So, yes writing with music really does help me. Of course it has to be the right music, it can’t be too exciting, or too catchy, and anything below three and a half minutes should be considered carefully – if the songs are changing too much you’ll pay more attention to the change. Or I would anyway, but I am easily distrac…

Ooooh Diet Coke, thanks.

Where was I? Oh yes, I’m easily distracted. Back last year, I had planned to do monthly ten song playlists – but I got distracted, I also got writers block, so it never really happened. What I’ve done this time, now I’m writing again, is to make a longer playlist, and call it a seasonal writing playlist.

I’ve got quite a mix of music in my summer version, it’s mostly easy listening, rock, and alternative, with a touch of pop – it works well as background music, while still giving pace to help put fire into the writing process.

If you other suggestions for a playlist for writing music, long or short, feel free to add them to the comments.

Since I got Spotify, it allows me to share my playlist with people – so if you want to have a listen to my summer playlist, just click here.

Click more to see the playlist without Spotify

Spandau Ballet – Gold
Marina And The Diamonds – The Outsider
Boston – Foreplay/Long Time
A Fine Frenzy – You Picked Me
Son House – Downhearted Blues
The Kooks – Naive
Muse – Assassin
ORF Symphony Orchestra – Montagues And Capulets
The Who – Baba O’Riley – Original Version
Green Day – ¡Viva La Gloria!
Fleetwood Mac – Go Your Own Way
Placebo – Every You Every Me
Savage Garden – To The Moon & Back
Ultravox – Vienna
Muse – Knights Of Cydonia
Muse – Resistance
Muse – Take a Bow
Muse – Starlight
Marina And The Diamonds – The Outsider
Panic! At The Disco – From A Mountain In The Middle Of The Cabins
Panic! At The Disco – The Piano Knows Something I Don’t Know
Jace Everett – Bad Things
Muse – I Belong To You [+Mon Coeur S'Ouvre A Ta Voix]
Dido – Look No Further
Muse – Sing For Absolution
Lily Allen – The Fear
Spandau Ballet – Gold
Sublime – Garden Grove
Reel Big Fish – Where Have You Been?
Sweet – The Ballroom Blitz
Bad Company – Ready For Love
Blue Oyster Cult – (Don’t Fear) The Reaper
Blue Oyster Cult – Burnin’ For You
Boston – Foreplay/Long Time
Survivor – Eye Of The Tiger
Garbage – Push It – Re-mastered 2007
Apocalyptica – Bittersweet
Scorpions – Rock You Like A Hurricane
Iron Maiden – Fear Is The Key
Iron Maiden – Weekend Warrior
Iron Maiden – The Apparition

Hope you enjoy – have a happy summers writing.

Sage

So the new project, it’s currently titled Journals of a Space Corsair, and is a sci-fi piece. Inspired by the concept of the Bio of a Space Tyrant novels by Piers Anthony, which I read recently, and once I finished reading those books, I also read Michael Crichton’s Pirate Latitudes, between the two of them, this whole science fiction universe of mine was inspired and created in my mind. What’s more is I’ve been able to put it into words, something I’ve struggled to do for the past eighteen months.

It’s a nice feeling, not too many words just yet, but just passed the 20,000 mark in two weeks so that’s a comfort.

The way I’m doing this project is blog posts, it’s an auto-biography, so I’m going to write it as a series of confessionals, the man’s story in his own words, detailing his good deeds, but mostly his crimes, the lifestyle he led, and the suffering he brought and received. The hardest part is not giving in to my tendency to make the character a flawed good guy, or to have the character swing from bad to good. I’m trying to write something that reflects a man, and not an archetype from a TV series. That isn’t to say there isn’t an arc, in fact there’s a pretty big one, and my aim is the character goes from illegality to legitimacy, and then back to illegality. Times are turbulent, wars rise up and allegiances change.

I do feel the need to acknowledge Piers Anthony, and Michael Crichton, as their books are a massive influence on this story, it was their books that really lit my imagination on fire.

