David L. Atkinson's Blog, page 73

Writing - Things we didn't know about Harper Lee

Should be a food blog today but I didn't cook much this weekend. I was pondering what to do when I came across an article about author of 'To Kill A Mocking Bird' - Harper Lee.

[image error]Then!
Both the book and the film were tremendously successful even to the point where Sky often repeat the film so many years on. But in a Radio 4 interview she shared some interesting facts about her life.
1. When journalists approach her for an interview, her standard response is “Not just no, but hell no”.

2. 750,000 copies of To Kill a Mockingbird are sold a year. In one typical six-month period alone she earned $1,688,064.68 in royalties.

3. She used to play the slot machines in a casino on a Native American reservation where no-one knew who she was.

4. Her best friend, at age 5, was Truman Parsons, whom she defended from bullies. He changed his name to Truman Capote and they remained lifelong friends.

5. She smoked a pipe at university.


6. As a child her most treasured possession was an Underwood's typewriter given to her and Truman by her father. They dragged it everywhere and wrote stories on it.

7. She worked as a ticket agent for Eastern Airlines and later at the British Overseas Air Corporation.

8. To Kill a Mockingbird was only written because some friends, the Browns, proposed, as a Christmas present in 1956, that they pay her living expenses for a year so she could write full time.

9. She wrote to Spencer Tracy inviting him to consider the role of Atticus Finch in the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. He was tied into another film and couldn’t do it.


[image error]Now!
In many ways quite an ordinary set of reactions to many life situations. People protect one another at times at school, they experiment with all types of things at college and university and they take on jobs to get them by. I worked at a brewery, as an ice cream van driver, postman and delivery driver at various times, until I was firmly established in the teaching profession. Quite refreshing that all of the money never blunted her human needs and values.

Harper Lee's second novel 'Go Set A Watchman', published this year, is in effect the prequel to 'Mockingbird' as it was written first and she considers it the 'parent' of her famous novel.
God Bless

Writing - What happens next?

How do you decide what happens next in your stories? Those disciples of supa-planning will know to the nth degree what is happening next but those of us who fly by the seat of our pants have a different, possibly more exciting, viewpoint.


Don't get me wrong I'm not having another go at those people who need to plan it's just not how I work. What I want to do is show a different way.
Identify with your hero
Identifying with the hero of your stories is almost inevitable and why wouldn't you? You are the writer, the creator, to the hero the supreme being, and so you know that character inside out. The facets of the personality of your hero are second nature to you and so you feel comfortable with your central character. What follows next is a relationship.
The above statement brings heroes to our level
I don't know about you but because the Steele character is based in the almost here and now, having a relationship with him is easier as he, like Steve McQueen, has his feet firmly planted on the ground. Of course, the label 'hero' is applied by others and measured in actions. So for me to relate to Patrick is possible, not difficult, and facilitates the story writing.
Returning to the subject of planning, you can't plan a relationship and the subsequent activities within that relationship. The actions come from the characters of the two people involved, even though one of them is two-dimensional in reality.
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So how does the creation of the next event occur? Is it a conversation between myself and Patrick Steele? Do I need some kind of chemical stimulation? No, not as such, it is more about reliving recent events and applying those situations to future events. Experimenting with ideas, exploring alternatives and finding the one that fits best.
[image error]When?
The conversations that I have are in the comfort of my own bed and in the darkness of a quiet night. A time when there is no external distraction to interfere with the process, that is when progress is made. It is a time when the needs of the character and the situations in which he is involved can be seen more clearly. So the stories progress.
Of course, the way others write is down to them and this is just an example that suits me.
God Bless

Writing - 15th August 10 things

This week seems to have more than its fair share of weird stuff.


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1. Drones make black bears nervous.

Join the club

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2. Most Facebook users use "haha" to express laughter, while only 1.9% use "lol".

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3. There is a Ned Flanders-themed heavy metal band.

Great!

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4. Real Paleolithic people, contrary to some of the followers of the fashionable modern diet named after them, appear to have eaten plenty of carbohydrates.

Told you so!

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5. US presidential contender Bernie Sanders has an 80-year-old brother, Larry, who stood for the Green party in Oxford West and Abingdon at the 2015 UK general election.

Whoever selects these needs to get out more!!!

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6. Reindeer migration is a major live television event in Norway.

And we felt badly done to with just 3 TV channels

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7. Labelling an idea a "conspiracy theory" doesn't make people any less likely to believe it.

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8. Zebras' stripes don't make it any harder for predators to catch them, but may help them keep cool.

It messes with the horizontal hold though.

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9. People tend to underestimate how many creative ideas they can come up with if they keep trying.

So how many can they come up with?

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10. The Pacific striped octopus gently taps its prey on the shoulder before attacking.

