Run of the Mill

Geraniums are planted in the roundabout outside Morrisons; charity shops line the Fore Street. local people mooch the market for bargains; they start shopping for Christmas early at Argos. A farmer wearing blue jeans and wellies queues at the cash machine; he struggles to scratch a living farming sheep. St Peter's church bells ring in another goddamn hour of another goddamn day.

© Caroline Nicholson
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Run of the Mill

And did those feet?

Scuttling up and down the looms, tieing threads, missing shuttles and the foreman’s hand.

Long, cruel, deafening days - committed to darkness amid the odd shaft of sunlight revealing fine cotton particles that would clog my lungs and be my death.

All in a days work.

© Liz Redfern

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Run of the Mill

Words fall into my face,

none sparks my interest –

no recognition in the eyes.

death of vigour and fascination. 

The vicar intoning, unaware of his needy

congregation. Gazing at the light

through stained glass,

I see my own imagination.

Words running ceaselessly round the wheel.

Run of the mill, without meaning or energy.

© Valerie Taylor

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Run of the mill

An angle of the kitchen marked off by a brown-grey blur.

A streak ends under the cooker.

An omen of broken-backed death in mouse-traps.

© R. Rushworth

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Run of the Mill

I’ve lived a run of the mill life

Married a run of the mill wife

We have 2.2 children who

Were run of the mill at secondary school

Live in Middle England, modest and blamessly

Quiet nights spent at home, X Factor on TV.

Saving for the summer when we holiday in Spain

Two weeks in Marbella via SqeezyJet plane

Nothing to write home about, unexceptional, polite

Rarely moved to anger: the worst we say is sh___

Haven’t over-eaten – nothing in excess

Only an average burden on the NHS

Nose to the grindstone, I worked hard all my life

Pleased to keep my job during economic strife

Paid into a pension plan almost religiously

Coming to retirement now, find its worth just 50p

Still, no use complaining, that’s the way it’s got to be

Yet sometimes I sit and wonder what on earth became of me.

© Tim Scott

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Writing Fitness - for combating Writer's Block

Hints and tips from JSASCRIBES

1. Read something. One of the most effective things I’ve done when I am faced with the perpetual blank page is read. It doesn’t seem to matter what I read, but a good thirty to ninety minutes of reading something usually gets my mind working in a more creative way.

2. Get some exercise. I don’t know how or why this helps writing, or if it applies to other people at all, but for me, getting some good, strenuous exercise seems to release those mysterious “endorphins” everyone’s always talking about, and gives me the extra push I need.

3. Write something else. Sometimes, I just need to write something totally unrelated to the story I am working on. This is where having a blog comes in handy. I might also write someone a letter, or a long e-mail, or write some new poetry.

4. Reread the story. This one is a tricky one and it wouldn’t be at the top of my list of things to do, but a lot of times, rereading the story I  am working on inspires me to go on with it. There have been times though, that the effect has given the opposite effect.

5. Pry, spy, and lie. As a natural-born busybody, this one is probably my favorite. I take a pen and paper and go somewhere and find someone (or several people) who strike my interest for some reason or another. I give them new names, new jobs, a brand new past, and if I am cranky, a life-threatening illness. I cast them into a make-believe present situation, usually something very critical and/or scandalous, and ponder the different ways they might handle it.

6. Try something new. As simple as it sounds, there’s something to be said for doing something you’ve never done before, tasting something you’ve never tasted, going somewhere you’ve never been, or talking to someone you’ve never met.

7. Get involved in your local writing community. Wherever you might live, chances are good that you share your space with a few or a few hundred like-minded folks who are part of a local writing community. Getting involved means meeting other people who have fresh ideas. It means submerging yourself in the world of writing and bringing it to the forefront of your mind. It means learning new skills, meeting with new opportunities, and finding new inspiration.

8. Join, or start, a critique group. When you’re part of a critique group, it’s hard to not write. You have a sense of expectation from yourself, and the other members are depending on you to keep the group going.

9. Assign the time. By assigning yourself a certain time of day to write for a specific duration, you are training yourself to respond accordingly. If you know you have to sit down and write Monday though Friday from 6:30 pm to 7:00 pm, it’s just a matter of time before your mind starts to accept its duties. If you don’t know what to write for that half hour, start out by writing about not knowing what to write.

10. Interview the characters. Another one of my favorites, interviewing my characters almost always leads to some kind of revelation about the character or the story he or she is in, and makes me eager to write it all out. To interview the characters, I sit down at the computer and write out a kind of questions and answers game. This exercise is both fun and effective.

To Prologue or Not To Prologue?

To Prologue or Not To Prologue? « jsascribes: "The prologue is that first page (or few pages) at the opening of a story which gives readers background information, establishes character and setting, and/or gives readers a quick glimpse into the central conflict of the story, sometimes in an attempt to grasp the reader’s attention enough to motivate further reading. There does not seem to be any real rules about what a prologue may or may not contain, or whether or not a prologue should be used at all, therefore, whether or not a book should or should not open with a prologue is a subjective topic. While I’ve known people who feel that prologues are no more than a lazy way to introduce information, I’ve also known people who will only read a book if it has a good prologue; so there really is no right or wrong answer."

Circular thing. Wotsit.

Circular thing. Wotsit. « A Dark Feathered Art: "The item to which I am referring is that best-of-all-possible gifts, especially for a struggling writer (is there any other kind?) – the Round Tewit. (Repeat it slowly, syllable by syllable, until you get it. Return when you’ve finished groaning.)"

In The Beginning…

n The Beginning… « jsascribes: "Regardless of how I choose to begin each story, I have to keep in mind that the first sentence needs to pack a little punch, and that it doesn’t get any easier from there. In my experience, an interested agent will ask to see five to thirty pages of a person’s work in order to determine whether or not a submission is a worthy investment of their time."

106 words on people dying, was it ?

In 1997 a Greek Jewish boxer named Ishmael died. A film about his life was made by Robert Young. I knew him as Bob’ when we shared a flat in South Kensington He went on to make films about the rainforest, and I went on to engineering jobs of staggering mediocrity. Incidentally if anyone meets Bob, you might tell him that Joe Strick died in Paris recently I don’t know if they took him back to New York or even Tel Aviv. but I heard from Sheilagh that they mentioned Betty’s script work in his obituary in the New York Times. Decent that.

© William Botley September 2011
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