I’m not sure if this is the same for all writers, but I have to really feel what I write. I suppose it probably is the same for all the best writing, otherwise fiction is just churned out soullessly. That’s kind of how I felt reading Truman Capote’s The Grass Harp. It’s well-written, no doubt, but I didn’t really get any feeling from it, like he didn’t feel anything when he wrote it. If I don’t feel anything when I write, my writing becomes lifeless, and lately I haven’t been feeling anything.

You might recall the work I posted recently, An Unfamiliar Girl (extract from my current work). That seems to have halted production at around the twelve-thousand-word mark, and I still feel I’ve barely begun it. I’m quite sure there’s enough material in it for a novel, but it’s just writing the novel that’s the tricky part. And this one seems to have become tricky because it is based so much on feelings, rather than plot.

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I have been terrible at updating this site, and in being creatively generally, not only since the start of this year, this new decade, but a little while before. I’m not sure I believe in writer’s block exactly, it sounds like an excuse, but I’ve certainly had a dearth of creative output. Well, I’ve been writing my dissertation, but that’s only been here and there. No, I just haven’t been inspired for a while, and I’ve been busy, well, busyish. What have I been doing? I’m currently addicted to two games for a start: Forza Motorsport 3 and Dragon Age: Origins. The first is, as the name implies, a car game. I’m not even that into cars, a few months ago I couldn’t tell an R8 from a Veyron, a Dino from a Testarossa, but somehow I’ve been addicting to driving around in virtual sports cars, and it’s time-consuming. The second of those games is an epic fantasy game of the really geeky sort, with elves and dwarves and mages and such. I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of that sort of thing, though I like the Lord of the Rings movies, but it’s such a well-made game that can’t help but love it. Girlfriends take up time too, but I can hardly complain about that.

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I really like Christmas, or Annual Family Gift Day as I atheistically and frequently refer to it. A lot of people don’t, my mother included, which always surprises me, but I really do. This year I think I’ve spent already more than I have ever before, and I’ve still got a few people to buy for. It gives me a vague pain, being someone who’s usually so careful (stingy) with money, but then it makes me feel good. I’m almost certain everyone will really like their gifts, and I can justify the expense to myself not only with that, but that I might get a taste of such and such, or ‘try out’ this game to make sure it’s good enough, or watch this film with the giftee etc. I’m looking forward to wrapping them too. I bought some ribbon today, so they’re all going to look good.

But yes, I am being uncharacteristically frivolous for this one time of year: I spent £60 today alone, without really meaning too. That was more selfish though: I’ve essentially bought two of my presents, both because they were on special offer, and so cheaper than my parents would have found them for (both videogames too of course). Now I find out that this one game I asked for, and bought today after failing to contact my father because the deal was amazing and ended today, has already been purchased for me. Usually my father doesn’t get around to Christmas shopping until at least the 15th, sometimes the 20th or later. Who’d have thought he’d get his act together this year? Still, I’m sure it can be easily sorted. What I’m more worried about is lugging all these gifts home, since I’ve elected to go on a train rather than get picked up a day later.

Aside from being uncharacteristically frivolous, I’ve also been uncharacteristically happy of late. (more…)

A week ago I was pretty definitely doing the creative writing MA at the University of East Anglia. Now I’m not so sure. It seemed logical: finish my BA in writing, don’t get a job; go part-time for two years on an MA course, use that time to write a novel and then hopefully get it published when I leave. But how old am I? Twenty. And how good a writer am I? I don’t know. Unpublished, still, but I’ve never sent anything off anywhere, never known where to send something to, and never have anything I want to send off. My course leader said a while ago that I was the best prose writer the course had had in ‘at least a couple of years’, but he seemed less confident in my ability to get onto UEA’s MA than I was. Big fish in a small pond? Maybe.

Besides, he suggested it’s usually better to take a break between BA and MA. But what to do in a break? I don’t want to work in a shop, I’m especially sure of that after the over-time I did in a co-op shop I’d never been in before. I want a job that either makes use of whatever writing ability I have, or one at least that I have to do some training for. Something semi- rather than un-skilled. I have no idea what, however. That’s why I’m going to see our uni’s careers adviser next Tuesday, a man I’d never considered seeing until he came to give us a brief seminar last week. He suggested that one shouldn’t do an MA just because one can’t think of anything else to do.
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I suppose this is a sequel to my October post.

I got back from Nottingham today, after chilling out and eating my family’s food for a few days. Been cooking with pumpkins a lot lately: Me and my friend Chloe made two pumpkin pies on Saturday, though weren’t sure if we’d done it right or not, since neither of us had ever tasted pumpkin pie before. They were pretty good though, in my opinion.

Today, I used another quarter of the big pumpkin we used for the pie to make soup. Again, I’ve never made soup before, and didn’t have any recipe, so I thought it worked surprisingly well with my combination of onion, pumpkin, and mooli. I’d post pictures if I’d taken any.

I guess that’s not really a lot, nor is it that interesting, but I am becoming a fan of pumpkins.
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As usual I’m getting sloppy with updates again, but then, since my second-to-last post (my last one being something of a cop-out anyway), I’ve started uni again, and apparently this year they actually expect us to do work. A little at least. It’s not too bad: I’m doing a 50% dissertation, which means that 50% of my final degree comes for a 10,000 word essay I have until April to complete, and the other half comes from an 8,000 word prose project, of which I’ve already written the first 4,000 words of the first draft (more on that in a minute).

I’d be lying if I said I’d been devoting myself entirely to uni work and that’s the reason I haven’t updated, at least partially. Other primary influences are, to a small extent my job, which remains amazing, because a) there’s very few customers, and, unless they ask for wine recommendations, are generally low maintenance and b) I work with some pretty cool people who I have both opportunity and inclination to converse with at length.

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A few months ago, while walking home from Sainsbury’s, I passed a wall upon which was a tray of basil seedlings in little pots, with a note saying to help oneself. Never one to pass up anything free, I took one and put it on the kitchen windowsill. When it got bigger I re-potted it into a cleaned-out yogurt pot, using soil I dug up from my garden. It continued to grow, and eventually had to be replanted in its current receptacle: the bottom half of a Tango bottle.

There’s not really a point to this story, except that I think it’s pretty cool that the whole venture cost my nothing and in exchange for the daily sprinkling of water I get fresh basil leaves to add to pasta sauces or whatever. And plants in general are pretty cool because all they need is soil, water and air and sunlight, and from just that they create new organic matter. Just my thought for the day.

Oh wow, it has been a few days since I updated the site. Well I’ve been busy: moving house, starting a new job, that sort of thing, not to mention my inexplicable inability to access the wireless internet we just got set up in our new house. Anyway, I’ll get that sorted and get some new stuff up some time soon, though not before another week has elapsed, since tomorrow I’m off to spend a week in sunny Yorkshire.

Unfortunately, I most likely shan’t have easy access to the internet on August 21st, which is the first anniversary of The Aspiring Writer, not that I’m really sure how I would celebrate it anyway. But I shall make an effort to get another two, three or four stories finished over the next week, so at least I’ll have something to post when I get back.

And with that, I shall bid you all adieu.

I just watched Grizzly Man, a 2005 documentary about a man who lived in the Alaskan wilderness with brown bears for thirteen summers, filming them and campaigning for their protection, until he was eventually killed by one of them. It was an engaging look at a man’s obsessiveness, in this case an obsession with bears, with leaving the human world to live in their world. Why are stories of obsession so interesting? King of Kong: A fistful of Quarters is similar in that it brings the viewer to identify and empathise with a man who devoted a vast amount of time to being recognised as the greatest Donkey Kong player in the world. (more…)