Sights and Sounds

This is a short piece I wrote last week in one sitting whilst waiting for a meeting time to arrive. If I recall correctly it was written as a quick observation practice but other than that, no specific reason. I'll probably refer back to it in the future as a reference to a new piece.

In the meantime, here it is, pretty much exactly as it was written by hand.

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It sounded like a low hum. A grumble. There were no in-between silences or sweet sounds, just a grumble. If you wanted a quiet holiday this wasn’t the ideal location.

Around me people spoke on their ‘phones and walked within their own shells. These were important people in their own rights. They had places to go, people to see. However, every one of these important people was just an ant in a huge society of workers.

On the outskirts of the hum was the rattling of machinery destroying concrete and the odd expensive car going past, releasing poisonous gases into the air. Trees lined the streets and occupied the communal parks. Birds spoke to each other, but I could still hear the destruction of concrete and the construction of buildings.

The sounds were comforting. I knew I belonged here. I was in my new home. I was in the metropolis, the city, London.

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The "ants" description came from the naturistic notion of there being hundreds of ants in a nest, walking around, working.

Assignment H

As a side note, I still haven't done assignment G as it was one I've found a little tricky. I'll do it next week when I'm back on campus and able to get back to work properly (I'm having one of those break things back in Chelmsford right now which means doing no work and just lazing around. Standard me.

Assignment H, however, I did do in which we had to take a memorable or significant event in our lives and write yet another poem about it. We then had to reverse the poem and see which sounded better. Sorted. (For the record, I thought the second one sounded better). This was done in two parts, the second I'll describe below.

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Travelling down the wavey slide
Picking up speed
Downward path ahead of me
No other way to go
Approaching the wave
Ready to somersault forwards
Flying through the air
Ground approaching fast
Summer green grass ready to take my fall
Landing on hard, dry ground
A guaranteed injury
The result of skating down a slide
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The result of skating down a slide
A guaranteed injury
Landing on hard, dry ground
Summer green grass ready to take my fall
Ground approaching fast
Flying through the air
Ready to somersault forwards
Approaching the wave
No other way to go
Downward path ahead of me
Picking up speed
Travelling down the wavey slide

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For part 2 we had to take one of the memorable lines and write a short piece about it. The following was my written piece:

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The event of which I wrote about happened in the summer of 2004/5 which of course, meant summer green grass would be around. Me and my cousin had been going down a ‘wavey’ slide on a skateboard but just sitting down. I, however, thought it would be clever to step up a notch and go down the slide on the skateboard standing up. Possibly one of the worst ideas ever.
I prepared myself at the top of the slide by balancing one foot on the tail and my other on the tongue which was in the air. After a count of three I pushed my front foot down and began travelling down the slide.
All was fine for around a second and a half and then it all went wrong. I was launched into the air where I managed to somersault and land full body-weight onto my elbow. The second I hit, a huge pain shot up my arm which turned into a warm tingle which refused to budge.
An hour later, my elbow was the size of a cricket ball and impossible to move. A visit to the hospital was in order. It wasn’t broken but the bone was cracked.
That elbow still likes to crack (in the knuckle way) at random occasions.


The worst ideas create the best memories. (Copyright to me!)

Assignment E (and more)

This post is going to be on more than just this weeks assignment. There's a little bit of news on the writing job front also which I'll get to at the end of this post. Firstly though, I suppose I should post the assignment, yeah?

This week we had to look at some observation notes we took whilst sat outside during the workshop and turn them into a story written in a 2nd person point of view ('You' as as opposed to 'I' or 'They')

I quite enjoyed this assignment as it gave me a new voice to work with and something which I've not done before as I've always written in either first or third person perspective out of habit and comfortableness.

Anyway, here it is, a little story I call 'Blue Monday' (the skies were perfectly blue and it was a Monday, geddit? Clever, huh?)

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You’re sitting there on the small stone step, staring at the water rippling quietly with the blue sky reflecting off of its surface and the sun reflecting its beams through the air. You can feel the heat of the sun on your cheek but the soft breeze is keeping you cool. You can’t help but think that it’s an absolutely beautiful day and that spring has almost arrived. Looking beyond the water you can see that the horizon is a soft yellow haze. Somewhat mesmerising.

30 yards to your right is a small group of students trying to fly a kite but are failing miserably. You want to join them but can’t as you have to wait for someone and you can’t afford to miss this meeting, especially after what happened last time you disappeared before meeting a friend.

There’s a bird beside you. A pigeon. And you can’t help but stare at the thing with its head bobbing back and forth as it walks and its little trick of hopping onto the ledge, turning round and hopping back down again with bird-like skills. Shouldn’t he be in Trafalgar Square though?

You’re checking your mobile for the third time in - according to the clock - the third time in 15 minutes, wondering where he is when you glance up and see your friend walking towards you with a big grin on his face. Sitting down beside you he’s asking you “So, have you got the gear?” in a quiet voice following it with a chuckle.

“Yeah,” you’re saying whilst reaching into your bag and producing a plastic bag. You’re handing it to him gently so as not to drop it.

He’s looking and reaching his hand in, muttering the word “Perfect” and after a few seconds he’s pulled out a chilled bottle of real Coca Cola. Just what he asked for.

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Moving onto the news of the writing job, the story goes somewhat like this:

I'd been corresponding with someone over email for a few days just arranging and making some sort of deal about what I'd be writing etc. Standard stuff and a meeting was arranged for today.

Went to the meeting/interview (which went really well) and met the man I'd be writing for. We. discussed details (what he wants written, where it'll be, future ideas etc) and came to a deal that I'll get back to the flat and using the notes I'd taken during the meeting, write out a short biography and details of the (personal training) services he offered.

