The Box Arrives

My 20 authors copies arrived at noon!

I'm not letting it out of my sight.

 The novel isn't released till June 6th
so I won't say anymore about it, honest!

retreating...

photo by Sarah Clancy

photo by Sarah Clancy

If its been quiet here for a while, its due to the fact that I've been temporarily living a life miles away from my own. I've been hanging out at the edge of the world, listening to the sea, meeting other writers, quaffing wine, laughing, running, keeping the stove burning, day dreaming, night dreaming and scribbling. I was on a retreat at Cill Rialaig - a restored pre-famine village on Bolus Head at the very end of the Iveragh Peninsula.

Once away from the routine and chores of daily life, work, motherhood etc... I imagined that I'd be writing every second of every day, even through the night, would I even have time to eat? In truth, it took a few days of wrestling with stories that needed endings, poems that needed clear eyes before I could begin to write anything new. And no, I didn't write every minute of every day - I couldn't live somewhere so beautiful and atmospheric and keep my head down. That wouldn't be living. More and more, I'm finding that I need to strike a balance, and surprisingly that means writing less and living more, in order to have a better quality life as a writer. So I wrote early and wrote late, and in between I ran, prepared meals, and met with the other residents who were full of fun, warmth & stories of their own.

The suspicion that my house was slightly haunted has provided fuel for the novel I'm working on at the moment, as has the brutal, beautiful scenery of Cill Rialig itself. I ended the week by travelling to Cork and reading as guest poet at ó' Bheal session, brainchild of the charming and talented Paul Casey.

And, for anyone with a story or poem that needs a home...

The Cúirt New Writing Prize is still (just about) open:

The poetry entries must consist of 3 poems under 50 lines each, and the fiction pieces may be up to 2000 words. Entries in both English and Irish are welcome.Three copies of the work are required and a €10 entry fee applies, which must be a postal order or bank draft. Writers submitting work should not have had a collection published in the category in which they enter.This does not include the publication of single poems, stories or chapbooks. Send to - The Galway Arts Centre,47 Dominick Street.

New Years Resolutions

I'm mad for resolutions, can't help myself. It helps me focus to have goals or a theme, even if its a Do- Nothing Theme, which might be January for me. I'm so sluggish after Christmas I might as well be covered in mud. I had an amazing writing year last year, an agent, a book deal for The herbalist and winning Writer Of The Year and I kept, most, of my writing resolutions. This year I'm hungry to find out more about poetry, so I'll be doing a lot of reading, and hopefully workshops if I can find the time/cash, but in the meantime, I'm adding a section to my blog posts called Some Words On Poetry.

So, this years resolutions look like this-

1.

Complete Poetry Collection

 I'm working hard on a series of poems, most seem to be inspired by characters from Irish myths and European fairy tales and some are fueled by my own life, I wonder are they two collections or one?
I'll just keep writing and see. I'm reading Strong Words, manifestos from poets on poetry, some of the manifestos are marvellous-  those from Yeats and Selima Hill, but a lot of them would do your head in.

2.
Arrange Short Story Collection
I have a collection of short stories, written over four years, from 2009-2012 and I will be putting them in order in one ms. I also have a few stories, more recent ones, that I want to rework and add to the collection. It's called The Wild Cats Buffet after one of my earliest stories, though it may change.

3.

Write Novel

I'll be working on a new novel, a fast first draft. I had begun a novel I was excited about last year but made the brutal mistake of gabbing about it too early, so its lost most of its fire for me. I'm going back nevertheless to try again on Monday, when the kids are back in school. I'll devote six weeks to getting as much down as I can, and this time I'll stay stum.

4, 5, 6...
This year I would love to travel, Paris would so nicely:) And I'm going to stop biting my nails. And launch my novel this summer. And get up earlier, and be more organised, and get haircuts and .... those kinds of normal woman things...  and, of course, tidy the bloody ramshackling house. And watch loads of silent movies in bed. And rediscover the joys of porridge.

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Some Words On Poetry

'Revision is the party'

( from Billy Collins /Paris Review Interview)

'I try to write very fast. I don’t revise very much. I write the poem in one sitting. Just let it rip. It’s usually over in twenty to forty minutes. I’ll go back and tinker with a word or two, change a line for some metrical reason weeks later, but I try to get the whole thing just done. Most of these poems have a kind of rhetorical momentum. If the whole thing doesn’t come out at once, it doesn’t come out at all. I just pitch it...

People say, Don’t throw anything away. This is standard workshop advice: Always save everything. You could use it in another poem. I don’t believe that. I say, Get rid of it. Because if it got into a later poem it would be Scotch-taped on. It would not be part of the organic, you know, chi, the spine that the poem has, the way it all should be one continuous movement.

What was that word you used?

Chi. I think they use that in feng shui. It’s the Chinese sense of energy that runs through things. Poems that lack that seem very mechanically put together, like a piece here and a part there. Because of the workshop and the M.F.A. phenomenon there’s much too much revision going on. Revision can grind a good impulse to dust. Of course, the distinction between revision and writing is kind of arbitrary because when I am writing I am obviously revising. And when I revise, I’m writing, aren’t I? I love William Matthews’s idea—he says that revision is not cleaning up after the party; revision is the party! That’s the fun of it, making it right, getting the best words in the best order.

Can you tell an author's sex?

Master Of The House
ah stop, I don't mean this in any unkind way

Today The New Yorker blog continues with the Naipaul controversy, for any one who missed it - Naipaul was asked if he considered any woman writer his literary match. He was very certain in his answer...

