Thursday 4 November 2010

Blasts from the pasts

I’ve experimented with different forms of writing before, I’ve tried, allsorts of different outlets for my “creativity”. Be it; scripts, long rambling rants that actually go no-where, scripts, blogs, articles...the list goes on.
Many writers have a back catalogue of random false starts or half thought out ideas that never see the light of day, and I am no different, so here I present a small (very small) collection of things I found in a notebook when I visited my dads earlier today.
Some of the things that follow were going to go on and be bigger things, other were just random silly “brainfarts” thatI felt I should write down, so here they are slightly edited for spelling and in one or two occasions just to round it off nicely.

Extract One:
We take certain things in life for granted. Things like reading from left to right, or the corner shop shuts at nine, even though it says ten in the window. That most ITV sitcoms aren’t worth the time or effort. These little things occur daily in our lives and we just accept them, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty two weeks a year.
We fail to notice the fundamental things, but would we notice if these things started to change? Would we care? Let’s say, for example, your front door started to open outwards instead of inwards. The microwave “BEEP”’s instead of “Ping”ing, like you’re used to. Not major changes I know, but that’s just where it starts.

That was to be beginning of a short story or maybe a novel about a man who’s life seems to be changing bit by bit around him. I’m still working on a variation on the same idea, but I am developing it into a sitcom instead.

Also present in this notebook is the start of a little diatribe into...well, actually I don’t know what I wanted to do with it but I think it started off rather nicely...

Extract Two:
The thing about people is...we know too many of them. It causes great offence when we forget someone’s name. It causes even greater offence when we fail to recognise that we even met the person in the first place!
We sometimes rely on other people to guide us through these problems, but this often causes more offence than just asking, “I’m sorry, you are?”. At least you can shrug that question off as a joke!

Like I said I didn’t really know where that was going, and maybe there was more to it.

Now, those of you who know me as a writer will know that poetry isn’t my bag, but just to prove that I am a walking contradiction, here are two of my efforts...

Poem 1: The Little Pink Box (More of a list)
If I had a little box,
With a Ribbon tied in a pink bow.
What would I put in that Box?
I think I know!
Holocaust deniers,
Arrogance,
Ant and Dec,
Catherine Tate,
Nazi’s
Fascists,
Barry Fucking Scott and his cunting Cillit Bang!
S Club 7,
America,
People with no sense of irony,
Piety,
Golf,
Chris Evans,
People who sell drugs to children,
Children,
The Fucking Frog Bastard Chorus,
Chewed Pens
Phone Bills and Banks,
No Smoking Signs,
Star Trek,
Paedophiles,
Rapists,
Hoodies,
Scallies,
Chavs,
Emo’s
Heather Mills,
Instruction manuals that have every language EXCEPT the one you fucking speak!
And do you know what?
I’d throw the fucking box in the ocean!

Poem 2: Davina McCall Ate My Family

The telly ate my family,
Big Brother, I’m A Celebrity, Dancing on Ice, media cannibals the lot of them,
The hollow shell that was once my family,
The vacuosity of light entertainment seems almost hypnotic to them.

Davina McCall ate my family,
Tune in at nine to see what eleven strangers are doing in a house you live nowhere near,
Then slowly feel the cotton wool being jackhammered down your ears as you,
Vote to evict the perfect stranger you like the least and then,
Like a moth to the flame,
Do the same seven days later,
Do you feel dirty yet?

Celebrity culture ate my family,
Did you hear about the ‘human balloon’ who died,
Leaving her baby daughter at the hands of gold diggers,
Hanging around like flies rounds shit?
I did, and I’m sure you’re the same!


Well there’s just a small collection of random bits of writing I still have yet to finish. There is more and maybe, who knows, next time I’m bored and want to write I may post more.

Thank you for reading and normal, very angry, service will be resumed soon!