From Michael Crichton I tried to take a sense of how pirates actually operated, and in many ways how the new world worked, the trade routes between the colonial lands, the stopping off points like Jamaica, which I’ve tried to translate the spirit of into worlds and space stations.

From Piers Anthony, obviously I’ve tried to take the format, the fictional autobiography of a significant figure in future history, I’m also borrowing some of the technology he mentions in his books, the travelling via a beam of light, over massive distances, which is as reasonable a way to explain interstellar travel as any. Of course it is fraught with its own difficulties in a story that takes place in real time, with politics, wars, and tactics – I can’t really afford it taking decades to travel from one planet to the other. Instead, I shall embellish the idea with faster than light energy – so it takes days and weeks to travel between the stars.

I think it is important to acknowledge where a story comes from – it is not my intention to plagiarise these amazing authors, but they have inspired within me a tale which I think is unique and distinct in its own right. Besides when it comes to science fiction, it’s never easy to come up with easy ideas for propulsion, and story telling in general tends to form into archetypes. I think that’s one of the advantages of writing an account of a self confessed bad guy, while not ground breaking or unique, it is a point of view that is carried far less often than that of a hero, heroically battling to save the world.

My intention is to post up a chapter (and if I write it right, it will be more of a self contained short story, which feeds into the overall tale), every fortnight, detailing a significant memory of this space corsair. I won’t be launching it right away, as I want to build up four or five chapters ahead, this gives me a nice cushion with which to edit the stories (because while the muse does flow, it tends not to check the grammar for me, nor does it worry about the annoying inconsistencies of writing large pieces of work in small bits). Also, my sister’s baby is due next month, I’m on holiday in Prague in August, and I’m off to the British Science Festival in Birmingham this September, so there’s plenty to interrupt my schedule.

Speaking of the British Science Festival, I’m really looking forward to it, it feeds a lot of knowledge in my science fiction, such as the power system for the ships in my story – I learned that from a presentation I went to on fusion energy, I always favoured the methodology employed in the tokamak fusion generators, rather than the method involving lasers, purely because it seems to me that once such devices as ITER are operational and producing massive quantities of energy, we would be able to learn from this and scale the process down to have a device that can sit aboard a starship and produce the kind of energy I need for propulsion, FTL (faster than light) travel, and of course the staple of most space based science fiction, the weapons.

I am genuinely excited to be writing again, and long may it continue. Nanowrimo is in November (it’s always in November, hardly a surprise there), and this year I’m going to ace it. Mark my words.

Right now, I am watching Magnum P.I., which let’s face it, is crass populist television, but at its best. I remember watching this show as a kid, and I’ve got to admit the Ferrari helped (I loved cars as a kid, mechanics son and all that), but even now it seems quite fun. It has aged better than say Knightrider.

That is not the reason for this post however, I am sure I could fire up a poem – but I ended up watching it after flicking through the channels in the mood for something nostalgic. It all started with an email, from Yahoo, they are closing down Geocities, and it was their umpteenth reminder that I should go and download my website there, or transfer it to their paid for hosting service.

It is quite shocking to think about, I have been a member of Geocities since probably around 1996/7, it was a fantastic service in the beginning and was the host of my first ever website, launching me into the internet age in style (well how much style, or even content, was involved is an arguable matter considering I was fifteen at the time).

Over time, I’ve always had some kind of web presence there, even if it is just to leave an old site loitering about.  Back in the early days I used to have a site in Area 51, back when GeoCities was made up of Neighbourhoods, which I used to write about sci-fi television, but that site is long forgotten in the annals of history. The site currently there has not been touched since 2002, most of it since 2001. It was a site to host all my poetry and writings, and anything else of interest such as my studies into history.

