Well, I have stared writing the 50,000 words of novel for the National Novel Writing Month. It’s going painfully slowly. I was struggling to find the motivation to get the thing moving along steadily. I had set up a separate weblog to post some of the material I create, and to post comments as I … Read more
This weekend the whole family sat down twice to watch films on the DVD player. On Friday evening we watched ‘Troy’ starring Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Eric Bana, Diane Kruger, Peter O’Toole etc. Now, when I watched this film I had read no reviews of it whatsoever, and had been vaguely aware of all the … Read more
OK – I am working at the laptop. Sitting alone here – sometimes feeling a little cut off from the big world out there. So…I have a live feed coming into the computer, playing the latest programme from WFMU station on the net (www.wfmu.org). As I type this the DJ, Ken, is online playing “Freeform … Read more
There are days when the words don’t want to come forward. I surf across weblogs on the net (some are over on the right) and find some bloggers who post every single day. How do you do that? There are days when life gets in the way. There are days when emotions get in the … Read more
The rain is lashing down on the conservatory roof near my desk, as I sit listening to the piano music of Bela Bartok played by Zoltan Kocsis. I’m not sure whether it is the music, or the relentless sound of the rain, but I have an overall feeling of listlessness today. Things could certainly be … Read more
Over the last weekend I have been buying music again. God, I’m a cd junkie! I bought: 1. Tom Waits – Real Gone 2. Jan Garbarek – In Praise of Dreams 3. Jimi Hendrix – Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix Live at the Isle of Wight 4. Various Artists – Cash Covered (cover versions of … Read more
The plans are emerging for the Novel Writing month coming up. According to the rules it’s OK to plan and prepare outlines before the writing starts. (Never forget that rules are made to be broken anyway!) I’m thinking that I will do some more work to pull together what this whole 50,000 words is going … Read more
I signed up for the National Novel Writing Month initiative today (www.nanowrimo.org). I have only the vaguest idea as to what I will write about when it starts on 1st November, but then I think that is partly the point! I thought I would produce a sequel to the first novel which I wrote – … Read more
I mentioned in an earlier post that there is an amazing internet archive including thousands of live music shows. I am in the middle of listening to a couple of concerts from this archive today. The first one, a Grateful Dead show from the mid-90s is really good. I’m not familiar with much of their … Read more
Last weekend I put together 100 songs as a soundtrack for a party. It went really well! I’m in the process of transcribing the list and may post it here soon. In the meantime, here’s a list of some of the stuff I have been listening to this week: 1. Porcupine Tree – In absentia. … Read more