Now that's all written out and emailed I'm just waiting for a reply and going to arrange a price which I've got a rough idea of. Got to decide whether to do it by work count of set price. Think I'll go with the former as it's probably easier to work with.

There'll also be some future meetings on something like a fortnightly basis just to discuss everything and see what needs to be done.

So, after whit loads of emails to various 'employers' I've landed a decent gig which should remain on-going for however long it goes. And I'll finally have some money for a nice load of fatty junk food and some clementines.

That'll be all for now. More info and assignments to come next week.

A new music/creative idea

So there I was, lying in bed unable to sleep when an idea came along: Take my previous poetic assignment and turn it into a song/tune. I haven't made any music for quite some time as I've just not been feeling inspired/had the time etc so it's time to do something special. I don't know how long this'll take but I've got the main ideas in my head, it's just recording everything and making it sound 'right'.

I'll probably document it as it happens on here so keep an eye out or something.

That'll be all.

Assignment B pt. 3

The third instalment of assignment B which was meant to be a fictional treatment of a significant day in my life. I'm not too impressed with this but I'm sure it'll do.

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Pete hopped onto the hospital bed before the nurse pushed her foot down onto the wheel lock and began wheeling the bed, with it’s wheels rattling dangerously, down the cold hospital corridor towards the operating theatre with his parents beside the bed, trying to keep up to speed.

When asked if the operation could be filmed, the nurse simply replied with “We’ll see what we can do” with which his mum followed with “Be quiet and calm down”.
Although nervous, Pete managed to keep calm as he was pushed out of the lift and towards the generic two-way doors which you see on films and drama shows. Through the doors, Pete and his parents were in a small square room which would lead into the operating theatre.

“Are you ready for this?”, his dad asked calmly. “Yep”, Pete replied before the nurse announced the cliché of “You’re just going to feel a small scratch,” before injecting the anaesthetic. “Now count down from 10”.

At 5, Pete fell asleep, ready to be operated on.

4 hours later, Pete’s eyes flickered open and he tried to sit up, forgetting that he was attached to a machine.

After lying in bed for 20 minutes, studying his surroundings, Pete’s mum walked in and smiled, happy to see he was awake (and alive). “How do you feel?” she asked. “Sore.”

“Well just relax and we’ll wait for the nurse to come in.”

Upon saying that, the nurse made an appearance to check how everything was and it was time for Pete to spend a week attached to a machine.

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Hopefully the sentence structure is okay. If it's not, that's the fault of my word processor.

1st writing of semester B

And so it has begun. Semester B, a time for us to fall asleep in lecture halls, listen to lecturers ramble on and do the odd piece of work. Having finished one piece already, I get a strange feeling that this semester may be a little harder than last sem. but, by the words of Daft Punk: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.

I've now finished my project about Sony Erriccson's Xperia Play mobile which got me a little food money but nothing huge. Oh well, the owner of the site I found the ad on made me a featured writer.

I'm also about to begin writing for another publication which apparently sends out it's work to hundreds of other publications. Is this a potential for more work? Who knows.

Now that I've written a fair amount, I'm going to stick a blog up with links to every piece (those which are still not yet online I'll post up with words.

Annnnnnnyway, moving on, here is my first piece for the semester in which we had to write about how we get into our emotions as a writer, what is the strongest of our senses and the earliest smell we can recall.

Enjoy!

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To tap into my emotions as a writer I try to think of past events such as a family member suffering from alchoholism for two years which almost caused my family to break apart.

On another occasion I may be angry at something, and using this feeling I’ll put it onto paper in the form of a diary entry or scribble in a notepad and look at it at a later date and use the words to write something.

Another way to get into my emotions is with music. Being an eclectic listener, I’m happy to listen to almost any genre which suits my mood (currently some Saxon and Gary Moore*). Many songs which were released in the 90s and early 00s (Most notably, Daft Punk‘s ‘One More Time‘) will bring out a feeling of euphoria.

Like many people claim, my strongest sense is probably smell. I can usually remember if something smelt like a piece of fruit or how a certain area had it’s own smell. I can only remember someone’s voice or accent if it is very distinct or sounds like another person’s voice. However, most of the time I don’t take too much notice of a voice.

The earliest smell I can recall is that of rotten eggs. Not the best of smells but one that’ll undoubtedly stick in my mind for a long time due to it‘s strength and how many times it happens.

The smell came at the same time of year, every year, without fail. It would be a hot summer’s day (does anyone remember what that felt like?) a week or so before the summer holidays would kick in and all the 16 year olds would be leaving so, of course, they used this to their advantage. The following became something which we knew would happen but we didn’t know when.

So what was this advantage? It was that of being able to crack open a month-old egg and causing the whole block to smell of said rotten eggs without the risk of being expelled from the school for a length of time.

It would always be on a hot day when a group of us would be sat on the wall, eating what we once thought constituted lunch when, after a while of eating a smell would begin to emerge from one of the blocks. The smell would continuously get worse until it came to the point that we were running in the opposite direction, trying to get away from it. If you’d like to know what we had to suffer with, take a walk past the flats being built of Gallion’s Reach retail park. You’ll then be able to feel how we felt on those once-existent hot, summer days.

*Guitarist of Irish band Skid Row (not the 80s thrash band), Thin Lizzy and solo work who was recently found dead. May a legend R.I.P.

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To criticise my own work, I'm going to say I'm not too impressed with it (however, it is better than a piece I had to write about pensions whilst incredibly drunk) but I am happy with it and using this as my finalised piece.

Just for a treat here is some Gary Moore followed by Skid Row: