My first reading of this year will be at SOLO Fest in Coventry at the Warwick Arts Centre at 18:00. I was picked for one of the open mic slots before the main performances and will be reading a short story from my Night Swimming collection. Many of us are feeling a bit, Mick Hucknall, these days, so you’ll be pleased to hear that the open mic slots are free to attend if money is indeed too tight to mention. But what is SOLO Fest? The Warwick Arts Centre says:
“SOLO Fest is a four day festival that showcases three captivating theatre shows by solo performers. Audiences have the opportunity to see two shows each evening, along with FREE pop-up performances by local artists, and post-show gossip events.
One person shows depend on the combination of imaginative writing
with skilled and versatile performance and stagecraft. Despite there
only being one person on stage, the best solo shows can transport you
far from the theatre into another world.
We have handpicked three of the best solo shows in the UK today, by top young artists Keisha Thompson, Tatty Hennessy and Toby Thompson.”
That all sounds pretty awesome to me.
I’ll be going to both performances that evening, I Wish I Was A Mountain, and A Hundred Words For Snow, and hanging around for the post show gossip. I’ll even have some books on me if you fancy buying a copy. Please come up and say hello – I won’t bite.
This coming Saturday, the 15th of December, I will be reading at Country Voices, the Meadow Inn, Ironbridge, Shropshire. I’ve a twenty-minute slot so I’m hoping to read a short story in its entirety. At the moment, I’m thinking of reading Joyce’s Garden which sounds quite idyllic but isn’t. Joyce’s garden is yet to find a home, but I’m really pleased with it, and hopefully, the crowd will be too as I’m bringing some books to sell – when I find where I’ve hidden them.
If you’re lucky I may even smile. No promises.
The Meadow Inn looks lovely, I’ve never been, but the photos are excellent, and it looks over the river Severn in Ironbridge. Look, here’s a picture montage followed by a map.
The Aerial view should be handy for those of you who are parachuting in. Dead easy to get to.
If you do make the journey please say hello and buy a book. Did I mention I’ll be selling books?
You don’t need to jump into the River Severn to fully appreciate this book.
I read an article the other day on a site called Quartz at Work, yeah, I’d never heard of it either; the post was: Five things to do when you have too many ideas and never finish anything. My paranoid android kicked in – that’s you – and I gave it a read.
The post was reasonably interesting and quoted some research linked to choice and how having too much choice can lead us into making no choices – hey, isn’t greater choice the one thing we all seek according to slavering capitalists everywhere? – well, it appears that too much choice is bad for you.
It’s all shit!
This rang a bell with me. I remember when I was a child, way back in the desolate wastes of the pre-internet age. Days would drag on forever, especially in the school holidays as both of my parents were out at work, and I’d find myself gazing into space daydreaming. I rattle on at my children now about how great it is to be bored, about how a lack of stimulus can lead to exciting ideas and force them into being creative and inventive. Back then, I would spend hours re-reading comics or copying the artwork, writing and drawing my own stories, or, more often than not, just making them up in my head. I look back at that time now and see it as a melting pot of ideas and productivity.
So what went wrong? Choice. We have far too much choice. If you’ve ever sat scrolling through Netflix trying to find something to watch you’ll know exactly what I mean. Choice leads to anxiety – if I watch this, I won’t be able to watch that, and what about these? I can’t watch all of them. Aarrgh! It’s the same with ideas. I should be finishing my novel, but this short story has just popped into my head, and then there’s that other short story I haven’t finished yet, and the comic strip I meant to start, as well as the audio fiction, and… You get the idea.
The five steps! Wow, if I just take these five steps, I’ll become a productive genius. I’ll defeat the paranoid android and bask in the glow of completed projects and adoration. Who knows? Maybe you will, but it can’t hurt to try.
Step One. Create mini-deadlines. Tasks that you have to complete that day. Instead of looking at the enormity of what you have to do – shit, I have to re-write 80000 words from the third person into the first person, and cut out the subplot with the octopus! Focus on the small blocks that make up the whole. This way you cut out the paranoid android that buzzes in your head – shit, there’s so much to do; you’ll never finish it all – and you focus on the smaller, achievable task. Hell, and if you’re a list person, you get to tick it off, cross it out, highlight it in red, whatever floats your boat. Something else you need to be aware of with step one is Parkinson’s Law – “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” I’ve found, that whenever I have less time to do something I get more done. To negate Parkinson’s Law, estimate how long the task will take and then cut your time in half. Scary huh? Give it a try.
Step Four. Develop the habit of finishing. Neil Gaiman talks about this a lot. Make a conscious decision to be a finisher and get stuff done. I have many projects that are outstanding at the moment, and new ones that keep starting up, but I’m working hard to get them done. In the past, I started a lot of things that were never finished. The paranoid android would kick in, and I’d begin to doubt whether they were any good. I wouldn’t say I’m past that yet, but I’m working on it.
Wait a minute. You said five steps, but you’ve only mentioned steps one and four. Why? You’re internet savvy. You’ve seen a smidgen of all the crap that’s out there. I’m an adult. I read the article and thought steps one and four made sense and that the others were just contradictory padding, so I left them out. Feel free to track the piece down and draw your conclusions.
Yesterday, No.1 Daughter and I went to a marvellous workshop at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. The workshop was run by Dr Nicola Streeten and Cath Tate as part of the Birmingham Literature Festival.
We looked at visual story telling through greetings cards and graphic novels. Cath talked us through her work and considerations for greetings cards and Nicola the same for graphic novels. The two hours flew by and incorporated some fun and challenging drawing activities. The culmination of this was all of us producing our own four panel stories. The daughter and I agreed to leave our work there as a backdrop for a talk today, so I’ve recreated/completed the first panel above here.
Here are some pics of the work we produced on the night.
Another quick one – I just don’t have the time at the moment. This is a view of the south end of Coniston in the Lake District. It’s all fibre tipped pen and is actually black on white paper. The image is a sepia brown due to me taking the pic on my phone for speed.
I did do a little tinkering in Affinity Photo to add the sepia splashes of cloud.
I’m hoping to get a bit of time at the weekend to do some longer drawing and some writing. That will hopefully be on Sunday once I’ve got my reading at Birmingham Literature Festival out of the way and finished working with my young writers group on the Saturday. I’ve set Saturday evening aside for watching crap with the family and drinking beer.
If you’re in Birmingham this Saturday morning (October 6th) come along to Birmingham REP, the Mezzanine, and hear some great stories from a bunch of wonderful writers. Hell, you could even buy some books.
I’ll be reading a short story, along with a host of excellent writers, and selling some books as part of the Room 204 meet up. It kicks off at 10:00 am this Saturday, October the 6th, at the Mezzanine, Birmingham REP.
Click here for booking details – entry includes coffee and a pastry!
If like me, British comics, and especially 2000AD, have a special place in your heart then today is a sad day. Today we lost Carlos Ezquerra. Ezquerra was a huge talent who co-created one of the most iconic characters ever, Judge Dredd. Carlos’s work had a huge impact on me as a child, and I would often try to copy his drawings. Therefore, it seems only fitting that my first offering for Inktober should be in honour of him.
I loved Ezquerra’s early vision of Dredd, a lean, mean justice machine. In more recent times Dredd has grown older and beefier, but it’s these early visions of a youthful Joe Dredd that still resonate with me all these years later.
If you look closely, you can see my initial pencil marks – I haven’t bothered to rub them out yet. This was inked with fibre-tipped pens and a sharpie.
