Again it begins!(dragged back to the classroom)

I spent a cozy afternoon of coffee and conversation with a good friend yesterday.  Outside the freeze had started early while inside we stretched out beside a blistering hot radiator and relaxed to compare notes on the way things are in our respective worlds. We chatted and talked about the possibilities open to each of us. We discuss the fact that as the years pass the road of choice doesn’t close-in in the way it might have for our Fathers at this age. 

We agreed that, there are options these days, things could be done to maintain and bolster any aspiration no matter how diverse.  We concluded we that our respective dreams were still thriving in our minds and still worth pursuing at least.  My friend being a writer, talked freely about his choice of expression.  He shared with me the gritty drive and energy that’s needed to work in such a tough profession. My eyes grew wide as he spoke. I could feel that niggley uneasiness come over me as he talked about writing and re-writing and the hours he spent pouring over his efforts to polish his words to a smooth flowing work of art.  He spoke with courage about the tasks he would gladly embark on as he learned his craft.  As he spoke his words caused every brain cell I possess to fire off wild signals causing a twitchy anticipation within me. My mind was over run by the sound of a clacking keyboard.  In my mind’s eye at least, a longing dribble ran down my chin coupled with the same gagging look you would expect to have on seeing you favorite food after a long spell of hunger. 

So much so that by the time he was leaving I was once again fully griped in the jaws of the writing bug.  It sprang over the table at me. Plums book dust went everywhere as it bit hard into my static mind causing my brain to hemorrhage idea after idea without a chance to even think about putting pen to paper.  It bit deeper still, it’s feet made of the “how to write” books I own,  its skeleton a mesh of pens and pencils that I hide under the stairs. Its body was the large amounts of scrunched up paper half scribbled on and all faded and discoloured from the neglect I’d shown them over the years. My imagination went into over drive. The bugs mouth was the sagging shelf above my desk and it’s teeth were every book I’d acquired and never finished. It ran at me with legs made from the many night-lights I’d gathered up to begin writing by so many times.  It tackled me for the umpteenth time in my life with a glare of disapproval. The thought scorched my mind with a fiery spear that emanated from a zero point within me made from the words ”at least try!” This time the words held closed all thoughts of laziness or of waiting for the right time to occur.  All the while on the other side of the table the thrill of  what it’s like to immerse yourself in writing dripped off every word my friend spoke as he prepared to head out into the November frost.

I’ve come to realise that no matter where I go in the world no matter how I try to ignore it I’m going to have this gnawing feeling that the world of writing is waiting for me to dive in.  So in an effort to resolve this one way or the other. I’ve decided to come here to this blog at lease once a day to write something about myself or my view on the world. To experience writing and all its facets first hand.  To find out what’s involved and to try to embrace the discipline that’s needed, if only for a while.  To bring about a result either claim another part of myself that has been dormant, or rid myself forever of this incessant nuisance that crops up in everything I do.

In the past 30 years or so I’ve been around books and words in one form or another. For many of those years I was unaware of their importance or their power.  Books were for those who were unfortunate enough to “need” to follow the path of the academic.  A path that was cleverly avoided by myself as I’m sure the quality of the writing will give away. But if I could go back to that point where I decided that “study” wasn’t the road for me. If I could be of this conciousness I’d run very fast the other way towards the study and lessons and all the things I thought the rest of the world had trapped themselves into without their knowledge. 

After spending time listening to those who have read and gone through the work years ahead of me. I’ve arrived back at the very door I squirmed past years before as an untamed youth. The result of not doing it before now is not bad, but it carries the burden of an invisible magnetism pulling at my attention constantly as the years pass.  Obvious examples of this latent want are all around my office space in the form of the writing paraphernalia I’ve collected over the years.  The fact that I have an office space should have been enough of a give away but no it took longer. I’ve lots of efforts at writing strewn about the house over the years.  On days out I’ve picked up books of quotations, punctuation, plays, poems, Behan, Ibsen, Salinger, These are just three authers that I can put my hand on right now, and many other books on writing.  I feel this has been my distraction or at best an attempt to avoid the true course of my direction.  I hope this blog will at least start to weed out some of the reasons for the fascination.

Please check back again.

Thanks for reading.

Hard times! (come again ONCE more)

It’s become more real to me this evening just how much the recession has bitten into the physic Irish lifestyle.  The ability if not the want,of the average guy or girl in Ireland, to go out for the night has dropped away considerably in my opinion. 

