Life

New Project, Excuses, Holiday Snaps

I’ve been away from this blog for just over a month now (apologies), and out of the country for just over a week (got back on Monday), so when I returned to work this week I found that there were a lot of new radio plays to listen to on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 4Extra (or R7, as it used to be).

I’ve found that listening to radio plays while working is very therapeutic, and I’m considering downloading e-books so I can claim to have ‘read’ the classics while I count things and email things and scan things and deal with enquiries that allow me to listen to something in the background.

Another thing I’ve been meaning to do is mention this,and possibly mention some of those radio plays that I’ve enjoyed – but because I’m lazy the first thing I did was to google reviews. I was very surprised to find only one site that reviewed the plays I’d been listening to (if at all!), but on the plus side it’s a really good site! http://www.radiodramareviews.com/index.html has been interesting,  but I’ve been lacking the ability to make my own comments.

So what I’m proposing now – now that I’ve just about finished my first year of Library School – is to collect my opinions on these plays I keep on listening to, and work out what I like and what I don’t. This is a selfish project, but I’m hoping that there’s others out there who will find it interesting. Another thing I’d like to do one day is write a radio play, and so I’m pretty sure that much like studying and reading books so as to improve writing them, listening to and thinking about radio plays will help me to work out what on earth I should be doing in future to write a decent one that can be broadcast on Radio 4!

Expect thoughts and review soon! Watch this (previously unoccupied) space!

In the meantime, the reasons I’ve been quiet: essays and holidays!

Bulb fields and Windmills

My boyfriend is a plant nerd horticulturalist, and so our trip to Holland was filled with bulb fields and horticultural shows and my insistence that if I lived in such a flat place as Holland I would cycle everywhere and it would always be very pretty and isn’t that a good idea – maybe I should move.

The best idea.

We did perhaps slightly too much travelling for a short period of time (I am a lazy soul, after all), but we did see a number of very beautiful things.

“Flying Dutchman”

And this totally boiled off in the thermal spa we visited

Oh no, Poetry

This is note for me as much as for anyone reading this that April is National Poetry Month.

And as such, I will be participating in NaPoWriMo. After last year’s NaNoWriMo defeat (acknowledged and decided upon to make myself feel better) I vowed to participate in NaPoWriMo this coming month instead.

Why?

I’ve always considered myself to be more a poet than a fiction-writer. The reasons for this are probably more complicated then I have yet realised, but when asked I tell people it’s because I don’t have the intellectual capacity nor grand ideas to Write A Novel.
This may be true.
What is also true is that I like poetry. I like taking little wordy snapshots of what I see and/or feel or what I make up for others (often fictional) to see and/or feel. I like to play around with words and shapes, and sometimes sounds, in a way that fiction can let you, but which my brand of fiction doesn’t. I want to be self-indulgent, and with poetry I feel that I can do just that. And I don’t even care whether it’s read or liked! Fiction wants readers to inhabit and get lost in its world, poetry stands alone and asks you questions. I like that.

In addition to NaPoWriMo, April is also the month of Finishing LIS Assignments and Going on Holiday – so I picked a good time to write a poem every single day. However, I guess that’s the aim of the thing: overcome adversity and keep swimming.

So, if you’re so inclined, please do check back over April where I will hopefully be posting the products of my NaPoWriMo challenge every day. (Apart from the last week, during which I will be abroad. I’m telling you now so you know I’m not cheating.)

Looking forward to a busy April!

The List

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I’ve been rabbiting on slightly about Big Plans and Small Plans and whether reading Ulysses counts as Big or Small. Among other things.

Planners scare me. Big Planners intimidate me. Isn’t it enough to know what I’m doing for the next four years?! (Kind of no choice and all, unless I quit the MSc, but you know…) And in the next four years, I don’t think I will be travelling the world and changing it for everyone. So then, I’ll be 20-something-else – and is that too late?

I’m going to guess right now that the answer to that is ‘no’. And that it’s the attitude that makes the difference. My ‘little’ dreams will keep me happy and I still have time to find a really, really BIG one.

Having said that, I have a feeling that my real big dream wouldn’t be to go everywhere and change everything, but stay in my head and make something really awesome that goes out there and does it for me.

