#working with words

[debdarkpetal]

Full Video:

MASTER CAST – Episode 6: Working with Words

Simon Stephens is joined by BAFTA award-winning actor Andrew Scott (Fleabag, Sherlock, Present Laughter, Sea Wall and Hamlet). In this eng

[jazzbeagle]

he doesn’t KNOW

[randomwordbyruth]

Random Wordsmith

It rambles. It rolls. It changes from a pedigree to a troll. Never is it about a walk in the woods on a cloudy day. Never is it lessons from leaving a cake out in the rain. Creations in the mind…often weary. Word pies for the leery. Leaving the creator with no true sense of destiny. The rations for the irrational…never a luxury. I assume there are worse things than rolling words up hill and…

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[mulberryroad]

What’s the book that’s had the most significant impact on your life or work – and why? So many, but if I have to pick one, it’s Leonard Cohen’s Poems 1956-1968 (the one with the ear on the cover). I recently found a very old, very creased page torn from a school exercise book, into which I’d copied ‘Lovers’, ‘Suzanne Takes You Down’, ‘Gift’ and ‘A Kite Is a Victim’ in careful, terrible handwriting. I must have been about 14. I’d borrowed the collection from the local library and was so reluctant to give it back, because it was as though those poems had cracked a window on a world I might actually fit into, one that was far removed from the acute suburban loneliness I felt at the time. I remember hearing Nick Cave speak of Cohen in the same way, about first listening to Songs of Love and Hate in Wangaratta—that in some way the discovery of that album separated him from everybody and everything that he hated about Wangaratta. Swap ‘Wangaratta’ for ‘Ferntree Gully’, and those were my feelings exactly. I suppose Cohen has been that for a lot of people.

Josephine Rowe will be one of the writers performing in our 2013 Gala, Where the Wild Things Are. She spoke to us about never escaping her first published poem, her fear of public speaking, and why she's surprised to hear that she 'writes like a man'. - The Wheeler Centre: Books, Writing, Ideas

[audiejinks]

Okay, I'm not even half-way done with this yet--the finished version won't be up before 8 pm sadly--but I'd really like to know how it reads so far. If it's engaging or confusing or boring or anything else. 

Please followers, I need feedback on this or my confidence is going to crash and burn and then I might cry. Seriously. 

Untitled

There is a gap that stretches between worlds.

Between the spirits and the living. 

The gap broadens and narrows with the click of passing seconds and the whisper of words, each element of existence meaning equal parts more and less to those on either side of the chasm. Windows of gossamer line the sides. For the living the windows serve as signals to the living that not all is well. They manifest as stabs of intuition and the restless desire to crack challenge the laws of the universe, to break through the division of worlds. They are the urge to jump from ledges and roofs, the taste of copper and bile and panic, the curiosity that sends men exploring space and time and youth.

For the spirits, the windows are reminders of mistakes made and temptations answered. They are the scrambled emotions before a leap, the sour-sweet taint of disease and heartache, the claim to a humanity branded with naivety, pride, and abandon. They are the screams of lingering souls and the chiming of a clock that never stops. Behind the glass on both sets of windows, wishes are made.

There are moments when the windows become doors.

In the gap there is a carousel.

Garnish lights trickle through the nothing of the gap. A machine with blinking warmth of red and yellow, with horses and sleds of cold metal, solidifies between the windows. It is built out of longing, out of darkness, out of terror within laughter and sorrow painted smiles. Standing in its center is a man with a white lace top hat and a bamboo cane. He grins when the humans make their wishes and tempt the cosmos, turning the windows into doors and lighting his machine with the taste of greed.

Children approach the carousel in groups of five or seven or ten, the number fluctuating with the strength of wavering imaginations. They reach the amusement ride as a cluster of noise. The man with the white lace top hat glides from his orange galloping steed. His voice raises gooseflesh “Welcome all! Welcome, welcome. Pick a horse, free of charge; pick a sled, fifty cents. Welcome.”

Hesitation before climbing aboard, though none of the children save one pays it heed.

A girl, she shines brighter than the rest. A flash of heat that burns away the chill of the carousel’s light. 

Any feedback is helpful. 

[elmolikesthings]

Poverty is a great impediment to doing the work you want to do

... and other pieces of unsolicited advice about writing, at the Wheeler Centre.