This post has been written in pieces. I made notes on the first section so I could get on and write the rest, but of course, with my mind changing so often in terms of both context and mood, it’s always difficult to piece together something after the fact. This is one of the reasons my novels die so often in my mind as I move on to something new, but because this very difficulty of expression is the subject of the post it is only right that I go on to try and expand my original notes.
When I was in my late teens and first seriously getting into writing as a way of expressing my increasingly tormented mind, and as a future career, I wrote a poem, called, Black Hole Son. This was a period in which I was moving away from the focus on music I had as a teenager towards something more substantial which could support my mind, and this is evidenced in the very title, which is in part taken from a popular grunge song by Soundgarden, and part influenced by Steven Hawkings’ early beliefs (since revised) about black holes. At that time Hawking believed that nothing could escape the gravitational pull of a black hole. I had read his A Brief History of Time and struggled to take it in. The poem was an attempt at describing my feeling that I took in everything, observed everything, felt everything, and that yet, nothing escaped my mind which crushed up together inside itself. It was a time that I felt a lot of physical pressure inside my head. My thoughts would build up to such an extent that I could feel the pressure. Read the rest of this entry »
The Guardian’s Saturday Review was once one of the highlights of my week. The only reason it isn’t now is because of my desperate attempts to cut out all the distractions in my life. Desperate attempts, of course, which haven’t remotely worked and which are no doubt destined to continue for some time. Favourites are Doonesbury, which is occasionally perplexing (I once looked up a site to get the measure of the cast of characters, but didn’t succeed in learning very much) but unfailingly entertaining, the political cartoon, and a column called Writer’s Rooms in which a photograph is accompanied by a short description of a writer’s relationship with their room and the various items in it. Read the rest of this entry »
One of my most common reveries is of getting involved in some kind of trouble, getting beaten up. This dates right back to my days at Kidderminster college at least, where I attended as a depressed and socially anxious ninteen, twenty year old. Then, the function was clear. The beatings expressed my anger at myself, and my solecisms. They expressed too my anger, and desire for a fight with some low lifes. So too did they speak of my need for others to see me in a different light, as hard done by, certainly, but also as having an uncommon and unsuspected grit and integrity. Read the rest of this entry »
Chutzpah is the latest easy-to-write novel that I’m going to just churn out. It’s more autobiographical than I’m happy with, being basically an extension of the original conception of yeswehavenobananas.net, the sister blog of masterkidderminster.net.
It will concern the writing of a couple of stories, and the shifting of my priorities in the process, my reveries, ideas and moods.
I would need to document some reveries and the like to do it. I’ll try and note a few now.
Billy Liar type disquisitions, sending in the SAS to brothels, and answering questions in foreign countries about how a brothel owner was shot in cold blood by saying that any brothel owner or anyone working in the industry who is concerned about the health problems associated with their profession should go to their nearest Job Centre to discuss the possibilities for training.
Inventions for Dragon’s Den. A range of sockets with timers and key locks to prevent use of such devices as Playstations. This after a productive meeting with a students’ psychiatrist.
We’ll give you the stars. The slogan of a political movement that cuts out light pollution.
Ringing round Prague for a hotel for the head chef, who was upset over a deal falling through.
The usual secretaries. The sex blogger at a literary awards ceremony giving me a blow job under the table as I’m called up.
But I’m tired and my priorities have been shifting round all day.
Doing the usual run back from the Woods, a delivery driver in a heavy goods vehicle slams into the back of the minibus. The driver, a Czech, is distraught, talking about how his company has not maintained the vehicles and he knew the braking was not anything like optimal. I comfort him. He knows little English and I interpret for him. I ask someone to roll him a cigarette and a student does so. I say I’ll stay with him and wait for the police. Read the rest of this entry »
Drawing flow charts for reveries and how they come about, and then moving on to brainstorm flow charts for others peculiarities of my personality. It’s Friday night. I realised this after thinking of texting my brother. He will be out somewhere. This led me to reflect on the differences between our lives and to question the extent of my own lapses of empathy for others - do I recognise this social life he has? This led me into a reverie.
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1> Rounding on a certain person at work due to his hostile stance when I load up the bus. I have been trying to put my finger on what I dislike about him [discussing same dislike at a peer supervision session] [slamming door of minibus when asked, in a straightforwardly hostile tone the guy has not yet produced, whether he can go, punching minibus walking down to narrowboat to sit, in some takes person in question coming down to apologise… crying now… being tearful in morning meeting and unable to respond or walking out. Key individuals I would like to feel more warm towards me seeing this. Asking kitchen staff if I could see the stock cube box they use to make the soup and the like. Doing so in an apologetic tone, ‘this might seem silly but…’ This after wondering whether it could have been the soup I had at lunch as opposed to the potato and celeriac mash that has made me so dreamy… My immediate boss making another comment about my ADD and me kicking and punching the new partition wall. This after wondering whether his comments earlier today could have had a negative effect on me he said if I don’t pay attention he can’t do anything for me (I had asked for a pay rise, saying I hadn’t received one. He told me today I had received one. I hadn’t checked my pay slips. Nor indeed could I find them.) … Me beating up wall again and going round to pick up students for the Woods bus after crying then splashing my face with water in the toilets. Jaffa asking where have you been? Me, having a fucking shit, now come on.] …for most of the day. Indeed, for the last few days when I have been working down the farm. I could in fact say, he has been one person I have been trying to [crying a lot now after a reverie in which I was queried about the broken partition wall, a workmate asking which student had done it, and me replying I had done it myself, and ‘coming out’ as ADHD saying that our boss had annoyed me by referring to my inability to pay attention, saying he wasn’t likely to do it again, this leading to our boss apologising in the morning meeting and praising me up, something that in the reverie I felt I could not deal with well, walking out of the meeting in tears, this a reflection of a statement about one student in today’s morning meeting, that he takes praise as being patronising] [This missing out a reverie in which I tell my next psychiatrist whom I’m hoping to get a referal to see in a few weeks’ time, that I have not been helped by anyone and have no reason to trust him; I forget the detail of this one].
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Objecting to definition of depression given by “expert” psychiatrist (from the Transactional Analysis school) at a training session at work, getting angry, talking about Churchill, then Spike Milligan, Tony Hancock, John Clees.
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Crux: Comment made by Doctor Huffenbinder that homeopathy is common sense.
Background: An increasing awareness that I find it difficult to be in a room with a lot of people, and that sat in such an environment I become increasingly twitchy and eventually, after sitting silently for a period of time, explode in a rant.
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This time I can time it perfectly. You see, it all unravels so quickly that it’s very rare that I get it down, but sometimes I can time the unfolding of a reverie or a story idea in footsteps, from, say, the doors opening on the A line of the Prague metro to the doors opening on the C line above at a time when the train was approaching as I stepped off the escalator. Read the rest of this entry »