Eamonn Martin Griffin's Blog, page 10

Me, psychogeography, and the importance of a pleasant sit down

This was originally written as an accompaniment to a potential print version of my blog Benches of Louth. I've since decided not to go that way, but that's no reason not to waste a piece of writing. It's part of a wider attempt to explain and contextualise what informed the project; there'll be some more on this over the next couple of weeks on this blog.

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London’s perhaps too easy. Any fool can wander the capital’s streets and perceive the ghosts of the past, be they in architectural mismat...

On cliches

Cliches (or, if you prefer, clichés, because though the accent's a bit old-fashioned, it points the way towards pronunciation) aren't all that bad.

Not all the time, anyway.

Because they're well-known, a cliche can convey meaning directly in ways that are mutually understood. They're fast, and to some extent ready-made, so we don't have to think about them. These pre-assembled language chunks are ready to go. When we're speaking they can be useful for all of these reasons: immediacy, intelligib...

Time flies by, when you're writing on a train...

I've probably mentioned this before, but there's no place finer for writing than on a train. Now I know that some of you will be commuters, and will have torrid tales of there being no seats and of being squished up against faulty doors between Hither South and Yon Central, and all for the price of a gajillion pound season ticket, but I don't have to ride those kinda trains.

Most of my train travel is east-west across the middle of the country, on the train equivalent of the M62, the service...

A birthday week present for ya...

As it's my birthday this week (Saturday - a good day for a birthday, I reckon) here's a small gift for you. Ebook versions of both TORC and THE PROSPECT OF THIS CITY have been reduced to just 99p for the week. This link will get you there. Happy reading!

On petitioning the government

A week or so ago, I created a petition. I was struck by the idea that if an MP is elected as a representative for a constituency, they invariably do so under the banner of a recognised political party. And, as every now and again happens, under the current rules, if that MP decides that they can no longer be a part of that political party, then can resign the party whip, but they continue as an MP. There's nothing in law that compels them to resign the seat and fight a by-election either unde...

Getting back in the saddle

It's been a few weeks, and no mistake. As the UK has gone through the EU referendum vote, the fallout from the narrow pro-Brexit decision, the turmoil in the major political parties as a consequence (as I type my notes up for this post, David Cameron's last Prime Minister's Questions is on the radio in the background), other stuff has been happening, and lives have gone on. Or not.

[a few days pass]

It's Sunday now. Sometimes you have to let stuff mull for a while before putting fingers to keys...

Free new book from Steven Pressfield

Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire (the definitive retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae), isn't only a fine historical and military novelist, but an excellent writer on motivation for creativity. His book The War of Art is about the best on the subjects, and the follow-ups he's written to that each have something useful to say as well.

I've blogged in the past about Pressfield's (and his partner Shawn Coyne's) creativity/motivational writing work here and here.

So, a promotional email...

1665: London's last great plague - a video lecture

The mid-1660s plague outbreak in London is often conflated with the 1666 Great Fire in the public imagination, as well as in more than a few history books too. Here's a rather fine lecture on the 1665 outbreak, from Vanessa Harding of Gresham College:

The Prospect of the City, my 1666-set novel,is available here.

Some Great Fire of London resources

With the 350th anniversary of the 1666 Great Fire of London only a few months away at the time of writing (the anniversary is 2nd September) there's more Fire-related material out there than ever before. Here's a few resource that might be of interest if you're fascinated, like me, with the Fire and its contexts.

This short BBC radio programme (it run about 10 minutes) features excerpts from the diaries of Samuel Pepys and schoolboy William Taswell, and are perhaps the closest thing we have to...

Doing the work - Steven Pressfield on overcoming "resistance"

At the time of writing, I've just finished pulling together some notes and resources for a writing workshop that I'm running in my home town. This brought me back to my spine-damaged and well-read copy of Steven Pressfield's The War of Art; for my money the best book on overcoming obstacles to doing creative work.

That led me onto YouTube, and to this clip, in which Pressfield summarises his ideas on getting past those negative forces, which he terms "Resistance":

The War of Art (and its seque...