Constraining your writing: univocal

The Inky Fool back in January told us about 'Gadsby' - a 50,000-word manuscript which romps along without any 'e's at all.

So I thought I'd just touch occasionally in coming posts on fun trials to conduct with your writing.

First up is univocal - writing which shuns all but a particular non-consonant, using, say "a" or "i" to stand in by proxy for its additional four chums.

This is part of a work by C.C. Bombaugh in 1890, using only "o":

No cool monsoons blow soft on Oxford dons,
Orthodox, jog-trot, book-worm Solomons

OK?

I did try it, and this is my stab at it.

(Warning: It's a bit odd, a tad racy and not my usual sort of thing. You can rip it to bits in a bit, BUT I want you to try doing your own first! It's tricky!)

What a drag!

Adam's a bad lad
Fact: bad at maths and can’t stand class
Alas - what plans Adam has!
A zany ad-man? RADA (Batman)?
Rap! A slam champ? A bard?
Start a band - all mad fans and WAGs?

Adam’s dad rants: What plans?
Tarmac gang? Stack cans at Asda?
Adam: Stack cans? That’s banana’s!
Adam asks Dan. Dan’s smart.
Dan says: Always warm at army barracks.

Lads land at camp, what a sham!
All starch and march. Bad days.
Anyway, Adam has an asthma attack.
Back at last, angry, antsy, and has cash!
Blags a flash car, an Astra - fast.
Stamp that gas! Damn blast - a crash.
Arm: small gash, Astra: vast scratch.
Bank says: card back, thanks.
Ta'ra backpack – Agra, Java, all that.

And Dan’s back. Tall, fab tan,
all blah blah blah Baghdad at war:
ranks, tanks, Saddam, bang bang.
Asks Anna – rampant Chav slag –
Fancy a shag? Anna wants an army man.
Jammy bastard: Anna’s chancy, always randy.
Anna’s flat’s all dark and hazy –
mmm...shady lady... mmm hash,
mmm brandy and…mmm? Clannad?...
anyway, hand wanks, spanks, anal pranks,
Dan’s hands at bra and pants…
…Aaaargh! Anna’s a lad in drag!
Man’s drawl: Thanks pal!
Fag ash, tacky damp, bad tang.
Aghast. Dan’s ‘lad’ has pangs.

Always a catch.

© C Kirwan

p.s. If you think this post is in a slightly unusual syntax, it's what's missing that you may pick up on - the scarcity, the drought, the want of ... what? Go to my first words and think about it! The truth is hiding in plain sight!

Get bugging!

This post is later than I intended but is still just in time to let you know about Big Over-hearing Day tomorrow.

Promoted by Bugged, it is a mass 'happening' for writers in the UK. On July 1st they are asking you to eavesdrop, wherever you are - on the train, in the pub, at the checkout. What you overhear becomes the starting point for your writing. 

It's a great exercise in observation for writers - which of us can say we haven't caught snippets of real gems in passing from random strangers? When coming up with characters it's so important to give them different voices, and what better way to get a feel for different ways of expressing yourself than listening - really listening - to other people.

I shall be positioning myself in one or more likely locations and will post again about it if I come up with something juicy - hope you join me! The intention is to build a piece of writing based on these 'eavesdroppings' but they're often beauties in themselves:

Stressed mother to small child on Merseyrail near Bootle: 'You do tha' again an' Bob the Builder's goin' in the bin!' 

Bugged is also on here on Facebook and is organised by Glastonbury Poet-in-Residence Jo Bell.

p.s. does anyone like my new broken biro? I broke it myself.

Where do ideas come from, mummy? #2

I have been accused of having 'ideas'. I can't argue. I have more ideas than I know what to do with. Something in the wiring of the brain maybe.

So I do get a bit tired with people, especially poets, sticking with the same old same old. I knew one who went to work on the train and walked his dogs at weekends. ALL his poems were about riding on trains and walking dogs. A clever writer could probably squeeze a fair few metaphors for life, the universe and everything out of such mundane material, and on occasions he did. But there are limits to how much he could surprise or challenge - or to how much he surprised or challenged himself as a writer.