"I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me."

`" this was because of women's "sentimentality, the narrow view of the world". "And inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too," he said. He added: "My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh. I don't mean this in any unkind way."`

Lo and behold!

Now it seems there is a new program - gender classification from text - it `spits out a gender judgement: male, female or neutral. The neutral option points to how much of the text has been stripped of any indication of gender. This is something particularly prevalent in scientific texts, the researchers say.`

I tried it and, Lo and Behold!

I'm a man! Who knew, who knew... so, click, if you dare....
Gender Classification from Text

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After you've found out what sex you are, you can find out who you write like over at SortofWriting
I know, I know, I should be just writing...

New Year's Resoloutions

The Celtic new year was at Samhain on 31st October and probably the time when I should've written a New Year's Resolutions list; I was "in the mood" then whereas now, not so much...

Not at all. You see the thing about the writing...(now I know I'm definitely heading towards my years of twilight delight - I've started to refer to things as "the" - the Lidl, the writing, the drink, the old head... - it shall be henceforth known as the "the" of middle age. Not that I mind stepping into middle age...better than the alternative isn't it? Six foot under and everyone whispering that you were great to keep going as long as you did but you can't hear them because your ear drums are full of clay or alternatively you're celestially strung out on a higher plane...whatever's in store. No, I'm nurturing my grey and look forward to being the kind of old lady that no one would ever ask to keep an eye on their children. And no cats, no. And I'll not be wearing purple and eating as many sausages as I like... oh please, how liberating is that!? I'm sorry but I'd like a bit more anarchy with my arthritis than sausage meat.

...I've gone off point. New years resolutions, I feel a bit antagonistic towards this coming new year, not in a bad way, in a fairly good humoured way...(I think negative emotions get far too much bad press. What's so wrong with not being buzzy?) but yes, I suppose I might be channeling a touch of Eeyore!

For the last few years on every New Years Eve I've been ordering myself to -
complete x amount of hours writing, per day, per week / to finish x story by 30th of the month/ to finish the novel within another 6 weeks...but this year I'm giving myself a break . So...

In 2011

I will

• not write any do to lists.
• not have any writing goals
• gorge on language and not be disciplined

What are your New Years Resolution!? Have an easy going 2011!

15 Favorite Albums

Orla Fay tagged me for this challenge. Orla's blog is where I first came across Rumi. (I'm sure he's delighted wherever he is!) In fifteen minutes I'd to list 15 favorite albums. 15 minutes isn't very long, I ran out of time before I knew it. If anyone is stuck for writing inspirations this is a great way of stirring up memories. I tried to be chronological...and failed. First off is my very first tape...

The Beatles Blue AlbumOn cassette tape - lady madonna children at your feet, wonder how you manage to make ends meet - still have this, 32 years later, bring back cassettes!

Elvis - Greatest Hits

Get offa my blue suede shoes... I always switched the speed setting on the record player so Elvis sounded like a middle aged bosco running after a train. Myself and my sister jumped on and off the two-seater leatherette couch (boat) into the carpet (ocean) to this album, a type of dance not often seen nowadays, it had to be done with a pout. My fifteen minutes are already running out!

A Larry Gogan Top Thirty

One of the many tapes I recorded off the radio. It must have been 1980 as John Lennon had three songs in the charts - Woman, Starting over and Imagine, it was the year of his death. I painted his head on the wall at the end of my bed. A dash of gloss on each eye to make him seem alive. A visiting grandmother was unsettled and couldn't sleep; it was a very big head. He's still there. My one and only.

Infected

Loved the anger and lyrics - full of piss stinking shopping centres and rage against the state. The Ilac in Dublin was the only shopping centre in those days so they held a certain toxic exoticness in my imagination.

Violent Femmes

Great teenage angst and energy - "why can't i get just one ****" - Go Gordon. A great one to jump around to after mass and before Sunday dinner.

The Doors

Velvet dresses, shaggy perms...arms doing demented snake turns at the local disco... us, not Jim. This is when we got "sophisticated" (full of ourselves)

Tracey Chapman

Still a great album -I played this to death. Two weeks in a Virginia jail for my lover, for my lover...

Parade

Sometimes it snows in April - the year my gran aunt died. Prince does the best sad songs though he's known more for being tiny and a bit kinky.

Why do birds sing?

Nobody will go to the prom with me. We'd no proms but I loved "American Music."

Ancient Rain

"A leaf from a tree" - it's worth getting your heart broken just so you can cry along to this song. I mean it. It's beautiful. Time will take your love from me...

No Angel

A great "pacing- the- room- with- a- baby- crying- into- your- ear" album.

Golden Age of Radio

Also a great pacing the room with same baby album. Damn colic. (Early over zealous listening to Lady Madonna must've put a curse on me.) Listening to this always makes me grateful for a nights sleep and long for a porch to drink my bud on.

The Beekeeper

I made a really vibrant painting to the Hoochie Woman track on this CD - went to bed with sore knees from bopping in front of the canvas. This woman is a genius.

Billy Holiday

Been a fan off Billy since I my early twenties, it's the music I take out when nothing else suits a mood I call "fed up but enjoying it."

Abbey Road

You should see polythene Pam - she's so good lookin but she looks like a man -oh yes! This belongs in the middle of the list. I bought it on CD but it doesn't sound as satisfying as on the album.

It's amazing how the memory of certain songs brought me right back to the time I first heard them. Will flesh out this post later. What are your top 15?