I’ve been on this morning and downloaded all the pages, while I was there, I found a site from 2007 called Aspiring (which must have been when I was between hosts), which was a very early prototype of a site I wanted to do, it was going to be a poetry ezine, much in the flavour of the Creative Edge, (which many moons ago was the ezine created, and edited by Imdaewen for writers-ramblings.com forum – this site’s precursor). I would still love, one day, to launch an ezine, but one thing at a time. So, now I have the whole website saved to my computer, the big question is, what do I do with it? Well the poetry, though it is old (most of it from my late teens, early twenties), I’m going to put in a section on here. The stories, I’m going to redo them, from scratch. They are atrociously written, the level of spelling and grammar mistakes is appalling, and the concepts were born of an age of innocence about writing and storytelling – though one, which never really got past chapter three, I’m still quite thrilled with for all its faults.

Everything else, well I guess that goes to the scrap heap of history, though I am a hoarder so for the next decade it will probably drift around on this hard drive, or that hard drive, maybe a DVD backup occasionally – where eventually I’ll stumble across it, and have all these thoughts again. That is the way of most of my digital life, I am in fact loathe to delete anything. Ironic then, that this all started because I was doing the rare job of actually deleting some of the emails in my main account, when I noticed the previously ignored warning about my GeoCities account.

I’m off to go start working on an area on this site to archive my older poetry (hopefully without clogging up my journal, or my blog homepage).

And farewell GeoCities, your demise is the end of an era. From an old Homesteader, ta-ra.

If you enjoy it, let me know – but likewise if you have constructive feedback I’d welcome that too.

Later, I’ll be using this poem as one of the sources for a post about editing poetry, so you never know, I may be back with a better version yet – but I still love this one.

Spider Poem

Have you ever taken a moment out of your day,

To watch something truly unimpressive,

Yet overwhelmingly inspiring all the same?

You might never consider it worthwhile to say,

Events so small it’s easy to be dismissive,

If you discard it I think you should feel shame.

An event of such minor proportions happened to me,

So life alteringly small,

It unlocked a door to my soul,

And something changed within.

It started with a visit to the loo,

Hardly an auspicious opening,

But I was stuck transfixed to what I saw.

A spider of insignificant tall,

Trapped in the bath bowl,

Myths say forever trapped therein.

It tried and tried with web of glue,

Of this castle it was not destined to king,

With no regard to mythological law,

With as much chance of escape as a ball,

And remember no digging, it’s not a mole,

This spider free of thoughtful sin.

It could climb so far then fall,

Web attached it would roll,

No more than a silent din.

I felt this littlest of heroes would try till it was blue,

It would never throe the towel into the ring,

Like a drowning man, desperate to reach the shore.

I am in awe that it would not let it’s fate just be,

It answered life’s challange with dignity and a call,

And finally, or most orgasmically, ended was it’s toll,

It won it’s mighty quest to the envy of it’s kin.

A much larger spider had watched and did stay,

A coward, but in its size it was impressive,

it didn’t matter though the little one won this game.

Nothing now stopped this little spider may,

It climbed a shampoo bottle, then the wall its complete missive,

The little spider inspired my writing and this poem came.

Have you ever taken a moment out of your day,

To watch something truly unimpressive,

Yet overwhelmingly inspiring all the same?

I did and it truly did dividends pay,

And the time it took may seem excessive,

But I was changed, no longer the writer eternally lame.

©, Jonathan Lawrence 2009

I think I need a crisis, I had a crisis this time last year, and coming out of that crisis I started writing again. However, the new improved me deals with problems a lot better, so few even get close to a minor crisis, never mind the life altering ones from last year.

I am now quite scared of NaNoWriMo looming over me, I’ve got the ideas, but without the ability to actually write, it’s fairly meaningless.

I could create a crisis, however that doesn’t fit with the new me that works hard not to get life in a state. I’ve gotten into pretty bad financial trouble this year (after years of owing no more than £400 at anyone time), however I’ve even dealt with that so that I’ll be debt free again in by this time next year, and am comfortable with that.

I could quit my job, which does have double benefits, it would be a major crisis, I wouldn’t be able to fix easily, and I would have time to write. However, I’d have nothing to write on, never mind anywhere to actually write – so possibly a level of crisis too far.

Likely, it’s still temporary, and that once November hits, I’ll be flying. I’m actually planning on doing something insane for NaNoWriMo (assuming I can find the ability to write again), and that is enter NaNoWriMo twice. That’s right, I’m aiming for the 100,000 words in a month bracket. I’ll be doing it with two different stories – however I personally feel that 100,000 in a month, on one story, that could retain 75% to 85% of it’s words after editing, might be worth pursuing. I was tempted to do it one story, however, I worry that I’ll balk under the challenge and settle for 50,000, I don’t want to settle. With two entries, settling is still a win and a failure, to have a true win, have to achieve both.

What I’ll aim to do, is get the first one complete in the first fortnight, and the second in the second fortnight, so I’m not having to switch between stories (which I can do, but might cause problems).

For now though, I’d settle for some good writing for the rest of September, and through October.

Another problem with writers block, it forces you to analyse every idea, as you seek the in roads to it, that will allow you to translate imagination to words on a page.

I just had a brilliant idea for a poem, for about a second, before I realised it’s a subject that’s been more than adequately covered in myth and legend.

There was tiny spider (but with long thin legs) in the bath, and it was stuck, but kept trying to get up the sides. It’d get so far, and then fall, but used it’s web to limit it’s fall, then tried again, then the web broke – so it started over, and nearly gets to the top, and then falls again.

Eventually, it drifts along the length of the path, trying to find a decent climb, and it makes it! I actually felt quite happy for it (even as I don’t have any like for spiders after being bitten by one, yuck). Then the damned thing, not satisfied with it’s monumental climb (they’re not after all known for escaping baths), then proceeded to climb a shampoo bottle. It must have realised it was disappointing when it get to the top, as it got back down again. Teetered on the edge of going back in the both, but instead choose to use the grouting to climb up to the ceiling instead.

It was amazing to watch. Unfortunately, it’s already a well observed phenomeon, kind of – Robert the Bruce famously is supposed to have seen a spider trying, and failing, then trying again, to get a web from one side of a cave to another, and it inspired him to try again and rebel against Edward. He still failed, but the moral is no less true.

As I said, it was amazing to watch – even more amazing, aside from this ickle spider, there was a much bigger spider (where the ickle one had legs no thicker than a hair, this had legs that were like 0.5mm – and a much bigger body and mandibles that were very visible (shudders). To be fair, I suspect they were the same breed, but probably the bigger one was considerably older (I believe a week might be descriptive enough of age in the life cycle of a spider – but I’m no arachnologist afterall), just sat there watching. I couldn’t decide if it was keeping the little spider as an emergency meal for later, or not. After the little spider escaped the bath, it turned and was facing the wall (it had been facing the length of the bath for the entire time little spider had been trying to escape), so I wonder if it was thinking, damn – if only I were smaller, and lighter, with legs that could find every tiny bump and gap to get me up – I could make it. Or maybe it was just cursing it’s luck, as the little spider succeeded, while it had sat and done bugger all.

Well there you go, like Robert the Bruce (allegedly), that little spider has inspired me too – because I’ve written a few words. Maybe I will write a poem about the two spiders… it’s a subject that may have been covered, (but then, lets face it what hasn’t?), but it was a pretty major thing for me.

I love moments like that, I once wrote down a few pages about a pigeon with a clubbed foot that I saw at the train station while travelling to work once. Still have it, might share that too. In fact, I think I might share inspirational animal stories everyday next week, I’m feeling well and truly inspired.

Thanks for reading, if you did

JL Legend
X

I’m one of those writers that are blessed with hardcore imagination. Ideas come easy to me, anything can trigger an idea. There isn’t any work involved in shaping the imagination, if I let it just run wild, and I can reconjure an imaginar episode with just a few mental or physical prompts.

Of course if I want to shape this into a story I have to harness it, and that requires a great deal if force.

I imagine whole world’s in my head, a litany of characters, intensive situations, there’s detail o’plenty, as a character slams into a building, I’ll be stood at the bus stop opposite, I’ll see every half broken brick, and bits of mortar. As the protagonists of my imagination move closer for that all but inevitable kiss, I can see it happening, I can see the lines in the woman,s lips, I can see the guys forced face as he struggles not to go too fast, he wants to project a certain image with that kiss, and I see the car speeding towards them, the one who’ll brake hard, and speed away, the moment spoiled. The driver by the way has brown hair, a blue denim jacket, and was smoking – he’s actually fleeing the scene of a crime, which he had nothing to do with, but he’s got form and doesn’t want to go back to jail on a mistake.

The reason it needs to be strong armed is two-fold, firstly my imagination can run rampant at the worst time, I can easily switch between genre’s, decades (even centuries), and characters, it takes practice to keep it on track. The second reason is writing for a mythical readership, I love my imagination – most of the time it’s better than TV, but it’s to my tastes (most of the time, there are occaisionally things I can’t stand, and even offend me), however whether it’s to the taste of a reading audience I’m less sure. Therefore if I want to write an imaginary scene it has to be guided, and then censored and modified further as it flows from the pen.

There is of course another downside, an overly rampant imagination can completely change tracts, starting a whole new story when your only part way through the current one. This does happen frequently, and usually coincides with me losing the will to write. You put all that effort in, and lose the zone for that story, it’s a terrible thing, you’re not interest in the new scene unfolding – or rather not interested in writing. I have to find a way back to the original imaginary story, if I want to continue. That’s one of the things I had to learn during NaNoWriMo last year.

Most of the time, me and the left side of brain are usually on excellent terms, feeding things between us. Living the ideal life, the scary life, the exciting life, the romantic life, and the mysterious life.

The final great thing is I find it wasy to roll into an imaginary story details from research and such.I’m a sponge for information, and I can squeeze me out and spread them over my stories. So if I’ve read something about a theoretical form of space travel, and find myself in need of a mechanism to travel through space, (in my story, if only I could craft the real world as easily as my story ones), I draw through the details, and give my world a touch of realism that sets it shooting for wherever it needs to go.

My imagination is my most treasured asset as a writer, were I to lose that, were I to go in life without that – I honestly would rather be dead.

The man stands there a few moments before finally seeming to get the confidence to raise the microphone to his mouth again, as he megaphone reaches position this time his cheeks take on a bit of velour, and his eyes seem ablaze, he takes a deep meaningful breath, and speaks into the megaphone,

“Right, listen up,” now all eyes are on him, only they’re attentive rather than annoyed, “I demand to know where my inspiration is! I think it’s wholly unfair that you’ve abandoned me right now. I need you, I can’t write without you. Without you these pages are blank, and what words come are empty.
“Inspiration I’ve never needed you so bad, I’ve got all these things to do, and you’ve abandoned me, given up the fight, and now I stand alone against the tide of battle.
“I beg you return to me your charm, your talent. Words are meaningless without you!”

The audience looks rapt, his words have moved them, they feel his desperation, and they ponder borrowing the megaphone.

The man looks down upon his audience, upon their swept up faces, he watches the emotions play across their faces. Then a thought dawns in his mind, a realisation, maybe even epiphany.

What the man realised was this – inspiration is hard to achieve, but it can hit at the strangest moments, and all you can do is find the nearest waiting apparatus and take advantage.

Everyone has different things that inspires them to write, and inspires what to write. For myself these are most often two different events, for others they might be most often the same.

There is also another possibility one without the other, which can either be liberating or frustrating, for example:

• I may have a brilliant idea what to write, but no inspiration (will) to write it – so it all plays out in my head because try as I might I can’t convert it into words. Obviously a form of writers block.
• Something may give me inspiration (the will) to write, but without any inspiration. Here my mind, and the paper is ab empty canvas, and I can just let my thoughts flow freely. Probably doesn’t make for great reading, but it’s fun and liberating for me.

Everybody is different when it comes to inspiration, I know all too well what holds true for me, is complete gibberish to another. In broad strokes, I have probably captured the general forms of inspiration.

In terms of what inspires me to write (gives me the will), it falls down to three categories: the outdoors (nature, weather, scenery, architecture, etc…), other people’s creativity (a book, a film, a piece of music, also biographical information about a creative person, or someone who’s faced adversity in their life), and challenges (nothing gets my creative juices better than a bit of competition).