The first time I had this panic, I made a little list of Things I’d Like to Do. I’m going to share what I have of a List so far. No laughing!

• Visit Japan (Tokyo, Sakura festival), and improve Japanese
• Poetry collection published by Faber
• Ice skating
• Burlesque dancing
• Visiting Peru
• Learning Hindi, visiting Fiji
• Radio 4 Radioplay
• Finish Ulysses
• Space flight
• King’s Medical Humanities MA
• Living by the sea
• Novel??

Once I hit ‘publish’ then the list is real and everyone can laugh, I mean, share their own stupid ideas…

So, yeah – any Plans, Big or Small? Or Ridiculous? Oh, and feel free to yell at me for suggesting that size is important.

(Re)Learning to Write

I realised some time ago that I stopped writing poetry at about the same time that my first major relationship broke down. At the time I didn’t know whether to feel sad about it, or that it was too melodramatic. Did it even matter that I had stopped writing? And what did it say that without him I had nothing to write about?

For a long while, when I was much younger I hasten to add, all I wrote about was him: how he made me feel, what he was like, where we were going etc etc. and if I had stopped writing when we broke up, surely I wasn’t really Writing anyway, I was just being indulgent.

In the two years since realising this, I’ve written on and off, and started this blog as an attempt to get used to writing and sharing writing again. I thought that with an audience I might want to write more, and differently, and that mythical ‘inspiration’ might strike and make me into a Poet at any given moment and that you would all be pleased for me.

As you can see, it hasn’t really gone that way. However, today I think I have learned something about Myself as a Writer – and something about what that means.

I took an hour out from my sick bed this afternoon (once I stopped wondering if I was going to throw up every 20 minutes) and walked around the nature reserve across the road. I sat on the bench by the pond, perched on tree stumps, logs, fallen trees, took detours, ran – for the hell of it – and found myself writing. And the thing is, I know I couldn’t have done that if I’d have been with someone else.

This is, of course, not a slight on the people I spend my time with. They’re lovely and wonderful and keep me busy and stop all the introspection that has always caused me to write poetry in the first place. But today it was comforting to realise that writing these little snippets might actually be something that I do, and not just a product of indulgence and suggestion. And that I don’t need a personal trigger, I’m not just a person who write about Things That Have Happened To Her, I can think outside of the box.

I’ve realised that I can write on my own, in fact, I’m much better at this sort of thing alone. I can forget other people long enough to be myself, as the postcard in my bedroom says.

I fact, I could be learning, or re-learning depending on your point of view, how to write the sort of thing that could be read, and the kind of thing that reflects me. I’ve always said I’m no good at photography, and I can’t draw to save my life. So I was a little surprised today to find that what I was writing were little pictures caused by the things around me. Back in the day when I was writing about Feelings and the like, I would have laughed at the thought of myself writing poems about nature, and the world. “I’m not William fucking Wordsworth”, I would have thought. And I’m not!. So while the things I penned today are still Things That Happened, they’re (hopefully) more accessible, and more reflective of where I’ve gone with this. There is more to write about than Feelings, and I always knew that. It’s just nice to know that I can do that sort of writing – or at least, I have the potential to, as dangerous as potential is.

Learning to write again is a slow process, and it looks as though it will involve a lot of time spent on my own. But I kind of like that. I think I can work out how it’s done on my own. For the past eighteen months I’ve been hopefully carrying a notebook and pen around with my when friends and I go to visit nice places. Turns out, the nice places are irrelevant. It’s the being on my own that helps. Which explains why I always think of something to write when I’m doing something unconsciously; like driving, or washing up, or taking a shower – and not when I’m trying to do something complicated like remember how to co-ordinate all my limbs and breathing at the same time while at the gym.

Also, this means that NaPoWriMo may not be the terrible, painful, woeful struggle I expected it to be! But let’s not count the chickens yet…

Can men be feminists?

Yes.

kthxbai.

Is a desire to be passive an anti-feminist thought?

Imagine two scenarios with me:

1. Person A suggests to Person B that B has a (sexual) preference for something that Person C has been known to do.
-> C has no problem with this, in fact C is quite comfortable with the concept of A and B discussing [insert activity here] – and even C’s potential to act [activity out] – and believes that they are fine to do so to their heart’s content.

