The Artists Way

I've followed Julia Cameron's guided Artists Way twice now, and am thinking of starting the twelve weeks again at the end of March just to kick start some new ideas and see what comes up. Anyone want to do it with me? Email or leave a comment if so.

LOOKING FOR GUINEA PIGS....

WE WILL DO FOOLISH THINGS, BUT WE WILL DO THEM WITH ENTHUSIASM (Colette)



It was a bit like Ernest Shackleton's famous expedition advertisement, except with more reward and less danger, but just over a year ago, I put up a tiny post on here asking for people to do the Artists Way with me.

It was my first taste of an internet writing group and to be honest, I wasn't sure how it would work or whether it would work at all. But it did. And I hope that everyone who went on the journey with me found it as inspiring, amazing, extraordinary, surprising and useful as I did - and those adjectives refer to the work and talents within the group as much as the benefits I personally received from doing the exercises.

So now, I'm trying something new again.

I'm working on a new book and workshop idea, and I'm looking for guinea pigs to try out some of the exercises with me. Like The Artists Way it will be 12 weeks long, it will start in September, be internet based, will involve writing but you do not have to be a writer at all at all. We will concentrate on writing and working with your family stories, and hopefully writing new ones.

You can join in wherever you live, whatever age you are, however much talent you think you have or don't have, and whenever in the day you have time to do the exercises, join in the discussions etc.

PLUS IT IS FREE!

However there are conditions. As Molly says in my novel Tell Me Everything, "there are always conditions."

My conditions are:

* That you will do your very best to participate in and finish the 12 weeks
* That you come with an open mind to at least try the exercises
* That you do a brief email interview with me afterwards about how it goes
* That you will be prepared to share some of the work that comes up during the 12 weeks - with full approval of which pieces and the context in which they will be used
* That you will think about using your real name for this, although pseudonyms can be given if necessary
* That - apart from the interview and the pieces agreed for possible publication - you will keep the exercises, discussion and other participants in confidence to ensure a safe place for everyone
* That you think, despite the above, this sounds interesting and fun!

So anyone up for it? Either leave a comment or email me on sarahsalway @ gmail . com (but without the spaces!) - all I'm looking for at the moment is an expression of interest, but I will be limiting the group numbers-wise rather than making it a free for all so don't leave it too long.

Reading Deprivation Week...

I haven't written much about the Artists Way group set up via this blog, but it's been such a privilege to be part of it. And to have hands to hold during some of the exercises. And to be able to say, phew, someone else feels that too.

BUT... this week has been hard. This is the famous week in The Arists Way where there is NO READING.

And this means we can't go on the blog to see how other people are doing. If it feels like anything, it's like being part of a mini, and thankfully less public, Hells Kitchen. Who will survive? Who will decide that actually they want to 'hold' other peoples words more than carrying on, that their first prize is out of the kitchen? (Not that I was watching, of course, but oh how I love Bruce.)

Anyway, it's true that I would have been booted out of Hells Kitchen because I haven't kept the challenge to the letter. In fact, any letter's seduction was far too much for me. It hurts to realise I'm the earnest student Julia Cameron talks about in her book who comes up after Reading Deprivation Week is announced to say she's far too important not to read. The world will not, in fact, survive without her reading their words.

But I have been depriving myself this week - I haven't read any books (not even in the loo. Let me repeat that, not EVEN in the loo), I haven't let myself wander round the internet as normal, and I have consciously noted every radio and television programme I might have looked at briefly when I've been in the same room. JC says that the idea is to jolt ourselves out of our normal routines, and to think about what WE think rather than what other people tell us to think. And it has worked. Not least to make me realise how much I've taken reading, internetting, watching tv, for granted.

And more than that - I've realised how fragmented I've allowed myself to get. I rarely concentrate on just one thing any more - watching TV, I'll have a book or a laptop on my knee. When I'm speaking on the telephone, I'll often check my emails at the same time. When I'm writing on the computer, I'll have instant messaging up on the computer so I can see when a new email comes in. Doing nearly everything, I'll also have the radio on - and sometimes I get so used to the background noise, I will even put on another form of noise because I'm just not noticing the first one any more. Traveling, I'll often sink into a book with my blackberry besides me, rather than enjoying the journey. And of course there's solitaire which is always around, tempting me.

It's been a wake up call.

Besides, the ways I've been distracting myself have been, at first, just that. Distractions. But yesterday, I noticed that I was feeling clearer and more focused. Cleaner somehow. And that's not just my cupboards. Oh you should see how beautiful my cupboards are - even my scarves are now colour co-ordinated.

I'm looking forward to reading again. But I'm going to keep an eye on how I use it. I'm even planning to have two internet-free days a week from now on. As JC says, "For most artists, words are like tiny tranquilizers. We have a daily quota of media chat that we swallow up. Like greasy food, it clogs our systems. Too much of it and we feel, yes, fried.

It is a paradox that by emptying our lives of distractions, we are actually filling the well. Without distractions, we are once again filling our way."

