A writer's life for me

'It happens' hit me like a one-two punch. I replied with a stare. First at you. Then at her dress,                     slung over our feature chair. 'It happens' but the judge didn't agree with me.

In my notebook I have a sort of sarcastic list about what things are essential for a writer. So, before you launch into reading this, I think you should take note that I’m kind of only half-serious. Unless, of course, you read something that’s totally inspiring, eye-opening, and perspective-changing for you - in which case, I’m deadly serious, and I take full responsibility for whatever epiphany you’ve just had. Fair deal? Now, on the list of ‘writing essentials’, I have written ‘the myth of inspiration’.  The Myth of Inspiration.  I suspect the picture at the top of this blog post is what spawned this particular essential. Before I started my Masters degree in Creative Writing, I was actually one of those people who waited for inspiration to strike, and sometimes I still am one of those people. Unfortunately, and this is something I learned rather quickly when I started my Masters, those people aren’t very good at meeting deadlines; and, when you’re writing for someon...

After a recent discussion with a friend, I started wondering exactly what people do, through both choice and necessity, for the sake of their chosen art form. My friend believes that you should suffer for your art, which to me seems either extreme or perhaps somewhat hyperbolic; nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder if it’s at the very least a little bit true. I don’t mean direct suffering in a self-torture, deliberately making things difficult for yourself sort of sense, because that really would be extreme, but maybe there are things in life that people frequently and willing sacrifice in order to better themselves and their work - now, is that suffering for your art, or is that something else?  It’s a bit of a social stereotype that writers are these off-the-wall characters who can be really turbulent in terms of how available they are, in terms of both emotion and time. It seems writers have a fairly unimpressive and off-putting list of credentials, some of which are true, I ...

I will hold my hands up and proudly admit that up until last Thursday, I was a Worcestershire Lit Fest & Fringe virgin. I toyed with the idea of going last year but never actually made it; so this year, whilst trying to find my feet on the performance poetry scene, I decided it was time to give the festival a go, and I’m so glad that I did.  Thursday night (June 26th) saw the SpeakEasy Festival Special - SpeakEasy being a popular open mic event in Worcester already - and not only did I perform here, but I also saw some amazing artists. Complete with two amazing headliner acts, Scott Tyrrell and Emma Purhouse, poets from around Worcester, and I’m assuming from other corners of the West Midlands, banded together for what turned into a brilliant couple of hours of spoken word. A first-timer to the event, I was absolutely over-whelmed by the massive amount of support from both other performers and from audience-members - it truly was a brilliant atmosphere and I was so hap...

Yesterday I asked the potentially awkward question of whether writers are difficult to be romantically involved with. When I wrote that piece and then blogged it, I had no idea that there would be so many opinions on it; and I had no idea that discussing those opinions with people would lead to yet another question, that I felt the need to blog about today.  If writers aren’t compatible with people who don’t write, do they stand a good chance of being compatible with other writers? And, if that’s the case, what happens to the creativity in that situation? Does it suffer, like it can when you’re involved with a non-creative person, or does it blossom? In other words, does creativity breed creativity? Oh, sorry, did I say one question? I actually meant about one hundred.  I’ve been on both sides of it, and I’m honestly no closer to answering any of the above questions, so please, if people have opinions about this post too then I strongly encourage you to share them with m...

It might be a bit of an awkward question to ask, but is a writer possibly one of the worst romantic partners that a person can find themselves lumbered with? I’m drawing again on something that a lecturer recently said to me; she admitted that she actually felt a remarkable amount of sympathy for partners of writers, because they really do have an awful lot to put up with. Admittedly, the thought had crossed my mind before. I’ve had more than one unsettling argument with a past partner who has found an argument recreated in a poem, and then blogged for the rest of the internet to read - shame on me, I know - but is it really, really difficult to be in a relationship with an artistic type, or do people just think it is? During a recent Jack Vettriano kick, I was reading one of the many, many biographies about the painter where he admitted to finishing a relationship once because the girl that he was with made him too happy. He found himself sitting around, staring at the sun and lovin...

Generally speaking mental health is a bit of a taboo subject, although in this day and age, it absolutely shouldn’t be. Given some of the outright disgusting conversations that I overhear on an average night out, I’m amazed that anything can be considered taboo in 2014, because many of us have the luxury of living in a no-boundaries society these days. Unless, of course, you’re talking about problems with the human psyche, in which case you might as well lock yourselves away now and resign yourselves to a life of only discussing this topic with trained professionals who are paid to listen. Not for public consumption. Nuh-uh. No, thank you. For the sake of this blog post actually going somewhere, let’s just put a pin in the notion that we can’t talk about mental health and pretend for a second that we can. Or, let’s be even more risqué and talk about mental health in relation to art, because that’s really what I’m interested in right now. After reading an article recently, I discove...