2. Person A suggests to C that, after discussion of [activity], B would not be adverse to doing [activity] with C – and invents a scenario in which such a thing happens.
-> suddenly C feels uncomfortable: a line has been crossed.

But where is the line?

What’s wrong with this picture? Why does the abstract thought of something not offend, but the consideration of acting out something – still a thought! –  become difficult to stomach?

I’ve been pondering this since last Friday, and in the absence of any scholarly literature to back me up: here follow my ramblings on the subject.

Point 1: The thought of [activity] is not an issue – and nor should it be, I believe. People can consider the possibility of [activity] and the possibility that C has done [activity].
Point 2: The suggestion of a scenario of [activity] is a step too far.
Conclusion: C prefers to take a passive role. In a ‘fantasy’, C is comfortable, but the suggestion of an active role is uncomfortable.

Presumably, this is because C recognises that thoughts cannot be controlled? The speculation of A and B is outside of C’s control and, often, influence. But if A or B were to act upon this, or consider certain scenarios, C would be an active player in this fantasy of [activity] and then the circumstances would change.

Or, is it that C wishes to be admired from afar, remaining sanitised and non-complicit?

What is it about playing an active role rather than a passive one that is so different?

And does this desire to be passive, if we can call it such, a desire to be objectified? A return to the Male Gaze?

As a passive object, C has no control but if this is desired can this be considered an anti-feminist thought? Is it wrong to say that although C does not wish to do [activity], B may consider that C does [activity] as long as B does not contemplate C and B doing [activity]?

It is important to note here that passive =/= harmless any more than active = harmful. But this is where the conflict lies. In an abstract consideration, with no precise scenarios, C has no control and no voice. In Scenario 2, where C is considered by A and B, C is aware that they are part of something which they have not been asked to play a role in – but they still cannot stop it happening. Scenario 3, not mentioned above, is the point at which B propositions C for [activity]. This, too, is comfortable.

Is thinking something more or less appropriate than acting it?

Acknowledging [activity] is not the same as suggesting it.
The tipping point is where B not only considers ‘C does [activity[' but that  'C will do [activity] with me’. The point where B approaches C to ask ‘will you do [activity] with me?’ is the point at which C has a choice and can exercise that right. They have been invited to play an active role.
Before that the idea is tangible, a possibility, but C has no knowledge or choice in the matter. Rightfully, they cannot stop C considering it, but the knowledge that C is being considered in relation to [activity] is unnerving because there is no control. This is different from not having a choice at the point of acknowledgement because now C is aware of it and it as though they have been included in something they were not invited to.

So if this is not passive, what is it? Oppressive? Presumptive? Denying C the option to choose?

The most obvious conclusion here is that I think too much. But does anyone else see the line here: whereabouts is the problem? Or is there even a problem? If you were C, would you feel uncomfortable?

Eleven Authors Whose Work I Will Read Any and All Of

Looking back at my childhood shelves I notice that I’ve always been really into “collecting” the work of certain authors – and I’m sure we all have favourites on our shelves at home that we could read again and again. In the interests of literary introspection, I began to list these favourite authors and thought – lucky you! – that I’d share them.

Terry Pratchett
I’ve stated on more than one occasion that if I ever went on Mastermind my specialist subject would be the History of Ankh-Morpork.

Paul Magrs
I somehow discovered Paul Magrs via the young adult novel Strange Boy and it totally blew me away. I could read this book every month and not get bored of it.

Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx and Crake, The Penelopiad: there is no author I can think of who has such a way of reimagining the ordinary, and making me consider everything from my writing style, to my plots to my place in society. I can’t recommend her enough, and I would and will hope to read anything and everything she has written.

Douglas Adams
Perhaps controversially, I prefer the Dirk Gently series to Hitchhiker’s Guide. I feel I can say that having read all of these series, including the unfinished The Salmon of Doubt, but seriously, I could wax lyrical for some time about how great Dirk Gently is and why you ought to give it a go.

Jeanette Winterson
My English Literature teacher at Secondary school recommended Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and she was right. Since then I’ve read a number of her books, and I really can’t get over her use of language and imagery. I’m sure I could learn a lot from her – so I need to keep reading!