Artists Way

OK, so this is what I've done.

There are a good few of us now who want to do this together. And I'm stressing the together bit, I don't want to lead it or be in charge or anything. Honestly, trust me. Nothing would get done and we'd be off photographing benches or eating chocolate or something.

So fun as that would be, I've set up a new special blog for us and when I hear from you, I'll make you a co-author and give you passwords etc so you can post as much or as little as you want as you work your way through the book. And then we can all share what we think, how we are doing, any good tips, shouts, moans, artists date, revelations etc etc.

Does that sound good?

Right. First thing to do is for you to email me if you want to be in. Even if you've emailed me before. I did say I shouldn't be in charge. Ooops, no. The first thing to do is to get the book, of course. And have a look at the website first - here. I love it, and take the spirituality she talks about as whatever I want it to mean, but it's not for everyone. All I can say is that it works. And it's fun. And it would be especially fun to do it with you guys.

OK. Anything else?

Yep, start date. It might be a good idea if we all start more or less together. So how about Saturday 28th March for the big lift-off?

I'm sure there's lots else, but I'm equally sure you'll tell me. Anyone who wants to join before 28th March will be very welcome.

Artists Statements

Writing about doing nothing in Minneapolis made me realise I didn't blog about one thing I definitely DID do, which was to visit the Open Book space, a beautiful building containing a gallery of artists books, the Loft literary centre which ran writing classes and had little writing rooms on hire for as little as six hours, a library, printing presses, an independent publishing company and one of the best and friendliest cafes I've found in my days mooching round cities.

Even the New York TImes rave about it:

If literature and book arts could revive a city neighborhood anywhere, it would be here. According to a study conducted in 2007 by Central Connecticut State University, Minneapolis is “America’s most literate city,” based on an array of measures, including the number of libraries and bookstores, newspaper readership and education levels.

The Loft Literary Center, the largest of the three nonprofit groups that formed Open Book, offers writing classes, provides work space and grants for writers and is host of book events in a performance space designed for readings.

The Minnesota Center for Book Arts provides equipment and space for professional artists and novices alike to work in letterpress printing, hand bookbinding and papermaking. Some of the resulting creations are unique and functional books, but others are more like art and sculpture.

And finally Milkweed Editions is, by some measures, the largest independent nonprofit literary publisher in the country.

Annoyingly my camera was broken, so I couldn't take pictures but the whole gallery was really a book. An open book. The bannisters of the stairway had text on them so you read a story going up and down; the engraved tabletops were books, and I sat for ages just watching a neon sign split into three columns, each of which was timed to switch at different times to keep reading new messages, some of which made me laugh out loud. This sort of thing:

SYLVIA PLATH .... DESPISES .... FLASH FICTION ....

SYLIVA PLATH .... SECRETLY WRITES ... FLASH FICTION

EMILY BRONTE .... SECRETLY WRITES ... AS RAYMOND CHANDLER

You get the idea.

I was particularly struck by the dictionary left open on a pulpit in library, rather like those books of the dead they have in chapels.

I'm not sure if I was meant to, but I went round the printing rooms too. Lovely old fashioned printing presses, and book presses, and that smell of ink and paint that makes me want to move in. And everywhere people in a state of flow.

Lucky old Minneapolis.

And just a couple of doors away, a really really good graphic book shop, Big Brain Comics.

Lucky lucky old Minneapolis.

Mind, the Open Book centre had a good shop too, full of all the tools for making books. Things you didn't know you wanted, and sharp enough never to be able to take through customs. I think when I get stranded on my desert island, I might take the biggest tool box in the world. Not necessarily to use but just to admire and try to work out what everything is for. It would be full of things like this:



and this:



But bigger. Those really are dinky little pics.

Anyway, a nice bit of synchronicity. For my birthday, the lovely Alex sent me the url of Beatrice Coron's wonderful papercuts site, and looking through the very eclectic bag of things I bought from the Open Book shop - an eraser, a postcard of a duck, a book of origami with papers - I found I had a little book by Beatrice Coron, together with Mick Stern. It's called Artist's Statements, and I got it partly because of the artist's statements at the back from both Beatrice Coron and Mick Stern. This is what BC says: 'As a visual artist, I am always asked to explain my art in words. My life is a constant interview, but my goal is to make art, not talk about it.' And MS: 'If I could explain my work, I would write the explanation instead of the work. That would make it easier for everybody.'

Both rang so many bells with me. I had the idea when I first saw this booklet of trying to draw the explanation of what I was writing about. No one would expect me to do that. When did words take over from pictures as the sole way of expression, and, even as a writer, I wonder if they really are always the best primary form. It was something that I was thinking about at the Tiny Circus too, probably because I've spent a large part of this summer working with visual artists.

Anyway, I'm going to try to contact Beatrice Coron and ask if I can put some of these 'artist's statements' up here because they are funny. They include those of Raiput Singh, taxi artist and Gary Burf, traffic direction performance artist. I'm sure you can imagine!