Gives new meaning to having your collar felt!

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God Bless

Writing - Books and their covers.

I was contacted by my online publisher completelynovel.com regarding a competition concerning book covers with the prize of having a professionally produced cover. I don't enter competitions often but I did this one.


Cessation is the tale of what life could be like in the not too distant future under certain circumstances. It is a story of relationships between people under stress and the twists and turns that those relationships may take. There is violence, common bonding and love that enriches the narrative.


The other books available in my portfolio,
Steele   My hero was created post recession and so has no concept of how 'good' things were pre-2008. In 'I Have To Get It Right' when he began to flex his muscles he was working in an accountant's office. Then after the Gurentai took him under their wing and removed all of his financial worries, it was justice that was his major concern. He did become involved in international relations in 'The 51st State' but it was for the maintenance of a respectful distance between countries, rather than economic reasons. His trips into the USA had repercussions which can be read about in 'The Biter Bit' but then by the time things began to change in 2011 and the recession was really biting, Steele was trying to make sense of the state of the nation in 'A Changed Reality' and coming up against some really nasty people taking advantage of the shortage of money. By the time the USA are out of their recession Steele's steps are still being dogged by an unknown enemy from the same country. In 'Inceptus' we also find out more about what makes the man tick. The most recent Steele book 'Castled' where Steele is once again at risk from unseen enemies. It would seem that he has become quite recession proof!The most recent addition to the Steele family is Earth plc in which our hero is concerned with political and emotional issues in this crime fighting adventure.
All books are available in paperback or ebook through Amazon, Smashwords and all good book shop websites.


Cessation 


This is a dystopian story that hinges directly on the state of the nation as a result of fiscal mismanagement. Having said that it is more a story of human relations, privations, love and loss.


Poetry - there are also two thoughtful collections of poetry available solely through Amazon.


The Musings of a Confused Mind 


and


Words from the Raindrops 

God Bless

Writing - Why creativity matters.

Creativity is an aspect of life that some people claim they haven't any, or they have, and quite often even the most creative people seem to play down their expertise. Author Alexander McCall Smith has explored why we get creative.
[image error]Alexander McCall Smith
Smith is the author of the 'No 1 Ladies Detective Agency' series and the 'Scotland Street' novels amongst many others. His books have been translated into 40 languages and all this after a career as a Professor in Medical Law at Edinburgh University. Even given this very prestigious resume he has a refreshingly simplistic view of people and creativity, which I like.
He said,
"It deals with our fundamental desire as people to create or make something, that’s what we’re like."
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There are many quotes about why we're creative. Albert Einstein said that Creativity is intelligence having fun" which I don't agree with as it could be construed as suggesting that only intelligent people can be creative which of course is patently not true.In fact my belief is that creativity is an integral part of human nature. It develops in different ways and can even be the tool used to solve a problem. 
Imagine that you're a caveman looking to dig up nutritious roots. It is a task you have carried out before, it isn't easy but the rewards are good. In the past you've dug with your bare hands many times and it is a painful process. That is when your ability as a human engages that part of your brain that allows you to think outside the box. You need something to dig with. So you either find something that will do or having gone through this process several times you decide to create something suitable and more lasting.
prehistoric digging tools
Not only do you create a digging tool but you decorate the handle. Why would prehistoric man, without the stimuli of great artworks, do that? Indeed why did early man produce cave paintings? There seems to be an in-built need to record our actions and decorate the results. But it doesn't stop there.
Recording our achievements in writing is almost as old as man himself. Whether the records are in picture form, symbolic or alphabetic, we've been recording. But even in the relatively staid alphabetic writings there was beautifully illuminated lettering. Why is that? The fact is that the human mind requires an outlet for the innate creativity with which we are all endowed.
Alexander McCall Smith also said,
"It doesn’t really matter if what you create is not something that’s necessarily going to be appreciated by other people you’ll have enjoyed doing it. So I think there are many, many arguments for being creative."
This is something I firmly believe and in part not just because  I've not sold truck loads of books but because I've a need to create. Without wanting to sound conceited or big headed, I have had a go at painting, drawing, knitting as well as writing poetry and fiction. At no time have I ever begun these tasks with the sole purpose of making money, if that had been the case I would have given up years ago. The reason is simple. I have a need to create!
If you are on the verge of being creative then go for it for your own sake. Keep out of your mind the need to sell your wares as that is a capitalistic stumbling block that could cause you to fail to satisfy your creative urge and is, in my opinion, partly responsible for the phenomenon 'writers' block'. 

Creativity should only be limited by the extent to which your brain can travel outside the box. So set it free and enjoy the journey.
God Bless

Poetry Thursday 173 - Blyton began with poetry.