So where do ideas come from? Lots of places. But often from making links between the seemingly unrelated. Not sure if I do this naturally or just trained myself to, but it's been productive. My 'Silence Museum' poem came about simply by mis-hearing Science Museum, but it got me thinking about something I hadn;t thought about before.
Here's an exercise:

• On lined paper, make a list* of subjects you might like to write about - do it quickly and freely without thinking too hard
• Fold the paper vertically so you can't see the list. Forget what you've just written.
• On the same lines, write another list.
• Unfold and see what appears next to each other on a line.
• There'll be a lot of nonsense, but (usually!) one or two marriages will leap out at you - connections zapping between them... acrobatic firemen, coin-operated walking boots, cat scaffold...

* It helps if each vertical list is of broadly the same kind of thing. You could have a list of concepts (fear, lonliness, ballroom dancing, last person on earth, parent) OR 'voices you'd like to write in (animal, fictional character, profession) OR places (library, museum, island, train) or interesting adjectives (coin-operated, camouflaged, open-top)

Just playing around like this has generated a few nice ideas, especially for short, quirky poems and stories.

Where do YOUR ideas come from?

Where do ideas come from, mummy? #1

Here's a great tip for getting ideas flowing - get into your brain quick before your brain knows you're in there.

I do this all the time and it's thrown up some wierd and wonderful stuff!

1. Sit down somewhere quiet where you won't be distracted (unless you're distracted by quiet) with pen and pad or computer.


2. Pick a subject - quick! Something vaguely on your mind? Have you been thinking about eyebrows or oysters? Or pick a word at random from a book you have close to hand. It doesn't matter what you choose - this is just a starting point. Don't think too much. You're not browsing here, you're shoplifting. Pick it and run with it.


3. Start writing. Start on the subject you just picked but if you veer off don't worry - the important thing is to keep writing non-stop for ten minutes. The trick is to train yourself not to think too much.


4. Don't stop! If you get stuck write down the first words that come into your head even if it's nonsense. No-one's watching, no-one's judging. It's a different way of using your brain - tapping more into the subconscious and that's where the good stuff is!


5. After ten minutes, stop (unless you're on a roll in which case you might want to see where it takes you).


6. Maybe now, maybe later, read back what you wrote. Sometimes it really will be gibberish, butI have found that often what you have written is rich in ideas, phrases, sometimes even the beginnings of characters or plots for stories, occasionally even the skeleton of an entire poem.


7. Take what you want from this - if there's a good phrase or idea file it away for later, or use the exercise to jump-start your day's writing. If there's nothing there, don't be put off. Try another time.

The exercise is particularly useful if you want to write on a particular subject and have drawn a blank. Your right 'creative' brain makes connections you may not have thought of. Here's an example:

Broken Biro

two kinds of broken biro – the knackered bic – a simple snap, a short sharp blow to the back of the parentheses - and the unreconstructed ballpoint spilling it’s nuts and bolts before you – the tiny spring like the ring binder of your almost empty jotter, the worn knob you press and repress for the satisfying click that masquerades as action, the internal gubbins – casings, little plastic rings and tubes if you’re lucky, the slim missile of ink – a weapon of mass deliberation. Thick blue black blood. Sometimes, miniature engines or batteries, a yard of dazzling coloured silk like a magician’s entrails, a swarm of ideas, barely visible to the naked eye, the declaration of independence inscribed on a piece of fluff, a new species of bacteria unleashed, splendid microscopic racehorses galloping off down the page, raw wit in its natural state, the dust of all your fore-fathers, molecules of air once breathed by Julius Caesar, the composted droppings of the doubt fly.
Look at it all – innocuous, lacking deliberation, just the things that happened to be inside your pen. What to do with it all? Where to keep it?