And so, as I head off to a course on how to use Powerpoint in the lecture theatre, may the rest of you all have this sort of day ...



But bigger ...

Sue Guiney's Interview and the Great Guest Giveaway

Photograph by Andre Ainsworth


I'm pleased to bring Sue Guiney to you today. She's the author of Tangled Roots, her first novel which I enjoyed enormously not just because of the mother/son and sibling relationships it explores, but because it gave me the illusion I could actually understand and enjoy Theoretical Physics and Cosmology. That doesn't happen often.

Anyway, Sue's a bit of an inspiration to me. She's started a charity, the Curving Road to support other artists, and she's not afraid to try different forms herself. I haven't caught the performance of her poetry play, Dreams of May yet, but I liked reading it very much.

And now, I've persuaded her to answer some questions, despite the fact her book is published tomorrow and life is more than a bit hectic. More than that, she's my GIVEAWAY NO 2 - not her, but a first edition hardback copy of TANGLED ROOTS which I am buying and she has kindly agreed to sign for the winner. If you'd like to be put in the draw, then send me an email - sarahsalway@googlemail.com. You have until FRIDAY to enter and I'll announce the winner here.


So here are Sue's answers ...

1. When did you first call yourself a writer and how did it feel?

There are really 2 parts to this answer. I first called myself a writer – to myself – when I was eight and first discovered my love of reading. I thought, “Hey, this is cool. I can do this.” From that point on I wrote short stories and plays, and kept a journal. Ah, innocence….But when I became more self-conscious, I began to say “I want to be a writer”, and that’s where I left it, regardless of whether I was writing or not, for a very long time. I then stopped writing completely sometime after Uni, suffering from what I call a “pathological respect for literature,” (ie who do I think I am to think I can do this?). I stayed like that for an even longer time. I consciously decided to start calling myself a writer to the world when I started writing “seriously” about 15 years ago, when it became the focus of my work life, and when I started studying with a tutor. But I said it very faintly so almost no one could hear. To be honest, it wasn’t until very recently that I could say it without fear and embarrassment. Now I say it with a mixture of pride and incredulity.


2. How does your love/knowledge of theatre affect your writing ie do you think in terms of scenes, dramatic tension, dialogue etc? AND 3. You write in different mediums - can you talk about advantages/disadvantages of this?

I’d like to answer these together. I do tend to “see” what I write as episodes/scenes/vignettes. I envision what I am writing as a whole and then go for it. But if I was going to say any one genre that I work in actually affects the way I write in other genres, I would have to say that poetry is what affects everything else the most. I do believe that it must ultimately all be poetry in the end. My first and main way into anything that I write is through words, then character, then theme, setting, plot, etc – but the words always come first. For me, it is the aural and emotional impact of the words that must drive everything else. If anything, this is my one frustration with writing for the theatre. There just aren’t enough words in plays these days to make it quite as satisfying for me to write. But having said that, the piece always chooses its own genre. A poem is a poem because it has to be. A novel a novel because that’s the only way to write it. A play is a play because it demands that visual form. So, I suppose that’s why I write in so many genres. The words and the concept of the piece demand a certain genre, and so that’s how I write it. Who am I to argue? It might sound a bit precious, but it’s true.


4. Top three tips for someone wanting to write?

1. Read a lot and everything
2. If you really want to write, then just do it. Keep writing regardless.
3. Find someone you trust to give you feedback.

Can I do one more?
4. Don’t let your fear paralyze you. (easy to say, eh?)


5. How do you see your future as a writer?

This is the hardest question of all. I truly have no idea how large a readership I will ever achieve or if I will ever really achieve a readership at all. But the publication of my first novel has forced me to face my own ambition, which is to be able to write what I write, get it published and have it be read even by people who don’t necessarily already know me (I still feel like I have to sell each book, each theatre ticket to one person at a time). It would also be nice to think that I might make even just a little bit of money one day. But these are goals and don’t actually answer the question. I see my future as a writer as someone who continues to write what I feel I need to write regardless of the genre, who continues to apply my creativity not only to my words but also to what I do with those words, to be someone who spends her working life writing for as long as these little fingers can hold a pencil.

And I can’t help myself….

6. if you were a desert, which one would you be?*

Gobi – I’ve always loved the way that words sounds.


(*Sue's teasing here - I'd meant to ask her what pudding she was, ie dessert, but this is a much better question so I'm claiming it as mine. What desert would you be?)

The Artists Way

Just to say that this group is now full.

Hopefully other groups will spin off from it, so if anyone sets one up and wants me to put it up here then I'm happy to do so because there is obviously a demand!

Thanks!

Look what Alex has found ....

The House of Books has No Windows. (Although Alex thinks it looks more like a shed, of course).

Has anyone seen it? I'm wondering if the no windows bit is a good thing, or a bad. Are they saying that too many books make us look inward, rather than out of the windows? I'm thinking of the exercise in The Artists Way where you have to give up reading for a week. Yep, that's it. The one that makes most writers hyperventilate.

