Walking The Dog

Anyone who has dropped in here before will be aware of my fondness for words. Discombobulated for example. We thought we were going for a walk but now we appear to be taking the table and a chair with us This Walking the Dog blog is an excuse to play with words. I love words - always - they run around inside my head playing hopscotch over each other, jostling until one wins, seizes the microphone and broadcasts itself as my ear-worm word of the day. Perhaps, this inner-ear perseveration - or personal juke box rolling over on repeat spitting out the same word again and again - is some form of obsessive compulsive disorder? Or a sign of incipient madness? Or maybe it's utterly normal for those who strive to be wordsmiths? From Discombobulated on 7th November 2011 to Floccinaucinihilipilification on 16 March 2015, via Curmudgeonly (8/11/11) and Dreich, drookit and mauchit (20/1/12), I have written about, taken inspiration from and generally enjoyed playing with a motley and...

Whatever pithy sayings are said about life - the clever, inspiring quotes you read, try to remember and promptly forget - and whatever happens along life's way; eventually, it's how you live it that matters. This  how is the essence of a good life. Kids live for the moment. Life is good. Responsibilities if they exist are to themselves. Theirs is a life of when - when will I grow up; when can we get a dog; when will the toothfairy remember to come; when will I be tall enough for that ride at the theme park; when can I have another ice-cream; when can I start wearing make-up; when can I have my ears pierced; when are you collecting me from the party - not that early!; when can I have an allowance and when can I go to London on my own? Teens live in the moment - anything beyond that moment is not worthy of their attention - exams, what exams; alarm clocks are for losers; ditto baths; alcohol is all about the pre-loading before the party; the party is about getting wasted bef...

On the 10th January this year,  I wrote a blog posting, titled Charlie, and started it with these words - 'When the outside world dips its toe into our lives, sometimes the ripples are impossible to ignore.' Now, yet again the ripples wash against the feet of us all. Yet again - unbelievably - Paris has been brutally attacked. Yet again brain-numbing atrocity trespasses into our lives. Yet again the world outside our homes cannot be ignored. And that, I think, is the point - our homes: those places where we feel safe. Our homes, where terrorism should not dip its dirty fingers, but does - on our TV screens, radios, laptops and newspapers. Our homes, where we can believe and live and enjoy whatever books or music or film or TV series or sport we like. Simply because we are free. Yes, we dream of better things. But we can dream because we are free. We forget at our peril how fortunate we are to have this freedom. In the free West. To feel safe. To live in a place that we...

Stuck? Not sure which path to take? Creativity blocked? There are two words guaranteed to unlock your imagination - What if? Apply 'what if' to any scenario and watch as a kaleidoscope of opportunities, suggestions and ideas appears. Let the 'what ifs' run and see where they take you. Build a story - what if, what if, what if - follow as it veers off on unexpected paths, reign it in and guide the journey: you are captain, master and passenger on this sea of what ifs. Why didn't I know about the magic of 'what if' before? It's so obvious, so simple, so brilliant. As a device for story telling, I suspect it is unparalleled. Suddenly, I can see. And plan. And dream. And write. All I have to do now is edit 1,000 words of my young adult novel to send to my new writing group. Gulp! What if ... they don't like it? What if they do? What if I stop procrastinating right now and get on with it? But what if I make dinner first? - walk t...

"Close your eyes and dream." "What about?" How do you conjure up the dream that fills your "night without a stir" (J. Keats) or that "stretches away, elusive" into the "infinity of space" (P. Gaugin)? The prospect of meeting the demand to instantly invent a dream, to then dream about, is as agonising as the "Make a wish!" moment that accompanies cake cutting - "Wait a minute ... wait a minute ... oka-a-ay, yes ...  no, wait a minute ... fine! Yes!" You screw your eyes up to make the wish. And wish whilst holding your breath. And cut the cake. Then worry that you made the wrong wish. You worry so much that you say out loud what you wish you had wished. When this is met with groans, rolled eyes and nodding the why-did-you-wish-for- that  nod,  you remind your friends that you didn't make that wish - "Of course not!" - and a fanfare of relief explodes inside your head. You resolve, before you put...

"Bear with" as Miranda's posh friend Tilly is fond of saying in the sitcom Miranda - bear with and prepare your mind for a flight into fantasy. Actually, if I succeed it will be a flight into the deeper recesses of your imagination, but as this is dependant on my summoning up of the necessary descriptive skills and recent forays into literary exploration have been much hampered by extreme lack of sleep, it will probably fail and instead you will be left looking at a few paragraphs of gibberish. On the other hand, if you suffer from aphantasia and are not in possession of a 'seeing' mind's eye my words will be gibberish anyway, so best to stop reading now. Or not. Aphantasia is a most unfortunate affliction (search for 'aphantasia- Professor Zeman - Exeter University blog') - words have meaning but lack colour, shape and pictoral form. In aphantasia the mind's eye can't create pictures. I see every book I read; better than any film. I listen...

"It is hard to fail but worse having never tried to succeed." These words of Theodore Roosevelt are written in red pen across the top of the white board that sits on my desk. Along with several password reminders, a Quentin Blake postcard, some smiley faces drawn by a trespassing child, flyer cards advertising my favourite a cappella group and more words "Scribo ergo sum immortalis." It probably doesn't take a genius to ascertain that the something in which I wish to succeed may involve words, specifically the magical distillation of words into patterns that create stories. But       but            but the easy part is telling the story; harder is finding the good words to write the story; harder still is reading the story aloud; hardest of all is sharing it. I really want to do this. I really don't want to fail. But years of 'never trying' are horrible. Teddy puts forward 'trying to succeed' as the only sensible option. The...