Blogs

‘Writing makes me feel I was really living.’ There’s irony in when Erwin James writes that he’s a Category-A prisoner and banged up for killing two people. He doesn’t dwell on that. No excuses of how it was a robbery that went wrong –twice- and turned a thief and his mates into murderers. I’m not usually criminal, although sense of humour border on it, but I also write to make sense of the world and there is a lot of Ewin James I recognise in...

I read his auto-biography, The Greatest. Towards the ending of his book, Ali invited anyone who had read the book that far to come and visit him at his training camp where they would be welcome. He even gave simple directions. Go to Deer Lake. Go to the gas station in the middle of town. Turn left at the gas station. Come up the mountain road. Watch for the boulders along the side of the road. The boulders have names of past champions painted on...

Today Maria Sharapova, the winner of five grand-slam tennis tournaments, received a two -year ban for failing a drugs test. It’s an old story, from hero to villain quicker than Honk Kong Phooey could do a karate chop. And he really was a super guy. What do I know about cycling? Not a lot. If I cycle along the cycle path to Clydebank, which is about a mile, I expect people to stand aside and applaud as I pass and to hold out bottles of water (or...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03j49l6/storyville-20132014-12-blackfish-the-whale-that-killed We all know the story of Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick . Man versus whale and neither wins. Score draw on the coupon. I’ve started the books a few times and never got beyond the first pages. Wooden ships used to go away for a year or more and come back loaded down with whale blubber and oil. Prototype factory ships. Boiled down whale oil...

There was such a range of gorgeous surreal poetry in May! Elements of surprise were carefully weaved in to your slant and unexpected creations. Here’s a trio that shone: Three Shakespearian witches (or was it siblings?) A fiery, spitting paced piece: http://www.abctales.com/story/linda-wigzell-cress/blasted-heath-poetry-monthly A surreal wander through a dreamscape: http://www.abctales.com/story/pat-g/imperative-poetry-monthly The footprints of...

Congratulations this week to Lavadis for 'Cannibal' and blighters rock for 'Result!' - two fabulous pieces. I hope you both come back and post more soon. http://www.abctales.com/story/lavadis/cannibal http://www.abctales.com/story/blighters-rock/result This week's Inspiration Point is to write something around the theme of 'letters to myself'. Good luck!

So I’ve taken today to rewrite those pesky chapters that have been crowding my mind with alternate pathways. I knew the first three or four were solid but then the murky waters began. So many…too many ways to turn the tides so to speak and I know there will only be one that will feel right… but getting there can be a major trial and error. I always see both sides to stories, arguments, questions. Maybe that is the curse of a writer, seeing all...

Our Picks of the Month for May have been chosen by blackjack-davey (who's also got a very good idea for a competition in the near future!). Here they are: Honourable mentions this month go to Yvonne Anderson’s It was Our Home where we experience the writer’s displacement and dawning recognition that the traffic and bustle and soup kitchen serving the homeless is where she now lives and by extension this is who she is... the Edwardian villa has...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b075f78j/tim-rhysevans-all-in-the-mind?suggid=b075f78j I must admit I hadn’t a scooby who Tim Rhys-Evans is. I find out here he’s the auteur of a male voice choir, Only Men Aloud, which won a competition called Last Choir Standing, which led to sell out concerts and record gigs and an MBE from the Queen. None of these things interest me. What interests me is Rhys-Evans’s admission that he’s got a mental...

Norway is one of the richest places in the world. Its citizens are well catered for. Hence Karl Ove can bounce from the Writer’s Academy, where he gets a bit of paper, a certificate, saying he’s a writer, to work in a radio station when he’s called up and claims he can’t serve because he’s a conscientious objector, to another course studying Fine Art. That takes him from around aged 19 until he’s 26. By the time this instalment is finished he’s...