Books about writing are such a personal thing - I've had friends thrust books into my hand that I just can't bear - which means I'm hesitant about giving my own favourites but I've just had to do this for a magazine and wanted to share. So here goes... These are the books I LOVE and would never ever lend to anyone!

Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind, Shambhala Publications Inc
Anne Lammot, Bird by Bird, Anchor Press
Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux, The Poets Companion, W W Norton
John Lee, Writing From the Body, St Martin’s Griffin
Julia Cameron, The Artists Way, Pan Books
Annie Dillard, The Writing Life, Harper Perennial
Susan Wooldridge, Poemcrazy, Random House

More at the Circus

I was going to put up some of my Alpine vegetable gardens today (please please I hear you beg. No, I say firmly, stamping my foot. Sometimes you lot need to know who is boss.) Plus I had a a nice surprise last night that I want to share with you.

As I've said before, I'm spending some time this Summer in Iowa at an arts project, The Tiny Circus. Although not a circus in the animal training, human acrobat sense of the word, the whole thing still has the same air of childish excitement for me. Ever since I first agreed to go, I've woken up every morning thinking 'god, I'm so lucky to be involved.' It's like I've been given a great big unexpected present.

But that's not my surprise - it's that the publisher of my short stories, Bluechrome have put up a post about the circus today, offering to contribute £4 to the circus funds for every copy of Leading the Dance they sell.

It's so generous I'm forgiving Anthony the quips about my mid-life crisis - after all, he is talking about the woman who has just bicycled down a mountain. Ok, ok, I was hunched over in total terror the whole time and my hands had to be prised off the brakes afterwards, but I still DID IT. Beats my normal daring deed of choosing a different pastry at Carluccios any day.

But first of all, a little circus history about my involvement, which is really much less than I've been credited for. When I was a fellow at vcca last January, one of the other fellows there was Carlos Ferguson, an amazing artist. Despite him creating a scene of me being eaten by lions (worryingly captioned as Dying - Sarah - Very painful)...:



...I still agreed like a shot to join in the arts project he planned for the Summer. Carlos has done up one vintage airstream trailer already, and had a vision of a troop of mini airstreams touring the country putting on shows:



It started off as a collaborative project right from the start. I particularly liked the aims he set out at the beginning:

My aim in general is to create artwork that is free, anonymous, and generous. This might be accomplished by speaking clearly to an audience with goals in mind: to create joy and thought, to entertain, to communicate and share.

I would like to move outside of my own focus on myself and my own work. When I have worked with other artists I have found the collaboration to be transporting, exciting, and inspiring, and a terrific antidote to never-ending questions and doubts about what is important and right in my own artwork. With this in mind, I would like to facilitate and participate in a larger scale collaboration.

To begin with, it felt safe to dream but then, very quickly, it has all become real. There are already a bunch of talented artists based at the circus farm in Iowa working on the first projects and living in tent city:



This is an amazing opportunity for me, but an interesting one too. Because I've been looking and looking at the first video produced on the History of Rain and wondering about the role of text. Coming after the pictures, it seems to me it could work too heavily as the frame for the images, to change the whole feeling of the piece, almost the da-da-da of the horror movie music that tells the viewer how to think. Usually I aim to create pictures with my words, to make people see the things I'm describing so they forget me, the author, completely, and enter the story themselves. There's a quote in Women who Run with Wolves that I really like - If a story is seed, then we are its soil. But it seems to me every time I look at this video, that the seed has flowered already. I've tried various options - fairytale, comic, silent movie drama, end of the world - and I still can't get the balance right between the story the video tells and my words.

Yet.

It's probably one of the most interesting projects I've been involved in. I keep going back to the original thoughts of the circus that attracted me most -"I would like to move outside the focus of my own work." It brings me back to the need to lose the inhibitions of self-consciousness in my writing process. Because if I'm honest, I am worrying about getting it right at the moment so the others will like it (and possibly me). I don't want to spoil the collaboration I'm only on the outside of at the moment. It feels a bit lonely, and that's something I have to get over too. A puzzle I'm determined to get to the bottom of. It can only be good for me because I NEED to stop worrying about everything. When I actually lose myself in my writing, I can feel all these worries lift. It's magic. It's the hot air balloon feeling that keeps me hurtling back to the page. Self consciousness is just too much of a straitjacket. I'm tired of being scared.

And I'm also trying hard not to think too much about the next one. A History of Popcorn. Hmmm. Don't worry, when I get there the Brits will have a say - A History of Marmite after all is probably one of the most fascinating stories that hasn't yet been told.

So, that's the circus. And I'll be there in just over a week. Another mountain to climb and then to speed down, I'm sure I'll be screaming at least part of the way. Do read the blog and watch the progress - this is an amazing project. If you want to buy my book and contribute that way I'll do a little juggling act especially for you. Or at least sign it for you if you send it to me. Email me.

