn't do anything with them so it might be useful to have a note of them.  I bought some index cards absolutely ages ago and have been meaning to go through my creative writing notes and my writing magazines and write one prompt to a card.  Then I can shuffle them, grab one and write it at random.


Talking of creative writing, I've decided not to do the course again in January.  It's totally the right decision but when I realised last week there were only two weeks left it made me a little sad for some unexplainable reason.

Other then writing I've been helping my mum with a very exciting project (mostly doing computer things for her) and just my normal CAB stuff.  CAB moved premises last week so this week it was a case of figuring out my way around and accidentally getting covered in gloss paint - my coat, my chair and my brand new just bought the day before hoodie,

The music in here seems to be veering from Christmas Carols and summery reggae type songs that I'm sure my mum had on a CD called "Dancing in Sunshine" in the early nineties.  That was a great CD, I loved it and am now wondering if she still has it (but I doubt it).  It's a bit of a strange  combination.  I could see a cute story in it.

I've not updated about my weight for a few weeks, I'm back up to 17st and a quarter of a pound.  I think I want to just try to stay around what I am now and then worry about it further after Christmas.  But this is a topic I have a longer post planned on so I shall say no more for now.

And now I've blathered on for so long I feel completely caught up for the first time in ages.  Which is a very good thing.  This wasn't what I planned to do here (knitting if my peeps were here or writing but not this writing if they weren't) but that's also a very good thing.  I've also run out of j2o and flapjack.  So I shall head home.

The song that's just finished playing is the one that was turned into the Vitalite song for the adverts - that brings back memories! I don't think we were vitalite people though.  I am now wondering if you can still get vitalite though - one for wikipedia me thinks.  But that'll wait until I get home.

2 comments:

Dan Holloway said...

Marvellous post! And yeah, that's Disco 2000, also from the Different Class album - it'd be quite cool to sing now, because you'd have to be a time traveller.

I'm around 30k for Nano as well. It's going surprisingly well, but I've not made any of the meet ups.

I saw your review of Miranda's book on the Authonomy blog, by the way - nice job getting hold of a copy! I loved Fairytale of New York and very much looking forward to the new one

Gem said...

Thank you for the comment :D I honestly have no idea why the term "disabled" isn't my favourite description. I'm not offended by it in any way, I kinda wonder whether it's because my mum (who's a physio- evil things!) refers to other people and me as less- abled and always has. It's a good question. I wonder what other people think?!

Flapjacks and carols with a christmas tree sounds soooo nice!!!!! Love the beginnings of festivities!!!

Hope you're ok!
xx

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