FIRST AID FOR AUTHORS

One of my favourite films, right up there slugging it out with The Big Lebowski for top spot in a bout too close to call, is The Third Man. 

I often wondered what happened to Holly, Calloway and Anna after the film’s wistful closing scene of Anna’s long, determined walk past a smitten Holly into an unknown, uncertain future. I had my own thoughts, which weren’t narratively conventional, although they started that way in a novel I began writing, Cowboy Heart. 

Blithely I worked away on it before deciding to check whether copyright would allow this conception to proceed to term. 

‘I have consulted the literary executor and I am sorry to tell you that I am instructed to say he would never in any circumstances permit the work you propose’. 

I must have really sold that one. Chagrin aside, I feel compelled to give at least a part of it an airing. That way, perhaps I’ll be able to move on more stoically. So here it is for week 10 - Out West - the start of the unfinished, a flavour of a feast that remains raw.

Back in the real world, it has been a busy week. I have passed my three-day course for ‘First Aid at Work’ and endured the horrible injury, burns, breaks and dislocation slides with only brief nods to nausea and the prospect of providing hands-on practice for my fellow delegates. So if someone is injured at work and I can avoid keeling over myself, I’m the man.

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ARS GRATIA ARTIS

Sure, when I can afford it, which if the hits on this blog are any indication of interest, is some way, way time away. Meantime I have a number of writerly projects tumbling about that may have commercial sinews. But I’m sufficiently anal to feel the ouija’d spectre of defeat if I don’t continue to post creative content on a weekly basis. What to do? 
Cunning plan - use a different writer’s muscle in order to maintain a measure of focus on lucre. So you have some poetry this week.  
Poetry works different bits of you to those worked by story. Drawn from the same vocabulary and experience but so different in the making and giving, so compassed and detachable. 

Last of Springs has worked different bits of me, forgotten and neglected in the pursuit of larger ambitions. I’ll do more. And I’ll have to review the ’index card’ presentation of Stories from nowhere for nothing - it’s starting to get unwieldy - I feel the dead hand of spreadsheet days stroking my cheek.

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SOLITUDE

As a non-driver, I walk or cycle whenever I can. Cycling is a wonderful and cheaply acquired freedom. I just wish I was more mechanically minded and could maintain my bike properly. It creaks and groans, pings with strained and rusty cables and parts. But these sounds are a comforting accompaniment to the late cycle home along the quieted roads and there's a freedom to look about you, take things in, think.


Cycling home last night, I looked up to see the moon as it lay on its back. Astronomers tell us this is a spring and autumn phenomenon in the northern hemisphere. Daffodils are about to bloom the length of the Stray, its hedges are budding green, but winter won't let go. The tenacious chill keeps everyone brittle, waiting for the sun, waiting for the real spring.




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GET IT RIGHT!

It must have been something! I use Arnie here for reasons you'll understand when you read Stardom, week 7's story. But the real debt is to Philip K Dick, something I appreciated when I had finished the story.  I thought I would outline something that could be classified as Sci-Fi that I could write later as a much longer better-realised piece. I hope I do because there's so much else to occupy one's time.


This past week that has been nursing my first batch of home-brewed beer to bottlement. As an eternal optimist, I have ordered the necessaries for the next batch without having tasted the first. The extent of my optimism might be gauged in my ordering weiss bier for hot summer drinking. When tasting time comes around, I hope Arnie isn't recalled to haunt me.


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