I was smoking just now, and thinking about my own fear of writing. This was something I have had cause to think about now and again, that I put off settling down to write because of all of the pain that has come with writing and not managing to get it done. I had been thinking of Modafinil, which I am taking at the moment, and how it seems to have been helping me to focus on fewer projects, reading just one book (!) and more or less focusing on one story for at least a few days, which is more than I usually achieve. It seemed that I would be able to finish something, and that that could free me up to fear sitting down to write so much less. This led me into thinking of a story that I have considered a couple of times before, about a darts player who develops a condition whereby he cannot let go of the dart.
I first heard of this years ago watching the Darts at university while procrastinating, putting off studying for an impending exam or essay. Darts, snooker, even curling became fascinating at these moments, but darts I found particularly funny. Well, funny and sad at times, perhaps, but certainly funny. There was the way the stars of darts seemed to come from another world, one that was unchanged by political correctness and any of the advances of the last twenty years.
It was funny how they promoted themselves and pimped themselves up in gaudy clobber and big rimmed glasses. It was funny how the one guy came on to the BBC to speak about women’s darts and completely ran them down, talking like darts was so physically demanding that women couldn’t cut it in some way, and completely unaware of how insensitive he was being and the protocols of diplomacy that were being demanded of him. It was funny too how one white overweight middle aged New Zealand player came out and did the Hakka before throwing his featherweight darts. And it was funny how this one feller spoke about the tragedy of these players who cannot throw the darts, how it just won’t leave their hands. Read the rest of this entry »
My priorities have shifted around again and I may be downgrading my blog-writing activities to times when, like now, I am too tired to write anything important (or remotely coherent). This has been brought about by my frustration with not writing, and, possibly, Modafinil, which may have lessened the clutter of impulses, the invitation to struggle of my executive function (only time will tell to what degree this is so, but certainly the timing tallies for now).
The last couple of days I have stuck to coming in from work and settling straight down to reading my one nominated book. I have tried to do this numerous times in the past but found it then impossible to adhere to. That I have adhered to this for three days may seem little enough. (It is little enough, of course.) But that for years, this was not possible. Read the rest of this entry »
I came back from a run yesterday, my last day of absolute freedom, the last day of holiday without M who had gone to Prague for a few days - she booked it last minute to get away when she had a few consecutive days off work at the same time as her brother’s birthday - and as usual, tried to find something constructive to do with the short period of time I had before leaving for the airport. Read the rest of this entry »
I started yesterday to write a short story. I listed it as a kind of finger exercise. I am experimenting with writing first drafts directly into my blog to try and shame me into finishing them (if I don’t it’s no humiliation, I suppose, given the subject of the blog). The story was a transposition of my struggles with M at the moment, intended as the transcript of a conversation, not disimilar to a collection of Ivan Klima’s which centred around lovers conversations. Read the rest of this entry »
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 »
I found the one credit card I haven’t given M to curb my spending and ordered myself some generic Modalert/Modafinil a little while back. I wrote a piece on this before, but my experiment with the drug last time was inconclusive. Indeed, though I recall thinking my head was clearer for the first few days, I don’t remember anything about it at all now. Certainly there were no ill effects. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve just gone down for a smoke, rolled it while listening to an all-too familiar uninspiring rock song, the kind I flick away from while driving in to work or to go for M, usually flicking through several such desperate to get something out of the moment. I was feeling like I needed one. Needed a break from the computer at any rate having just finished the last post on The Crop. I had two breaths this time before recalling a brief thought this morning, an idea about structuring and organising my life that I have had numerous times before, that I would write down every day the number of days I have been without gluten, without dairy, without alcohol, smoking etc, a simple string of numbers that would not then allow for lapses and those little exceptions and get-outs I give myself, that avoiding wheat, for example, is not unanimously considered a part of an anti-Candida diet, or that green tea wouldn’t count for one day, or that smoking will help me see it through. I stubbed it out and came back up. I remembered too the thought that came to me on driving back from the airport where I dropped off M yesterday for the expensive few days back home she has opted for to get away from things here when I was going for my second fag that evening, tired as I was, that the highs that come from smoking drop down to lows and precipitate them, soemthing I have always known, but rarely acted on. 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 »
My immune system’s down. I’ve been smoking for a while now. Took it up again when M was away in Prague for a couple of weeks. I’ve been away for a while now. My priorities once again completely shifted. This blog wasn’t going where I wanted. I didn’t have time for it. It was taking time from what I needed to do. I was only making myself more misunderstood. Failing to get through to anyone. Read the rest of this entry »
I got back a little while back and as usual I have searched for something to do, picking up my guitar to practise for a while the 12 bar blues I learnt last Wednesday. Of course, each day has gone past since then with me finding no time to practise. Almost a week and I’ve spent a total of an hour practising what I learnt. I spoke a little with M____ in the car, and congratulated myself on it, but it was scarcely a few minutes. We barely live together at all. Read the rest of this entry »