Only a few short months ago bars and clubs were over run by young whippersnapper types over doing  everything living life in the fast lane, a lane that many came to expect would be there forever.  Take a look at the situation today winter is setting in and so the reality of the wild years we’ve enjoyed up to now.  I call them wild years because I’m old enough to have seen another time in this country when the kind of lifestyle we’ve come to except as normal today was something that we couldn’t hope to include in our wildest dreams back in the eighties for instance.  

It’s late so I’m not going to get into how or whys of the situation we the Irish people find ourselves in, we’re in it and it’s going to be some time before we’re out of it again.  I wonder though how much change will happen to all of us before we get to a better place.

I’ll expand this subject after much needed sleep.

At last I got back!

Well at last I got back to this blog I’d started a long time ago. I started it to begin writing again but, as always happens I didn’t go back the next day to write so I let it slide. I often feel that writing is not for me but I keep getting pulled back to it for some reason.

I’ve reasoned with myself long enough and talked myself into and out of doing these things for years so I’m going to blog each day, or night, about anything I can think of, free writing I think it’s called.

I’ll count this as a starting effort, so till tomorrow.

“It was the fear that did it”

Hi, welcome to my blog.

This is my first experiment with blogging in an attempt to overcome my fear of writing. In making a decision to write I feel it’s useful to publish my work to keep the momentum going. Feel free to comment about what is presented here or in any of the blogs I’ll write in the future. This first blog won’t have all the links and other fol-de–rol that makes a blog a blog, but it’s a start. As an enthusiastic beginner lacking a meaty subject, I’m going to write a bit about the reason for writing.

I have come to the conclusion; I arrived at, dragged myself kicking and screaming to this conclusion that I’m afraid to write a word. Even now I shudder at the thought of having to throw myself into the work, a trait needed to get anywhere with writing. In the past I’ve had a short story published in a popular woman’s magazine and made it to the final of one or two short story competitions a long time ago. The sound of words coming from someone’s mouth causes a reaction in me. It’s a warm sensation that I also get when I read certain newspapers. It’s not the subject, it’s the words. Each time I sit to write I get that un-nerving feeling, the nauseous unsettled feeling that usually accompanies a visit to the dentist or awaiting an exam result. There’s the under-lying feeling of dread that surfaces when I threaten my brain with the task of putting words on paper, or text in a box as is the case just now.

This response to writing or the creative process if you like, could well be brought on by the fact that I’m not used to the territory of the writing world. It could be put down to laziness on my part. It could well be and – hold on, there’s that feeling again; Aaaaaah yes! It’s true I’m afraid to write! I’m afraid to put my two cents forward for fear that it will be ridiculed or proven wrong, admonished by someone greater than my humble self. There, I’ve said it, it’s out, and I feel lighter now. Perhaps now that you know what I’m afraid of you probably didn’t even care in the first place. Let’s wait and see.

I’ve never been one to push my opinions forward in the world. In fact I’ve been warned away from that edge entirely, so my need to express that graw, that turns my head when I see it in someone else, tells me that there is much to learn about myself and others in the discovery that writing brings.

In a previous life, when the world (as I saw it) had long hair and a beer gut, and reality revolved around me, things were easier. The basic instinctive tools worked. Talking was used only to find out where your crowd were or informing a barmen of what the round was, a sentence like “Eh snack box with a breast please” got you everything you desired. All the failings and inefficiencies that needed tailoring at that time, grew like a wild head of hair in any direction and remained untouched, to be righted on another occasion in the distant future. Any foolishness that accured was every ones foolishness and would dissolve in the dogma of the next evenings post mortem, washed down with pints; only surfacing again at the end of that evening, breaking its own mould once more as another exhausting evening of drinking drew to a close.

I/we were all too busy with squeezing the life out of the world, showing the world and everyone in it what we could do; ringing the days and nights dry of every ounce of fun that an eighteen year old could. I missed the last recession in the eighties because I was at a party all that time!

Well, the time has come, and indeed slipped by a little, for mending. Time to pay the piper for the hours of music he played to my dancing. Now more than ever, the pace of the work has to be picked up. It’s time to set the record straight for myself, time to step up to the mark, to stand up and be counted. So here I am starting to make sense of the last twenty years, and build something for the next twenty years (hopefully) of my life.

On reflection the past has been good to me; I got off lightly on responsibility, learned a few hard lessons, and learned a few easy lessons the hard way. I still believe I’ve come out on top though. I have a wealth of stories and experiences from those wilderness years, but the stories and anecdotes are slow to leave my pen. And when they do they stammer, jumbled and spelled incorrectly onto the yellowing pages of note paper I bought with the previous intensions of being a writer. There’s definitely a trade off between me and my ability to do this job, but I’ll continue to chip away at it and who knows, maybe someday I’ll reach the first step towards the journey into the magical world of writing.