And we do have an animal too. Meet Marigold, the circus pig. I'm not sure what tricks she can do yet, but I've been growing my fingernails specially for scratching...

Hello from Virginia

Welcome to you from paradise! Just starting my third full day, and I'm getting used to this completely different pace of work - being able to leave papers out and come back to them just as they are, not having to rush or be anywhere apart from at the desk, putting writing absolutely first. I only wish I hadn't discovered I could get the internet, but I'm going to restrict myself, and besides, I've been ridiculously homesick. It's nice to hear from family and friends. Emergency parcels are very welcome!

There are about eighteen of us here - a mix of writers, artists, photographers and musicians. As well as our bedrooms in the main house, we also get our own work studio. I was particularly excited to see the bed, because I like working in bed with my laptop:



Just a few steps outside, there is the most beautiful countryside. It's sunny here, which is unexpected, and the forecast is for it to get warmer:



And there is also the opportunity for serious object crush:



This thing of beauty belongs to one of the artists here. He has converted it to run on vegetable oil and it has a ship's wood burner inside. When I said how lovely it was, he replied, 'yep, everyone always likes my truck more than me.'

I'm working on my novel here, but somehow my shopping series of poems keeps popping up to the surface. Maybe it's because I'm such a long way from any shops...

STORY DOLLS

Today is the first handover between the artists and writers involved in the Tunbridge Wells Art Gallery project, to be exhibited at the start of the next year.

I have written already about the ideas that didn't make it to the final round, (here) so here's the one that did.

Please welcome for her first outing anywhere apart from my radiator at home one of my little STORY DOLLS...



The idea is that each body part represents a different part of the story. Either you can leave the story as it is, or you can use it to write something new from it. Or you can swop in another body part and make a completely different story. Rather like those women who used the dress patterns could make up different parts of the doll's dress and therefore create a new story for the doll every time they used the pattern.

And here's one of my stories from the doll above..

PEOPLE LIKE US

I tell the guards I didn’t do it, but they tell me that’s what people like us always say.

Except in the papers there was no ‘us’, there was only me. EVIL BUS DRIVER’S ROYAL KIDNAP ATTEMPT.

I didn’t even know who she was at the time. Thought she was just another dumpy old mad woman. We got those a lot round here. Especially after 10am when they can travel for free.

‘Help me,’ she’d begged. ‘My train is late, and I must get to my sick mother.’

Everybody knows the Queen Mother is dead, they said at the trial, but I didn’t know she was the Queen then, did I? And it was the sick mother bit that got me too. I always go that bit extra to help customers. Plus it was a question of pride. I wanted to show that buses were better than trains.

There’d been a fuss going on at the station. The Mayor and lots of camera crews were there, so I wasn’t surprised that the trains were late. I took her through the back way where my bus was waiting. Behind us, someone started blowing a trumpet. There was no way the passengers on the 5.45 were going to get in on time so I could make it to the hospital and back.

Her hat blew off as she climbed on board. Perhaps I should have twigged then, but I was trying to work out who her voice reminded me of.

‘This is exciting,’ she said. ‘Much better than judging boring hanging baskets. And of course we have private buses at Windsor but not so thrillingly dirty.’

I was about to get cross because I have high standards of cleanliness, when I saw the police lights behind and the helicopters above.

‘Oh, this always happens,’ she said then, ‘just when I’m having fun.’

The others on the prison floor tell similar stories, but no one ever believes us. Not people like us.

She visited the prison this afternoon though. I watched from the window as that new warden escorted an anonymous dumpy woman in need of help through the side door. And then I heard the sirens.

They’re already making up a new cell.

***

To be honest, I'm rather worried about my little story dolls and hope they get a good reception. Luckily I'm much more excited though to see what the others in our group have come up with. I feel very lucky to be involved in this project.

SO WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE IDEAS THAT DON'T QUITE WORK?

(And have a sneaky look at the final piece and meet Bertha here!)

So how does the creative process work?

Of course if there was one quick answer to that, there wouldn't be any point in being artists, or writers, or scientists. We could just programme the computer and let it go. But there's no doubt it's addictive to keep trying to uncover our own creative processes.

Several times on this blog, I've written about how I sabotage myself with trying to do too many things at once. One of the exercises in Barbara Sher's book, Refuse to Choose has been useful beyond belief in helping me address this.

So to show how it works for me, I'm going to explore the process involved in one particular project, a collaboration between four writers and four artists for an upcoming exhibition at the Tunbridge Wells art gallery based on objects held in the basement there. I wrote here about how I decided to use a collection of dolls patterns, some cut out of old newspapers, as the object I was going to work with.



But what was I going to do with them?

I carried the idea of the dolls patterns in my head, the photographs on my phone, my notes in my daily journal. I thought about poems. About stories. About short plays. The best way to describe what was going on in my mind was chaos. It wasn't pretty to live with.