John Donne
Here’s another topic best saving for a full blog post. For my dissertation I read a lot of sermons as well as a lot of poetry – and if I still love him then there must be something there. I know a number of his poems by heart (mostly the rude ones such as Elegie XIX but also nicer ones such as The Good-Morrow). As a tip for Christmasses, etc, I’m collecting collections of his poetry. So, you know, just an idea.

JK Rowling
I say this, but hasn’t everyone? In fact, I didn’t read the spin off books, but I have read the Harry Potter series at least twice.

Jane Austen
I always stated I hated Jane Austen until I read Northanger Abbey and then I went back to read Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility and realised how funny her work was. Not just a description of lovelorn ladies in big dresses!

J. R. R. Tolkien
After re-discovering The Lord of the Rings at school, I suddenly became obsessed with all things Tolkien. Including Leaf by Niggle. Having said this, I own The Silmarillion, but still can’t finish it. But ask me about the Sindarin noun-verb diclensions, or the Hobbits after the Ring and I may know a little something! Oh, and if you can’t find any Donne for Christmas, Tolkien editions are also accepted.

Oscar Wilde
Wilde is another author I’m glad to have discovered at school, and whose works I will happily collect in any edition. I’ve pored over the plays and consider The Picture of Dorian Gray to be among the most haunting stories I’ve ever read.

Jostein Gaarder
This one was rather a surprise when I looked back at my bookshelves. But I have the majority of his books. A wonderfully clever philosopher and storyteller, Gaarder’s novels are thought-provoking and vivid and very, very imaginative. Read Sophie’s World and consider how words are written on the inside of a banana skin…

So, who are your favourite authors? Who will you always return to for good writing – and why?

Life update

A new year has shown up just how bad I am at blogging regularly – let’s hope that this doesn’t set the trend for the whole of 2012!

What’s new with you? Tell me things!

What’s new with me, you ask? Well… I thought it would only be fair to explain what has been keeping me busy for the whole of January.

• Learning to play snooker
• Complaining about writing a report
• Finally handing in said report
• Beginning to cook Japanese food
• Going back to the gym
• Watching Sherlock
• Reading Return of the Native
• Working

All of these things have, I have to admit, been a pleasant distraction from Having An Opinion, but I hope to return to form sooner or later. Sooner, I hope.

Also:
Stumbling upon some really great blogs

• Raising my Rainbow is a heartfelt and often hilarious account of motherhood with a difference: C.J. is a ‘gender nonconforming’ child, meaning that he’s in most ways utterly fabulous, but that growing up is a very different experience for him and his family. C.J.’s Mom is bright, funny, positive and seems to really be making the most of her unique family. Current favourite posts include My Son the Dancer and Things I Never Thought I’d Say to My Son.
• Another Angry Woman, which I’ve added to my subscribed list so as to hear other’s opinions on feminist issues. Rather than my ranting hopelessly on Twitter, I’m hoping that I might actually find something useful here, and some other people to rant alongside.

So, you know, because my life’s been nice but I’ve been quiet: What’s new with you? How’s 2012 going so far?

Resolutions Review

This time last year I made some New Year’s Resolutions and swore to keep to them. Another year has come around again so I guess it’s time to see how I did! And what might be in store this year.

Last Year’s Resolutions:

1.Apply for (and get accepted onto!) King’s College London Literature and Medicine MA
Well, weirdly: success. I applied, I was accepted, then I panicked and deferred entry. Everything all came at the same time, just as I was planning to take the Library Science MSc, and so the current status of this resolution is that I did what I set out to do, but have yet to actually attend the course. I have hold of it, though, for safekeeping.

2.Complete OU Genetics course by the January deadline!
Done. And I passed with some sort of merit – so the OU think I’m intelligent even if no-one else does.
It wasn’t a bad course of study, to be honest, although I did know a lot of it from my A Level studies. I was thinking of studying for a degree with the OU, but I really found the distance element rather too distant to be of any use.

3.Visit home at least once a month.
Success! I think… I’ve visited home, or my parents have visited me once a month at least – so they still know what I’m up to! It’s always nice to go home, although I do love my independence.

