Poetry. Honest.

I am trying to remember a poem I wrote when I was 15 called Yellow but all I can remember is the line "but I am yellow." 

It was about cowardice as opposed to too much sun (in 1990s Boro? Ha!) and I do have a copy of it in a published book at my parents house but I wish I had if here too so I could read it. 

I'll be honest, it wasn't a cheery poem but it was an authentic poem and I believe pretty good. When I thought I could be a poet (thanks to Simon Armitage), before I realised I had no idea how to be a poet. 

I wrote this one recently; I'm pretty proud of it.....

Our youth has gone

And so has your beauty

Something that used to mean

So much to me

But still, no poet. But a writer, yes. 

Long awaited update?

My self imposed retreat worked; on Sunday around 6pm it suddenly occurred to me the story was almost complete so I typed like a maniac and (practically) finished the first draft! Over 38,000 words and just the tidy up at the end. I felt so relieved. 

The next task is to tidy it up - check the final stages for errors etc then sit down with Alex Rider and Harry Potter and check the language and the tone against Adventures in Recordland. So basically I get to read (and dissect!) books. Excellent! 

Update on cows and writing retreat - proper day 1

So I woke up and all the cows had gone. Can't help feeling it's a ruse to make me feel at ease before they attack! It has been a busy but enjoyable day; an early start to watch the rugby World cup kick off then to the local market in Matakana to get supplies for the day(one of my favourite places in the world, you can stick your Angkor Wat - can you buy feijoa wine there? I think not). If you're curious supplies were 3 divine summer rolls, a bag of rocket, the most amazing kumara bread and a block of red Leicester cheese. (I may need to get more supplies tomorrow as it turns out writing makes me want to eat a lot. Or perhaps because it's the only distraction I've left myself. Either way I have eaten a LOT today). Writing was good though - current standing is 30,218 words and I really would like to hit 32,000 before the evening is through. Which isn't going to happen if I keep faffing about here.

Writers retreat - evening 1....

The cows haven't taken me yet. Finishing this evening's writing efforts on 26,100 words..... Time for Laphroaig and I Capture the Castle. Nanite!

Should I fear the cows?

You know what they say about cows.....quiet, docile creatures happy to meander in the field waiting for their time to be made into burgers. But I am sitting in a cottage with a view (and oh what a view!) and right in the bottom 3rd of that view are a bunch of cows meandering closer and closer to my area....Everyone knows it's the quiet ones you have to watch. What if they turn on me? Will they know I'm a vegetarian? Anyhoo, cows aside I am sitting at a table drinking a beer and looking out on to the impending sunset over Leigh and its surrounding area. It's quiet, except for my monkey style typing and that excited bird singing. I'm here to write so I thought it'd be good to start it off with a blog entry, just to track my motivation when I remove myself from everything I love and know (Andy, Netflix, the heat pump and our wonderful bed). So, starting at 25,474 words......what will Monday morning look like?!

Again. Or.

I had an epiphany yesterday. (And it wasn't just that I'm not 100% sure how to spell epiphany, thank the lord or Bill Gates for spell check). 

I realised that I am Rob in High Fidelity. Half in, half out of everything, not quite committing for fear of, well anything. Except marriage of course, I am totally committed to Mr Smith with only half a dreamer's eye on keeping Richard Armitage in the wings, just incase Mr Smith leaves me you understand. And I'm committed to my job, because they trust me and pay me to turn up everyday, and give me free shit and I hate to let people down.

Except myself. I'm apparently ok with letting myself down. So this was it, my epiphany - I am not 100% committed to myself. And that's just daft.

Do you know what I want to be when I grow up? A writer. How will I achieve such a magical dream? By fucking writing, a seemingly simple task yet something I find a million reasons not to do. 

So this blog is going to be my daily writing workshop. Probably it will just become a forum for me to talk about what I ate or listened to, but I don't think it matters (especially since no one reads it anyway!) it's just about practice, getting ideas out of my over full head and on to digital paper. 

And I will tweet it every day so maybe people will read it and that will freak me out. But if I want to be an actual writer then I want people to read my actual writing so this can be a good place to start.

(Although I'd like to add as a disclaimer the book I'm actually writing is a YA book about time travelling, so you might not get a full flavour of my style in these blog entries. But hey, I'm also writing a dramromcom novel and have the start of a dystopian end of the world novel so I don't really have a distinct style per se.) 

Back once again with the renegade yogi...

I am a third in to my yoga challenge, and honestly a bit over it now. Conversely my body is loving it; I am now able to not only keep my standing leg straight and balanced for standing had to knee pose, but I can also almost kick my leg out straight. My triangle pose on the left side is amazing, though right side not so much. My standing bow pose is almost entirely graceful and I now tots own Camel, usually.... 

My mind however longs for a night where I don't go into a hot sweaty room for 90 minutes, where I can be at home on a weeknight before it gets dark and with time for Lisa's dips before actual tea.  But my mind also knows its only for another 20 days and I'm definitely sleeping better so this may end up being a yearly challenge. Like the half marathon has become. 

Things that really irk me about Bikram yoga :-

When sweat gets in your eye - it really fucking stings! When sweat gets in your ears and blocks them. Very off putting. The newbies who don't understand how it works collectively, and ignore the teacher's instructions regarding savasana, leave the room during class or immediately after class has finished, with no time for chilling, personally my favourite part of Bikram. Those 2 to 10 minutes of lying in a darkened room in complete silence focussing on your achievements over the last 90 minutes. That different teachers have different temperature settings. Be consistent please! I have big hips and shoulders now, I'm not blaming Bikram entirely, a summer of cheese totally added to that but Bikram does make muscles appear where running would burn fat.