But I stuck with it, using what Twyla Tharp calls scratching. It is absolutely astonishing to me, every time, how if you can hold an idea in your head then you pick up more and more ideas and images that make it more substantial. It is a form of magnetism. And when you start to attract the right metals, there is that same buzz like an electric shock. Ping!

My final itch came when I visited the V&A's Quilt exhibition and read the beautiful story about a quilt still retaining its mosiac of paper templates cut out of love letters.

But what should I do with all the other ideas. The ones I've been convinced at separate times that they were RIGHT.

Cue Barbara Sher, and her journal idea.



Barbara Sher suggests that rather than just dismissing the idea, or following each new lead like a headless chicken, we can write it down in our journal. Play with it there, write exactly what we liked about the idea, the sources that drew us to it, and to dream too. Write about it as the bestselling, Turner or Booker Prize winning, world changing idea we thought it was for even jsut one minute.

So here - presented rather nervously, I must admit - are three ideas I've recorded in my journal but have dismissed for this particular project. I would dearly love to do something with them one day though, so having them outlined so clearly really helps. It's not something I've tried before reading Barbara's work, trusting on the invisible compost approach but running in danger, if I'm honest, of filling up with so many ideas I couldn't get any space to breathe. Here, at least, I get them OUT!



Above is one of a series of paper cut out dolls I was thinking about. Each dress made from a different newsmedia - financial, cooking, travel, interior, fashion - and with an apt caption.



And this comes from the idea of erasure poetry, something I've been playing with a lot recently. Instead of particular words, I was thinking about inserting different versions of the word 'doll'. Changing 'facts' so they mean something quite different.



Those first two ideas I spent a bit of time on, cutting and sticking like a demented playschooler, but just to show it doesn't have to be so complicated, here's my scribble for taking the concept of patterns being sent in an envelope - sometimes across the world - and what those patterns could mean to the receiver. Here I was thinking of stories, in the form of instructions, for making worlds, or lives, or even stories.

And what idea did I choose?

Hah, you'll just have to come to the exhibition when it opens!

The optimist and the pessimist...

An optimist and a pessimist were walking along together.

'I don't know,' said the pessimist. 'Things couldn't really get worse, could they?'

'Oh I'd never say that,' replied the optimist....


I don't know why, but that joke always makes me laugh. And it's all about a different way of looking at things - seeing things aslant, which is why I will persist in putting the photographs up on this blog in a sideways fashion. Nothing, no nothing, at all to do with the fact that I keep trying to save them rotated but my laptop just won't let me. Anyway, moving swiftly on... this photograph is of the very talented Canadian textile artist, Anne Kelly who I'm lucky enough to be working together with on a top secret project this Summer.



She came round to show me her latest work, which I show to you...



Just look at this close up of the bug...



These pieces are all made of recycled materials, and most of them done by hand. The photographs don't do them justice as I can't tell you how beautiful they are in real life, and how lucky I feel to see the different stages and ways of thinking involved in creating them. Actually now I think of it, I'm going to ask Anne if I can take some pictures of her artists journal as she works out some of the thoughts behind the work we're doing together and compare them with my pages of words as I struggle with the same process. It's been interesting to me to see how different visual planning is - not quite as polarised as optimist and pessimist, but definitely another angle. It makes me realise how much I need to work out what I think through actually writing - lists, dialogues, poems, free association, freewriting, mind maps - it doesn't matter what form as long as the pen is moving and I'm using words. I wonder if I dare try a drawing? Or even - as Twyla Tharp suggests in her excellent book, The Creative Habit dance it out. The thought makes me freeze with self-consciousness in a very stupid English way, which probably suggests I need to give it a go.

(Oh, but look, I've managed to make Anne stand upright. That'll please her. I'm obviously - finally - becoming the boss of my computer. This is a happy day. I wonder if it will mean no more error messages and just cheery little 'Mission Accomplished' notices every time I try to do something different? Let us be optimistic. After all, things could hardly get worse ...)

PATTI SMITH'S DREAM OF LIFE

Three quotes, as if I need any more reasons to love Patti Smith:

An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch.

I think I'm constantly in a state of adjustment.

In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.

I've watched the documentary, Dream of Life three times already this year. THREE TIMES! It's one of the best films I've seen about the creative process, plus there's something mesmeric about the way Patti Smith narrates it. Each time I've also got something else out of it. How she says that small towns might be comfortable but sometimes we have to be destroyed in order to survive; the way she says we need music in order to contain the chaos of the sounds we hear every day; the joy she deliberately finds in life, the integrity she brings to a creative life. I have felt so inspired every time.



There's a trailer for the film here and the website is here.

On Scratching...

I'm going to spend some of today scratching. Nope, Miss Tallulah hasn't got fleas (the thought of it!) but it's a concept in Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit, that I have done instinctively before but I like it so much better now I have a name for it.

This is how Twyla Tharp describes it: 'clawing at the side of a mountain to get a toehold, a grip, some kind of traction to keep moving onward and upward ...'