4.Find archives work experience, work out whether or not to apply for Kew Gardens Trainee Archivist post.
Well, no. Unless you count ‘work out whether to apply’ as solved by deciding on a Library Science degree… I’m still wistful about archives, and hoping I’ll get to work out whether it’s my thing or not at

5.Do some sort of exercise! Find motivation to drive to a swimming pool/take up ice skating.
Unexpectedly, done. I swam (for a bit), didn’t take up ice skating (woe), but have weirdly been persuaded to join a gym. This is real shock to me, as I’d never set foot in a gym until about a month ago. In fact, it felt like giving in. But to my extreme surprise and mild annoyance, (I don’t actually hate it.) Shh, don’t tell anyone.

6.A new one! As of 07.01.11 I will be taking part in the PostAWeek wordpress challenge for 2011. Will attempt to post at least once a week from now on. Poetry, thoughts, essays, whatever.
Not as successful as the others, as I know I haven’t posted EVERY week. But overall, I kind of have. Must try harder with this one.

As for this year... keep up the good work? No, really, I’ve no idea. Try more recipes, perhaps? But otherwise, complete Year 1 of library school, continue to gym/swim/something, have a social life (!) and don’t get sacked.

Your go. Any new resolutions for 2012?

Playing “Humiliation”. Or, Books I’ve Never Read

David Lodge, in his novel Changing Places, invents the literary game of ‘Humiliation’; in which academics attempt to out-do one another by naming classic books they have never read and admitting shameful gaps in their literary (and therefore professional) knowledge.

As you might know, I’m an English Literature graduate and I (sometimes) claim to be an aspiring writer. I’m critical, I like to read to analyse and I love editing. You might think therefore that well read. I disagree. I know full well there are a number of books I’ve never even touched, let alone read, but I’m going to shame myself here and list the top ten most humiliating.

1. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

I’ve tried. Gods know I’ve tried to read this book. Each time I get stuck after the first chapter. Too self-pitying. The thing is, I probably would enjoy the story in the end, but I can’t for the life of me get past that frustration.

2. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

Well, I can’t admit to having tried this one. Gothic fiction just riles me, rather than entices me. And it doesn’t help that either one or both of the above were quoted nauseatingly in the Twilight saga.

3. David Copperfield,  Charles Dickens

This book represents a lot of Dickens’ work that I haven’t read. Also, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, Nicholas Nickleby. Not quite sure of the reason for this one, so it is a little shameful. I love Dickens! Perhaps I’m just scared of the size of Bleak House…

4. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

I’m sure I should have read this book. And it ought to count for about three books on normal ‘Best Books’ lists, thereby making the reader Very Well Read. However, I still haven’t. As such, I am Not Well Read At All.

5. Moby-Dick, Herman Melville

I think some of my old lecturers would kill me for not having read this book. They’re American. And it has the most well-known first line in literary history, no? Even I know that. One day, I’ll read on.

6. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

Another writer of whom I have read shamefully little. I’ve read The Mayor of Casterbridge. I was about 14 at the time, so I barely remember it, but I don’t think I hated it – so the reason I stopped there with Hardy is beyond me. Another I really ought to buy and put on my To-Read pile sooner rather than later.

7. Ulysses, James Joyce

Well, technically this doesn’t need to be on the list, but I’m ashamed. Ulysses was my post-degree summer project. I assumed that I might be clever enough to read it. I’ve read the first chapter three times and then I stopped. I need to finish this book! I know I will like it. But as yet, still shameful

8. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

I don’t even know how I got through secondary school without reading this one, sorry.

9. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

This one is ever so slightly less shameful as although I haven’t read it yet, I’m doing something about the situation and starting it now! However, I’m still pretty sure I should have done so already.

10. On the Road, Jack Kerouac

Yeah, yeah, great American novels. Have never had a desire to read this book until I got to university and found out that everyone else had. I was still too busy reading Tolkien or Renaissance poetry, however, to pick it up.

And a bonus shame:

Atonement, Ian McEwan

I have never read this book. Sometimes I think I might be the only one. More to the point, I will never read this book. I can’t bear Ian McEwan.

And on that potential bombshell, I’ll leave you.

What are your literary humiliations? Don’t leave me alone – what else haven’t you read?