Writing

I’m currently waiting for a major, scheduled, event in my life. I have very little to do with my time at the moment so I decided to turn back to writing to keep myself entertained. This idea came to me when I was recently assigned a “speed typing” task. I set about splurting out a short story about a young pregnant woman whose partner had left for unknown reasons and whom she hoped to see again shortly. I focused on her optimism, her hope and her longing. A quick glance at my neighbour’s screen reminded me of how my mind worked differently to others, they were writing about what they had done that day. I was so exhilarated by my creative endeavour and was reminded of how much I used to enjoy writing. So, in order to avoid boredom as I wait for the event, I have decided that I will channel my energies into three separate creative outlets;  this blog, a novel and a sitcom script. This blog will be about anything and everything I think up, things that annoy me, points I wish to address, replies to comments on previous blogs, what I am eating, the progress of my novel, the concept behind my sitcom etc.

My novel is one which I have long been planning to write; a modern ‘epic’. I don’t mean ‘epic’ in the way which most people have begun to use it, it has no positive or negative connotations. The word ‘epic’ doesn’t necessarily ascribe value to a work. I am using it to mean a long, sprawling, classically influenced opus. Ideally I want to capture the essence of humanity in the early twenty first century, the despair of youth, the hopelessness of our finite existence and the realisation that we have all been mislead and deluded by Hollywood and it’s idealisation of life. It might suck. As a first attempt it is probably ambitious. I’m enjoying writing it, so that’s important.

Finally, the sitcom. I have been writing sitcoms for about 7 years. I have written, and performed, in two radio sitcoms for my university radio station and one televised one for their online tv channel. These experiences taught me two things; firstly- I cannot act, secondly- a surprising amount of university drama students cannot read or cannot correctly enunciate and B- I am inconsistent. I have also written a full 30 page episode for a tv sitcom which was sent to, and duly rejected by, the BBC. At first I flattered myself into thinking that this rejection was because my wit and wordplay could not be sold to the mainstream but now I realise that writing a 30 page script over the course of four years and with dozens of edits and thematic changes can only lead to a bit of a mess. So this new script is completely original and is flowing nicely. I’ve always had a problem with plot and story arcs, being more at home with wordplay and joke writing but this one actually has a direction.

I may feature excerpts from the script and novel or discuss them further in later blogs. I’m gonna get out of my dressing gown now. It’s 1:32pm.

Corr 12 views!

A great man once said “write as though you had a readership and one day you will”. I’m not sure if a great man did say that and, if he didn’t, then i’m having it. Splashed across my obituary will be a list of my most notable remarks, that might be one of them. If they can squeeze anything else in under my list of accomplishments “World’s Sexiest Man”, “Most Studly Genius”, “Four time Emmy award Nominated sitcom”. I won’t be a sitcom, even in the future (I’ll lead a very long life) I doubt there will be a way to turn a human into a television show. I don’t mean a reality show about me, I mean a person becoming a television show. It doesn’t make sense. Then again television didn’t make much sense to people two hundred years ago. I don’t watch much television. I have a television. I’m not Amish. I just use my television as a computer monitor, I download the shows which are worth watching. There aren’t many shows worth watching, whenever I do happen to turn on the “telly” the worst show ever made is on.

The Big Bang Theory is repeated ad nauseum on all the channels with 4 in their name. I despise the canned laughter and the threadbare and ridiculous plots, it isn’t funny. I also hate how everyone else on earth apparently loves it, this appeals to my sense of contrarianism and also makes me despair at the idiocy of the general public. Lowest common denominator comedy should have died out long ago yet only seems to thrive, mostly in America but also over here with Mrs Brown’s Boys and Miranda. These are the very shows that the show within a show in Extras lampoons. Yet for every one person who knowingly chuckles during Extras there are five people eagerly hunting for the remote to switch over to The Big Bang Theory. Frankly i’m surprised that they have the mental faculty to understand the intricacies of remote control operation.

Sadly, that leads me to my biggest issue with The Big Bang Theory. Friends of mine whose intelligence I respect and often admire have confessed, nay, boasted of their love for the show. I suspect that this is because of the smokescreen deliberately created by the show’s evil mastermind creators. By having a show about “geniuses” and “nerds” they can make dozens of references to nerd culture- Star Trek, Star Wars, Dungeons And Dragons, Magic The Gathering, World Of Warcraft. Intelligent people watch the show and, presumably, are so overwhelmed at the recognition of Dungeon Quest on a mainstream television show that they are blinded to the flaws of the show. Or perhaps i’m wrong. Perhaps I just don’t get it. Just do me a favour and try to block out the canned laughter punctuating every third word and attempt to analyse the “jokes” for yourself.

This post wasn’t actually meant to be about The Big Bang Theory or anything in particular. I guess that’s the thing about trains of thought, they often go off the rails a bit. Well, at least that particular rant is over. I even cut out about 100 words about the darn show. Next post will be more positive. I promise. I like melba toast.

Pertaining to the multifaceted shimmering shine of fox fur

Ok, this is not a blog about iridescent foxes, the iridescence of fox fur or foxes in general. It is also nothing to do with iridescence. I’m only partially sure what iridescence is, I think it has something to do with prismatic light diffusion. So there will be no articles about the Russian fox domestication program, nor will there really be any “articles”. So if you were looking for that then you’d best look elsewhere. Or stay here. I’m not in the business of shooing away potential readers.

   I chose the title because it was better than “my blog”. Quite how my mind made the leap from something dull and descriptive to something quite so unusual and irrelevant is beyond me. So what will I blog about? I’m not sure. Do you ever have a thought whilst driving, running, watching shite tv etc, and feel the urge to write about it? Well I always do. So now I have a platform to write about all the random crap that I think of. I saved a small frog from next door’s cat today. Why do cats hunt? They never eat what they kill, is it just a case of their evolution not having caught up with their domestication? I don’t really care what the answer is. I’m watching WWE Summerslam 2012 and it may be the campest nonsense I’ve ever watched. Was it like this 12 years ago when I used to watch it religiously? Subjects for the next blog- cars, friends and ennui.