Friday, December 23, 2005

Thinking about the box

My contributions to the Cabbage Soup group have been a bit pathetic lately, so it's just as well I've got a couple of things published, in actual black and white, to show them next time. There's a review of Caroline Gourlay's poetry collection 'This Country' in Blithe Spirit 15/4 and an article called 'Haiku Lessons' in Yellow Moon 18.

We keep a box of things the Soup group members have had published and it's growing, slowly but surely. I find it's good to have evidence that I can sometimes produce actual finished product, for those times when I might be tempted to doubt it!

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Estate agents again

It's good to find an estate agent you can trust. "Close to the city with two genuine double bedrooms" - there's a description that gives you confidence. It's clear that in some places at the end of the day* you could step into what you thought was a bedroom only to find it was a fake.

*I'm tired of seeing this phrase used when it means no such thing, so I thought I'd demonstrate how to use it properly.

Monday, December 19, 2005

I fail again and, pathetically, try to distract attention from it by going on about policemen and bicycles

So much for doing better this time. I failed again. I can't seem to concentrate on my exercises lately. When I sit down to do them I end up getting distracted and doing something else. Luckily other Cabbage Soupers are better organised and at least one of the interview plans may be put into action.

We're going to take a break from the book exercises over Christmas and the next meeting will be a 'favourite books' meeting. Mine will be Flann O'Brien's 'The Third Policeman.' The bit about the Atomic Theory (as applied to postmen and bicycles) bears any amount of re-reading. I've got through several copies of the book over the last 30 years or so, I just wear them out and they fall apart. I think my new favourites, the Harry Potter books, are going to suffer the same fate.

It might be fun to post a list of our favourite books here, once we've had that meeting.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

The interview

After my poor attempt at the last exercise I feel shamed into trying harder for the next one. It's a tough one though: the interview. Given that most of the people I'd really like to interview are deceased, fictional or such miserable curmudgeons I'd be lucky to get a word out of them, let alone an interview, I think I'd better think of something more practical.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Non-fiction

Not only did I mess up the organisation of the latest Cabbage Soup meeting, I also left doing the exercise to the last minute, then circulated the wrong version of it!

Luckily the rest of the group are much more organised and came up with chapter headings and introductions to several non-fiction books that could all very well end up being written. One almost certainly will be, the authors of the others admitted to rather more doubts about finding the time, energy, and motivation to complete the job. One book had the potential to be written as a series of articles, which is an interesting approach, and maybe slightly less daunting.

More estate agents writing

There aren't many places on the market that can offer 'A bathroom with shower over bath and parking.' Just think of the convenience of it!