In spite of being taught poetry at grammar school it was the first writing discipline I returned to as an adult. Enid Blyton (1897 - 1968) wrote copiously but again wrote poetry in the beginning. It always amuses me the way people react to the idea of poetry and yet it occurs in our modern lives frequently.
At this time of the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki I can't escape the knowledge that scientist sat somewhere in the USA and calculated the 'best' height at which to explode the A-Bomb to achieve maximum killing effect.

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600 feet
Don’t ask me to understand.I have no difficulty in remembering.Give rest to those who went so quicklyand rest to the perpetrators.It is confusing beyond normal concepts.It saddens me for humanity.All I believe is that it shouldn’t happen again.Keep patience with each other.Don’t give in to greed, anger and retribution.You have control over the decisions you make.Outcomes can change if you try.Remember millions rely on the humanity of leaders.Please don’t fail to stand against repeat.Love us before the 600 feet.© David L Atkinson August 2015

On a lighter note it was the anniversary of the birth of Enid Blyton earlier this week and she began with poetry. I thought that it would be great to sample some of her work.This poem 'Too Hot' is quite apt for the sticky summer weather we are currently experiencing.


Too HotI'm hot to-day, simply dreadfully hotYou just touch my hand - no you'd p'raps better not,I'm 'fraid it would burn you, it's hot as can be,Oh! I wonder if anyone's hotter than me!My clothes are all stuck to me tighter than glue,And I just can't unstick them, whatever I do,I've wriggled and pulled till my breath is all gone,Oh why can't I have just a bathing-dress on?I wish I could sit in a nice little pool,And get just a bit of me lovely and cool,I wish I could water myself with a can,But I know I'd be scolded if once I began,I believe I'm melting, I'm feeling so queer,It'll serve people right, if I do melt out here!They'll feel sorry then when they come out and seeThere's nothing but bundles of clothes left of me!
A quite amusing piece but definitely of an earlier period with references to 'a bathing dress' and being 'scolded' two things which no longer exist or occur.It seems to me that Enid Blyton was very straight-laced even in the way she produced her work but it didn't stand in the way of her imagination.God Bless

Writing - It isn't always easy!

There are millions of people like me producing books and hoping for literary recognition. We strive daily to find the best way to put down words in an order that will be attractive to as wide an audience as possible. However, even the most successful authors didn't always have it easy and even afterwards the books they produced were vilified for a range of reasons. August 11th 1897 was the birthday of Enid Blyton and I've been looking at her experience.
[image error]Enid Blyton (1897 - 1968)
In a number of respects Enid was a blogger long before blogging was even possible. She wrote a range of articles on education, natural history, fantasy, mystery stories and biblical narratives. Her first book was a 24 page publication of poetry entitled Child Whispers but she is better known for Noddy, Famous Five and the Secret Seven. At the height of her writing prowess she was producing 50 books a year on top of the many articles she wrote for newspaper and magazine. Enid wrote from her unconscious mind rather than planning meticulously, typing her stories as events unfolded before her. She wrote so much that she was often accused of employing an army of ghost writers a situation which she vigorously denied.
[image error]Noddy
Even many years after Noddy appeared on the scene, and had proven popular with great numbers of people across the world, it was banned by the BBC. Literary critics during the fifties and sixties, became concerned with Blyton's unchallenging writing and the nature of the themes of her books, particularly Noddy. Some libraries and schools banned her works, which the BBC had refused to broadcast from 1930 - 1950, because they said that her work lacked literary merit. Her books have been also described as elitist, sexist, racist, xenophobic and at odds with the post war liberalism. Even so, since her death in 1968, they remain best sellers.
She once described her writing style as follows,

I shut my eyes for a few minutes, with my portable typewriter on my knee – I make my mind a blank and wait – and then, as clearly as I would see real children, my characters stand before me in my mind's eye ... The first sentence comes straight into my mind, I don't have to think of it – I don't have to think of anything.

I wish I found it that simple! 
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For those of us who are striving for recognition it is interesting that Enid Blyton became noticed after winning the Saturday Westminster Review writing competition with an essay. Her articles then became more attractive to magazines and newspapers until she eventually had Child Whispers published.I have entered the occasional competition but not frequently enough or wide ranging enough to achieve any success. On the other hand I am not so driven by the need for success. Entering competitions is obviously a way 'in' but the important thing for me is to keep writing. I hope that eventually the quality of my work will have improved enough to speak for itself.
God Bless