And if that doesn't tell you all you need to know, she goes on: 'A fashion designer is scratching when he visits vintage clothing stores, studies music videos, and parks himself at a sidewalk cafe to see what the pedestrians are wearing ...'

In fact I think it's exactly what Julia Cameron means when she talks about the artist date. I've always been a bit worried about these - what will I do for my artists date - and now I wonder if it's because they seemed too big. I never was very good at dating - far too neurotic even for myself.

But scratching. Yep, I can do that. In fact, I saw a perfect example of scratching yesterday. My dad and sister came to take me out for lunch and we were browsing round the tourist information office in the Pantiles. Now, my father has written books on subjects from pot pourri to starting your own business, but his current project is a cookbook for 'old farts' - his words, not mine! He's experienced himself that when you're a widower over seventy and starting cooking for yourself for the first time, then recipes saying 'whisk twenty egg whites until stiff' aren't necessarily all that helpful. While Mary and I looked at walking maps, we could see dad suddenly get that sense of purpose you can feel yourself sometimes when you get a scent of an idea. We didn't see what he had purchased until we got out of the shop, but it turned out he had been looking at those regional recipe leaflets they always have in any tourist office - home cooking from Dorset etc - and was struck by the idea that he could include recipes from different areas that the 'old farts' might remember from their childhoods.

He's not intending to steal the recipes, mind - but to adapt them so they work easily and are actually understandable to his audience. Some he might even change altogether so they will be nothing like mother made. But the idea is there. Something completely different might come out over the next few days - in fact, I bet it will - but at least he has something to start with.

As Twlya Tharp says: 'Scratching can look like borrowing or appropriating, but it's an essential part of creativity. It's primal, and very private. It's a way of saying to the gods, 'oh, don't mind me, I'll just wander around in these back hallways...' and then grabbing that piece of fire and running like hell.'

And she gives as some of her ways to scratch:

a. Reading
b. Everyday conversations
c. People's handiwork
d. Following the footsteps of mentors and heroes
e. Nature

The Fish Prize

Some information below from an email about the Fish Prize - you can find more information here.

'Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.' Anton Chekhov
We are delighted to announce that poet John Hegley and writer/comedian Simon Munnery will judge the 2010 Fish One-Page Prize. This deceptively challenging form requires stories of no more than 300 words. We will publish the best ten in the 2010 Fish Anthology, alongside the best short stories and poems from the other Fish competitions. The first prize is 1,000 Euro and the nine runners-up receive 50 Euro and five copies of the Anthology. All of the details are on www.fishpublishing.com, including on-line entry and postal entry instructions.
Matthew Sweeney is the judge for the 2010 Fish Poetry Prize. He will read all of the entries himself, lest, as he says, one should get away. The competition closes on 30 March 2010 and results announced April 30. The best ten poems will be published alongside the short story winners in the 2010 Fish Anthology, and the first prize is 1,000 Euro. Entry is 12 Euro on-line or 15 by post.

The Fish Short Story Prize has reached the final month for taking entries. The competition closes on 30 Nov at midnight. For postal entries as long as the post mark is on or before 30 Nov they will be fine. The shortlisting is already under way, and we hope to have the stories off to judge Ronan Bennett by the end of January. The results will be posted on the website on 17 March, and sent to all who entered by newsletter.
The first prize is 3,000 Euro, of which 1,000 is travel expenses to the launch at the West Cork Literary Festival in July 2010. Second prize is a week’s residence at the wondrous Anam Cara Writer’s and Artists’ Retreat in West Cork, and 300 Euro.

Writers may also have their work critiqued, at a cost of 45 Euro for short stories, and 25 for poems and One-Page Stories. Postal entries must be sent to Fish Publishing, Durrus, Bantry, Co Cork, Ireland. Please do not put contact details on the story or poem, but on a separate sheet. Cheques for entry fee made to Fish Publishing.

If you have work that you would like to have edited (part or all of a novel for instance), then please go to our editorial consultancy page. Feedback on work can be on a one-off or an ongoing basis.

We would like to hear from previous Fish authors. Our Alumni Page has news of literary achievements from many of the writers we have published over the years. If you are a Fish Alumni and would like to be included on our web site, please get in touch!

Clem Cairns

YOUR FIRST POSTCARD FROM GHENT - WISH YOU WERE THERE...

We've just had a weekend in Ghent (our compensation tickets for getting stranded in Brussels in the Eurostar pre-Christmas disaster). Nothing better for me than wandering round a new city and getting a creativity fix.

One of the things I love doing is searching out independent artisans, craftsmen and artists, and this time we got lucky when we walked into Els Robberechts's hat shop (I can't seem to link to it, but here's the website - http://www.acesoir.be/ or second time lucky, try this.)



That's my new hat she's got on the counter by the way. She gave me a little lesson in how to be a hat wearer, and although I'm not sure I'm there yet, I'm looking forward to experimenting, especially with such a beautiful one.

And she allowed us to peek into her studio upstairs ...



