The Great Outdoors

As something of an appendix to the last post about dropping material on Medium, my buddy Mr Wayne Simmons has also taken up residence there and made his first post about his workspace. I'm reasonably sure I've dropped some things on here before about where I like to work but no harm in rolling through it again.

Some of the time, I work at the kitchen/dining room table which is nothing special. Just a flat piece of wood with four legs. Unlike Mr Simmons, I have no man cave, no posters, no action figures, no paraphernalia at all and with good reason. I get distracted easily. Thus, in front of me sits a blank wall. I even moved all of the pictures that were on it to the wall behind me so I couldn't see them.

Which all sounds a bit dull... unless you've mastered the dark art of using the wall like a screen on which you project the film running in your head - which I do. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's all you're getting on that front.

However, the rest of the time, I write using a pen and notebook and I like to work here:

...or somewhere close by. There are many places to sit, write and watch your dog run free. There are also buzzards, hares, ravens and occasionally (sadly) other people with dogs but you can't have everything.

Believe it or not, I can get a lot of work done here. Words flow and that's what counts. It's a good feeling too because it never feels like work but neither am I averse to writing on trains, in the car... I guess the point I'm trying to make is I don't mind where I write, so it may as well be pretty. How disabling to have be in a certain place before you can get any work done. Thus, I have learned to be ready because it comes when it comes.

So there you have it. That's my day. If you're looking for pictures of sexy desks and workspaces - much like this one occupied by Bruce Springsteen - you're shit out of luck...

But this below - featuring Al Gore - is my idea of absolute hell. How can you focus and get anything done somewhere like this:

Where's the blank canvas to be filled? From the look of all this stuff, it looks to me like it's already been completed by other people, which is pretty much the story of Al Gore - apart from An Inconvenient Truth which is excellent and obviously made before he collected all this crap.

Sion Smith 17/02/2016 Sion Smith 17/02/2016

The Blackout Project - Bruce Springsteen (1)

Holy cow. My head hurts this week. Last weekend I spent a grand total of thirteen hours in my own company in the car during which we had a good long talk about some things that had been bothering us and I don't think I've fully recovered. We ironed most of our issues out and got home itching to pull all of the irons out of the fire and shake them at the moon but as soon as I walked in the door, Hector demanded to go out (it was 2 a.m.) and after that, The Gods sucked all of the oxygen out of the room and I collapsed into something that looked like a man in sheep's clothing that had fallen from the sky and died on the floor.

Anyway, once the house had rebalanced itself, some of the things we spoke about made it onto the kitchen table. Yes, the kitchen table is looking busier than ever with unfinished projects - there's no chance of eating on it - but thats fine, fine, fine. It wouldn't be much fun looking at the kitchen table and finding nothing but bananas and a pepper grinder on there. That would make me very miserable indeed. I'll take this mess any day of the week because sooner or later, it will filter out into something worthwhile.

In the cracks of everything else on the table here, I've (apparently) been working on a book of poetry too. It's asking to be called Eight Grams, which suits me just fine. Do people still read poetry? There seems to be a healthy subculture of people calling themselves poets out there - and delivering on it too - so I guess there is indeed interest, though it is not my place to comment on its quality. I saw a quote the other day that went along the lines of 'The last thing the world needs is more bad poets'. While this is true, the thing the world needs even less of, is poetry 'belonging' to a secret elite club outside of which experimenting with words is frowned upon. For me, it's always been whatever strikes a chord and I have little doubt it's the same for everybody else who ever picked up a book (of any description) and gotten along with it.

I posted an extract from it called She Used To Listen To Police Radio At Night a while back. When it all starts coming together like a cake looking like you need to pull it out of the oven, I'll post some more. That wasn't what I was going to hit you with though... here:

During The Car Ride, I had an idea to rustle up some Blackout Poetry - which is a real thing - and what better place to begin a such a series, than with a book on how Bruce Springsteen acted as the soundtrack to your life (not mine). It doesn't need much explanation beyond the actual pictures and there's more to come now it's useless as an actual book - and no, I don't feel bad about the destruction. It was 99 pence in HMV - I even read it all the way to the end and it's very good. Anyway, here's the book cover:

...and here's the annihilation of the chapter titled 'Jesus Was An Only Son':

Share away wherever you wish - and yes, you're right. I do need a Sharpie if I'm going to do more. This was done with a 0.5 fine-liner and I won't be doing that again. A ruler might not go amiss either.