Sadly these things aren’t guaranteed to get me writing, but most often once I start writing it’s because I was inspired to by one of the above.

In terms of my inspiration what to write, it’s usually something close to hand, something I’ve imagined happening, my emotional state (yes, I can be a bit emo in my poetry), or a need to impress others so I can belong, and validate myself.

I’ve written about many things, from religion to coke cans, from fantasyic tales to mundane moments of life, and from historical events to nature.

Sometimes my indpirations puts me on the path to something specific, sometimes it’s just the starting point, or catalyst for a cascade of ideas.

I will say this, whatever the idea, I do love it when it happens, it’s a veritable joy to let poetry over take me, a joy and love that only falls short of sex.

As I’m getting older, inspiration is getting harder – dry spells last longer, but when the floodgates open, I feel sure the joy is deeper, as I come to appreciate it more.

Still I would live in those moments more if I were able to, giving myself over to the wild abandon of inspiration.

So I feel abandoned when inspiration doesn’t come, and call to it from my megaphone, hoping to attract it back. For me my megaphone is going to beautiful places, reading and listening to music, and entering challenges – hoping beyond hope, inspiration heads my call and answers.

That’s what inspiration is to me.

Charmander - beause everyone should be a Pokémon - or something like that

So Charmander gets in a fight, it’s against a more powerful Pokémon, though his trainer is sure his Pokémon can handle it.

The battle rages, and indeed in a last ditch effort, Charmander gets the win. The crowds go wild, it’s the little pocket monster that could.

Wait, but what’s happening now? Why Charmander is glowing, what’s going on? Suddenly the glowing shape of a small odd looking lizard is replaced with a larger odd looking glowing lizard, and as the glow fades, Charizard is stood there looking thoroughly chuffed with himself. He’s evolved, become a better Pokémon, bigger, stronger, and smarter. Everyone is shocked into a stunned silence. His trainer starts clapping, and soon the auditorium goes nuts.

What’s this got to with anything? Well after a fashion I think writers evolution is similar. Certainly my own is, I get stronger very gradually, but every so often I tackle something big – and win. The gradual improvement, the many small lessons learnt, and the sudden influx of effort and challenges pushes me to a new level.

I’ll admit, it may be a confidence thing – I’m not a biased judge of my own ability, in the absence of Mr Horobin and Mr Barrand (my English teachers in high school), I can only presume to rate myself.

Every piece I write I get a little better, every review and edit nets me a few more lessons to avoid problems in the future, but every major trial tests everything I’ve learned, and gives me so many new lessons.

In terms of talent and experience, I evolve into a whole new monster, with new lessons to learn and embrace. I find the end of a piece of work, or project, the most exciting time, and I need to focus on that when the challenge seems too daunting, or I lose the inspiration (will), I have reasons to carry on.

It’s true of most things in my life, I’m a far better analyst now than I was four years ago, there are periods of gradual improvement, and those moments where I’ve jumped to a whole new level.

Now I’ve turned myself into a fictional firey Japanese lizard, I think the job is done for this post.

P.S. I don’t know Pokémon that well, if I’ve got the evolution wrong, aplogies to the diehard Pokemon fans out there.

I love poetry and writing, and their sibling the song is no different (storytelling is the parent to me), they’re all capable of evoking something within us. Sometimes they evoke the writer within, helping to unlock my core creativity.

I find that what music I’m listening to affects what I’m writing, I noticed this during last year’s NaNoWriMo, I was in one of those places where I was banging out a few hundred words an hour, and actually progressing towards target. When I read back over my words, there was a pattern, I’d had Pachelbel’s Canon in D on repeat, (equally a crap and great piece of music in one – perfect writing music though),  my writing had taken on that structure, from number of words per sentence,  to roughly where the capitals were placed, and as I read it through, you could kind of feel Canon behind it. You have to be careful though, I would imagine if you’re half way through  a 75,000 word novel, and feel of the writing suddenly changes, that’s going to make it seem disjointed.

