Sunday 7 December 2008

Good week bad week. Wednesday 3 December 2008

First you bond then you don’t; seemed to spend a lot of time talking about my life writing Funeral piece (as it were - I suppose death writing funeral piece even). It made me feel guilty and overbearing for monopolising the time and actually just emphasised my deficiencies. Not so much my inability to write, but my incapacity to understand what’s the sod's going on; stylistics I suppose. Anyway I’ve bought the book by Laura Wright and Jonathan Hope; now I just have to osmosis in the understanding. And I was mildly brassed-off that I’d spent loads of, well - minutes, writing feedback to give to the others; and no one had written any feedback to give to me. Don’t think I mean you Joe! And I’m over it, and I know it’s hard – hell, not so over it then.

I was driving home very unsafely on 1 December because I couldn’t stop looking at the moon and Venus and Jupiter; although I didn’t know that was what I was looking at until I got home and looked it up. Well I recognised the moon, obviously.
Gareth Edwards from Cardiff took this picture.

Ali and I went to meet Frankie in Birmingham to shop and eat Bratwurst. We went inside a sports shop which was hard on us all, and then we went with Ali into an out-of-doors shop because Al needed to buy some four seasons socks for John. Transpires it‘s also possible to purchase three seasons socks, which set us wondering, which season aren’t you supposed to wear three seasons socks for? And what’ll happen if you do?

When I had my hair cut, not the last time but the time before, I tuned into a conversation without realising. What caught my attention was, “that milk float’s the ideal cover”. I had to overhear extra hard to get this into context. Transpires some flags have gone missing from the back of premises somewhere at Lostock Hall. Flappy flags or sandstone flags I can only speculate, but I like the idea of the getaway milk float. Ideal wouldn’t be the description that would spring to my mind, overlooking its obvious limitations as a vehicle for hurried departure, the back of a milk float strikes me as a tad exposed for transporting swag.

I've preordered a book written by my friend,
Jenn Ashworth from Amazon; it's called A Kind of Intimacy (that isn't going to be the cover). I can't read Jenn's blog at the moment because I just copy what she writes, word for word. When I did go on to it a few days ago to check out what the real cover will be I was reminded that Jenny Diski has reviewed her book, very positively. (And I did start to copy and I'm not actually having any problems with my internet provider).

5 comments:

Jenn said...

Hello Kim

thank you for the mention. I've enjoyed reading your blog so far. It's interesting to me to hear about your classes in two different directions: it brings up fond and not so fond memories of the MA that I did a couple of years ago, and its also reminding me of the student's perspective as I proceed to teach my first creative writing course.

Here is some feedback:

The thing I like best about your blog writing is how sedate and detailed it is. There is no hysteria here: the feeling is one of calm and detail. When I start reading one of your blog posts I feel like I am in safe hands until the end - you aren't going to leave anything out that I wanted to know.

Jenn said...

Also: Please let Ali know she has provided a little bit of inspiration for novel number 2. The main character has a little sip out of her hot water bottle one morning. I think she will know what I mean. :)

kim mcgowan said...

Hi Jenn
I know she'll be touched. And thank you for your comments, calm and detail, I'm very happy with that. What I really want to be is candid, but it's really hard. Sometimes because I don't want to offend but mostly because I'm not very proud of the truth.

Jenn said...

Candid is difficult. I think it is probably something to do with choosing the most truthful or relevant details and leaving the rest of it out. Choosing relavant details is hard. Telling the truth and using writing to do it is probably impossible.

I like Skating to Antartica too. I like the story - the content - but better than that I like the way it uses a novel's structure and tricks to tell something that is supposed to be true. I always wonder how much of it she made up, and I always decide that I don't want to know.

kim mcgowan said...

Does it? Use a novel's structure and tricks? I don't know how to know that because I've only done poetry and life writing so far; and I'd be a bit rubbish if you asked me to spot their defining characteristics. I should be attending your writing class.

You've done Al a favour Jenn. The three seasons sock police were round asking for her but I was able to assure them that it couldn't have been her because she is currently occupied figuring in a novel; they don’t need to know it’s only a sip out of a hot water bottle.