So, given there's big piles of paper everywhere, I had best get on with making it into something that somebody else (like you) might want to see one day, so I'll leave you with this picture of Hector at the beach:

Sometimes it really is like taking a circus pony out for a walk.

Quote of the Day:

“Poor is the mind that always uses the ideas of others and invents none of its own.”

Footnote: I would like to point out that other writers are likely to have even more unfinished projects than I in their lives - I just like to talk about them... maybe I shouldn't. The notebook stacks are nothing but the fallout of working longhand with ancient instruments. Files on a machine do not take up space and are not what I class as 'work'.
Unless it's me posting here on my own blog, in which case it very much is.
End of footnote.

Footnote 2: The irony of the quote of the day and the stealing of a page from the Springsteen book is not lost on me, but I shall let it stand in the same post because 95% of the world don't get irony and it may be educational.

Sion Smith 20/01/2012 Sion Smith 20/01/2012

A MATTER OF TASTE

I watched Green Lantern this evening. It's probably the best DC movie ever attempted. I can hear you - 'that's not hard'. Much like Iron Man in the way that expectation was originally pretty low, I expected nothing from it and was rewarded with a couple of hours of decent story, sfx only when necessary and a great cast. Stupidly, I had a look at the reviews for it this afternoon to see what others made of it. Hmmm.

In an era where everybody thinks they can be a critic, being a critic has become null and void. For every positive/negative comment you make about anything at all, somebody will come along and pose the opposite. And if they can't do it at the place they read it originally, they will post it somewhere else and reference it. The end result: no escape.

Once upon a time - and not so long ago either - if you wanted to find out what an album, book or a movie was like, you'd reference somebody who had a similar taste to your own, or at least respected. As much as I dig YouTube et al, it's hardly helpful as a resource when positive comment 'A' is swiftly followed by such delights as 'you're a nazi worshipper, go to hell if you think Bruce Springsteen's new single sucks.' I did make that one up although if you look hard enough, there are worse on there. For the record, Springsteen's single is OK, but that's all. I wouldn't miss it if hadn't happened. I probably won't go out of my way to hunt it down either now, but it will be OK on the radio.

If anybody picks it up.

Fact of the matter is, get online and all manner of reviews are at your fingertips. A little while back as some of you may have noticed, I dropped August Moon: The Monster Magnet up on smashwords to get some feedback. Duly, it was left. It wasn't great but I can take that - I wouldn't be in the game if I couldn't, but when I checked who it was written by, it was from a lovely lady who wrote 'erotic' novels whose keywords involved some spurious delights that made even me cringe. When I read the extract of her book - and if there's one thing I know, it's a good story when I see it - it was the most up your own arse drivel I've ever seen. Which was when I realised that the whole site and its concept is nothing more than a fanzine jumble sale. Smashwords is not about good writing or even selling books, it's about calling yourself a writer and being read indiscriminately just because it's there. But it doesn't mean your good. Apologies to all the real workers on there who are great and got sucked in, but my advice to you is get your material off there and do whatever it is you're doing from your own site or blog. It's the writers equivalent of facebook - only not so slick.

That's not sour grapes. It's a fact. It's all nothing but an illusion that will keep you down in the pit.

Which prompted me to consider amazon and the kindle. I like amazon. I spend a lot of money there. I currently have a few products up too and the model is good, but I don't think it's what I want. It's not why I started out. Sure, I might tempt some chance purchasers out of it but will they become loyal readers who are actually listening to me? Probably not. This is not dissing the beast in any way, I just don't think I'm ready for it yet. Thus, over this coming weekend, I shall be withdrawing all the things I wanted to give away for free (because it won't let me do that) and will be replanting them here. At this tage of the game, I would rather fewer people came here because they wanted to than a million people walked past simply because they were there. Isn't that the point of the web? To empower what it is you're doing in any way you see fit, but with thoughtful control?

Life on the internet gets more interesting everyday. Making it work how you want it to can be hard, but it is worth it. Take some chances, try some things out. If you don't like it, you can change your mind and move on the very next day if you so wish. Whatever get's you through the night and all that but don't be attracted by shiny things simply because they're shiny.

Generally speaking, all people want online is either your attention or your money. Make sure you devote both to the right kinds of places.