I am capable of reading one thing and writing another at the same time, however my writing speed is slower, and obviously what I’m writing won’t get the 90% attention it deserves (I’ve tested myself it is impossible for me to give 100% attention to one thing at a time), and bits and pieces of what I’m reading drift into my output, which while probably not plagiarism in the legal sense (it’s often a word or phrase rather than anything more), it still makes me uncomfortable – I am naive enough to believe I can have an original thought. So that rules out reading a story or poetry, which leaves song, and music.

Ideally writing music shouldn’t be screaming for attention, nor should it be so quiet or soft that you strain to hear it, it can’t be fast, but slow is okay, common instruments, but too many exotic sounds are bad.

So in terms of sound, we’re looking mostly for a middle of the road song, ruling out much heavy metal, rock, pop, rap, and jazz. However we still have millions of tracks left.

Next prerequisite lies in the lyrics, it shouldn’t be especially heavy emotionally, but it needs to have some emotion, somber, light comedy, romantic, innuendo, peace, and nostalgic are good emotions and subjects when not overpowering.

There are always some exceptions to this rule, for instance Muse are a perennial favourite, however Muse are balanced by another perennial, Dido. I’m constantly recreating playlists to maximise my writing.

At the moment for instance I’m clearing up my iTunes playlist, it’s both massive and unwieldy. So far I’ve deleted over two days of music that I don’t listen to (including many from my prized collection of House of the Rising Sun covers – which was painful and necessary, I still love that song, but not as much as I used to when I loved that many covers of it). All my songs are now rated two to four stars (anything one star gets the boot. Still, I’ve far to go, I need to ensure all songs are labeled properly, have proper albums listed, and that the genre’s are correct and not random or over specific. Then next, and to my mind most arduous task is to use the comments field to add tags to my music to make it easier faster to search for music for specific reasons. Lastly the fun part creating my playlists, designing them to be distinct, and to match my moods, ensuring a good range of selection, so my music gets a good airing – and to be for activities such as writing. Thus my iTunes list will work for me and empower my creativity. It’s a good plan, but far to go.

What I’m going to do each month is create a new writing playlist of between ten and twenty songs, and post it here with some notes. I’ll be in a constant revision, and reinvention of writing music, but it stops it being samey, which wouldn’t help help my writing.

So here is my first choice for ten, this is for May 2009:

1. All Along the Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix
2. Pruit Igoe & Prophecies – The Philip Glass Ensemble
3. From a Mountain In the Middle of the Cabins – Panic At The Disco
4. Tuesday Afternoon – The Moody Blues
5. Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Greenday
6. Knights of Cydonia(Muse cover)  – Vitamin String Quartet
7. Lake and Fire – Lusk
8. Katie Cruel – Katie Dalton
9. Fear of the Dark (Iron Maiden cover) – Demônios Da Garoa
10. The Heart Asks Pleasure First – Michael Nyman

The list is in no particular order – I’m neither rating nor ranking the music, anything on these lists is automatically ranked as writing music.  You might ask why just ten? Well I mentioned before how the music I’m listening to affects what I write, well having a shorter list, with music that repeats fairly regularly gives a general pattern to my writing. There’s not enough changes to make it seem very random (which would be messy), and not so little that it’s stuck in the same tempo, rhythm, or structure for so long it’s drilling into the readers head, and has them thinking about music instead of my words.

Feel free to comment with your own ideas for the perfect writing music, I’m always on the look out for more.

My own process keeps me sane, keeps me trying, and ultimately makes my work better. That’s what I’m going to explore in this entry.

I’ve found, that in the past spending a few moments considering what my process is has made for better poetry. It prevents me trying to force myself to fit molds that aren’t mine, which so far when I’ve tried has led me down paths of frustration. Having the desire to write a poem, and then destroying the will to write is a terrible thing.

Preface: Before I start exploring, it isn’t fair to say I have one writing process, I have several – the aim of this post is explore my writing process for poetry, I will do another blog entry in regards to writing literature.