Just as exciting, we met her husband, the master tailor Aravinda, who showed us some of the secrets he hides in his ties. Love it - these are exactly the women my character, Martin photographs in GETTING THE PICTURE. And I shall look at all tie-wearing businessmen with a new curiosity.



And to reassure Els if she happens to see this, this picture below is definitely not going to be the fate of my hat. He obviously wasn't wearing his right...

Here's something different for you....

GUILTY PLEASURES …. A story of passion, obsession and estate agents
By Sarah Salway (with a little help from various artists, click links to play....)


1. Nine to Five, Dolly Parton

Tuesday starts off as just another day at the Cotton and Wool Estate Agency but after tough but secretly vulnerable estate agent, Belinda, takes a call from her boyfriend, she rushes off to the toilet crying. Brian, the receptionist, bumps into her by accident as she, still mopping up the tears, goes back to her desk. They’ve never talked before because Belinda is far too important and also suspicious of non-alpha males, but there is something about his smile that soon causes the truth to come spilling out …

2. Kiss with the Fist, Florence and the Machine

And Brian confides that things aren’t perfect for him at home either. Something is stirring deep within him …

3. Changing of the Seasons, Ane Brun

So later that night they go to the pub together.

Where Belinda secretly thinks …

4. Falling Slowly, Glen Hansard

And Brian secretly thinks …

5. Strange and Beautiful, Aqualung

Soon they both find themselves in an unfamiliar world. one that neither of them recognise. Even Brian’s beer and Belinda’s Spritzer taste different …

6. The Healer, Erykah Badu

The next morning, Brian still feels a little uncertain …

7. Paranoid, Black Sabbath

But Belinda hasn’t got to where she is without knowing what she wants …

8. Feeling Good, Michael Buble

For two weeks, the air at the Cotton and Wool Estate Agency is full of a strange pulsing energy that causes at least one secretary to go home in tears she can’t quite explain…

9. I Got You (I feel good), James Brown

Meanwhile Belinda’s boyfriend is starting to get suspicious …

10. Big Easy, Raphael Saadiq

And comes to see Brian to tell him the truth about Valerie …

11. Pretty in Pink, Psychedelic Furs

However, Belinda hasn’t climbed to the top of the estate agency ladder by being passive. She retaliates by going to see Brian’s wife, Laura, who had no idea …

12. Always The Last One to Know, Del Amitri

It’s a long night of the soul – hair washing, standing under trees, and staring at the pet rabbit. But at last, Laura applies fresh lipstick, makes a decision …

13. Fuck You, Ani Difranco

Brian begs her to reconsider. Belinda was a nobody, he’s been a silly boy, he’s only loved her, doesn’t she love him when he says sorry so very nicely …

14. Rose, Stephen Fretwell

They decide to turn the page, write a new story, although Laura’s makes sure the rabbit hutch is firmly locked before Brian whisks her off to bed. In the morning, Brian lets Belinda down gently …

15. Every Day I Love You Less and Less, The Kaiser Chiefs

He tells Laura that it was fine, she understood. And so, everything in Brianland is lovely, apart from … hang on … who is that at the window?

16.One Way or Another, Blondie



TO BE CONTINUED …..


Guilty Pleasures 2 – out soon.

Teacher's treats...

I've finished my writing classes in Tunbridge Wells for the summer now, so last night I invited a mixture of students, local artists, writers and friends over for a drink and a reading. You can tell this particular reader is a Sarah because of her tiara. I would like to say I made her wear it, but I've come to terms with the fact I've never had a student yet doesn't do exactly what they want to do and hang my futile attempts at instilling an air of fear and authority.



From the emails I've had - and even the honour of it being a beautiful thing - other people enjoyed last night's 'soiree' nearly as much as I did. But it also made me think a lot because I've always considered my teaching as a way of funding my writing. But suddenly last night, as I listened to the readings and the conversations going on and remembering some of the exercises we'd all done together, I realised just how important teaching has become for me. It is a privilege to work with other peoples' writing and to share the energy of committed writers creating something together. I could never be one of those writers who live hermit-style, communicating only with the page. I need to be engaged somehow with the world. My challenge now is to keep the balance between engaging and writing. One nice thing about the kind of teaching I do is that it's not continuous. I get breaks like now - from July to September - in which to revitalise, think of new ideas, and get ready to start again. To this end, because I've got some exciting teaching prospects coming along, and a connected even more exciting project I'm working on, Clare and I have been sorting through my very very messy piles of teaching notes together.



And slowly, slowly, it's all coming together. I like to think of myself as a creative type who doesn't mind mess but I know now that's not the case. I like order. No, I LOVE order. I crave it. It lets me have the space to think of new ideas. Mind you, I've just spent the last five minutes stroking my new Clare-organised files.



No wonder she wears a tiara. She might not be a Sarah but she's the queen of the alpabeticised system. My only gripe is that she says I've got to learn how to use them myself because she's not going to move in and live with me but, hey, I have a tiara too (and mine's pink). I CAN do it.