So what is my poetry writing process?

The specifics change, depending on the situation, locale, and the style of poetry. However, we’ll proceed as if there aren’t any specific problems to deal with – and come back to those later.

• My first step is usually to find inspiration to write – usually kicked off by something, an event, a song lyric, a joke,or where I am. This isn’t necessarily inspiration what to write – just the inspiration to write. Who can waste a bench along the canal, the sun high in the sky, and just the odd wisp of cloud breaking up a beautiful blue sky?
• After that comes preparation, I need to find what I have on me, in pockets or bag, that I can write with. Most common for me when it comes to poetry is to write on paper. So, if worst comes to worst, I’ll use the back of a piece of paper – as long as it’s blank. Usually though, I have some form of notepad with me (either my trusty spiral bound notepad, one of my desk pads, or my little black book of story ideas). A pen comes in handy, usually I have travel with a couple. At home or work, these things are usually ready to hand.
• At this point, for me comes committal. Having gotten myself into a position to write – the desire must be there, so with pen in hand, I’ll say to myself, “I will write a poem now, no matter what”, I’m committed.
• Once I’m committed then I start sifting through as many random thoughts as I can seeking a subject, a goal, or something of inspiration. I will hoenstly go through dozens upon dozens of ideas, casting off, or embracing several as I go, until finally my pen moves.
• Now comes the first line – the first line for me is most important, generally it sets the theme of the poem. It also is most likely to form the base for any rhyming I do, it’s also the part I consider most important in grabbing a potential reader, I need to get them through the first section.
• Once the first line is written – a series of decisions have to made,
  • Do I have a rhyme?
  • Where does the rhyme reside?
  • How long do I want this poem to be?
  • How many sections or stanzas do I want?
  • What am I evoking?
• From there, I write the first section or stanza, applying the rules. Often, say in the creation of a rhyming poem, I’ll be crossing out words and lines, and replacing them with something that rhymes better, or can have something later rhymed with it.
• From there, using whatever rules I’ve created in the first section, I complete more – always revising to get the best outcome for the rules to fit backwards, and to leave room to write more going forward.
• Once I’ve written the poem to it’s end, it’s time to read it through – at which point I squirm uncomfortably realising that this or that doesn’t really work. Time to start crossing things out, and replacing them with things that do work. This goes on until I’m finally happy what’s on paper is satisfactory.
• Next comes the typing up, this also involves further revisions, because reading it through, and re-typing it lead to different thoughts and feelings on my work.
• Finally, the process is complete, and I can post my poem somewhere, or just send it to a friend see if they like it (or it just sits in one of my books of poetry, and a folder .

So, that’s my poetry writing process in detail, it could be summarised as such (just all those presentations at school and college would do):

• Inspiration
• Preparation
• Commitment
• Subject
• First line
• Decision
• First section
• Completion of draft
• Review
• Revision
• Typing up
• Presentation

If I were really clever, I’d use a thesaurus to turn it into a mnemonic, however it’s not neccesary, this is simply my instinctive way of writing poetry.

Like I said everyone has their own process, and soemtimes we change it for certain reasons – if I’m taking part in a challenge, then chances are I already know the rules I need to follow to layout and finish my poem, if I’ve been pondering a certain poem for a while, say an epic, other steps change.

Also, if I am rhyming, and I want more than simple rhymes, chances are to hand I’ll want a dictionary, a rhyming dictionary, and a thesaurus, if i’m out and about – the review stages take place at home, where I have said books (or websites). Not being a natural rhymer, I couldn’t write rhyme without them – but I do love the occaisional rhyme.

I must admit, my process isn’t all that organised, it seems it when I write it here – but really, I just go from one step to the next, to me at the time it feels instinctive, and impulsive. I’ve tried to use other writing processes, to try and break away from the chaos that I feel as I write – but all that happens is I become frustrated, and lose interest in what I’m writing. That’s how I know how important have the most write, and most natural writing process is. You break it at your own risk – but maybe, if you take that risk – you’ll find a better more natural way for you to write.