Tuesday Food Blog - Comfort food

Comfort food is an interesting term. Its rather like ones preferred genre for reading or a favoured cushion.
[image error]Lasagne al Forno
This is a canned photograph as I forgot to take a pic of my weekends efforts.
Lasagne is a favourite of mine and what I would class as comfort food, along with apple pie and custard, curry, fish, and pie and peas. I must have had a bad week as I had 3 of those items.
The actual meaning is along the lines of a traditional food that provides nostalgic or sentimental feeling to the consumer. I actually believe that it is somewhat more emotional than the definition. Food can be like a favourite song, linked to ones own personal history, or a special moment in life. I have to say that most of mine come from the past excluding the lasagne.
My mother was a very capable pastry cook, hence the apple pie, but for the most part her cooking was quite simple and traditional. No lasagne there! She had a routine that suited the three of us and, apart from the occasional nuance, lasted for many years.
So where did the Italian dish come from? Well it was my first wife's creation and always came out beautifully. I taught myself to make it and have reasonable success since then on most occasions. 
There are few secrets to creating the dish. 400g of minced beef, onion, garlic, oregano, tin of tomatoes, tomato puree, lasagne, milk, butter, cheese and seasoning. Some folk add mushrooms, types of cheese vary according taste, but the basic recipe works for me. My second wife also created a good lasagne using bought pasata rather than creating her own, but it was always good. However, there was occasional issues with the cheese sauce going lumpy. In an effort to produce a decent sauce I warm the milk before pouring it on to the roux and then use an egg whisk to ensure total smoothness.
What is your favourite comfort food?
God Bless

Writing - Life before the phone

I attended college over 100 miles away from home in the late 60s early 70s without a telephone. It would have done no good because my parents didn't have a phone.
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Eventually in 1980, shortly after my first child was born, my parents were persuaded to have a phone installed and looked something similar to the above. How did we manage?Well I managed by writing letters to mum and dad for which they periodically sent stamps. Does anyone write letters now? Well I do to a friend, Bert Carson, in Alabama, USA. I write them long hand with a fountain pen fuelled with Quink, blue/black ink.

It was quite nostalgic when Bert said that he was beginning to write letters to some of his writing colleagues and they could set up links by post. There are a number of advantages. It allows the writer to pause for thought  and carefully structure what they are going to say. Modern communication is so fast that there is little consideration for manners, sensitivity, structure and subject.
In the early nineties my father died so he never knew of laptops, tablets or mobiles, although desk top computers were beginning to be used in businesses and schools. They were the type of computers that had a tape recorder from which you loaded software which was held on cassette tape. My mother who lived until she was 90, 3 years ago, never owned a computer or mobile phone.
The saddest photoNowadays we have smartphones that are so powerful they are overtaking computers for the way people access the internet. All of the above raises a question in my mind about what we did before the advent of the mobile and the internet. Well I think the answer is that we waited.The above photo is the saddest I have personally encountered. What needs to be said here and now that is more important than the welfare of a child? I am not claiming to be a brilliant parent, it's one of those jobs that most adults acquire an understanding of by practice. I'm sure all of my kids could point out mistakes I've made over the past thirty odd years, but when we were together, walking in the countryside, or in town, they were spoken to and shown things. There was nothing that needed to be said to anyone that was so urgent you needed to be texting it immediately.
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The obvious question to me is what is the quality of the communication like if we are communicating in such quantity? Being old enough to remember a time before instant communication I wonder how much thought is being put into what is being said. How many arguments begin, or jobs are lost, because of a misunderstood word sent through the ether without a moment's thought?
I used to say that the telephone made me nervous because it was possible to say things to a person you couldn't see, that could cause conflict. 
I worked for six years in a call centre, taking calls from a bank's customers, eight hours a day, and was abused at times, as were all of my colleagues, because the customer feels emboldened by the fact that they can't be seen. It sounds alarming that people can be like that and yet I witnessed swearing and personal abuse of my colleagues that led to them being upset and having time off the phones to recover. I believe that I can safely claim that those abusers wouldn't have behaved in such a way if they had been face to face with the bank person. Such cowardice is unpardonable but isn't it brought about by the impersonal nature, and speed of electronic communication?
So when you take out your mobile to contact another person have it in mind the age old saying 'don't treat others any differently than the way you would like to be treated yourself'.
God Bless

Writing - 10 things for w/e 07/08/15

Opportunity, animals and opinion this week.
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1. Buzz Aldrin claimed $33.31 in travel expenses around his trip to the moon.

Cheaper than going by car!
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2. For three months, Leicestershire police didn't investigate attempted burglaries if they occurred at odd-numbered properties.

That's not odd just rude!!!


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3. Keith Richards thinks Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is "rubbish".

Silly old sod!
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4. Women suffer more than men during relationship break-ups, but they recover better.

I don't know - I managed twice!
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5. Armadillos are bullet-resistant.

Was this intelligence gleaned from a certain US dentist?


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6. People who regularly read for pleasure are less likely to have feelings of stress and depression, have higher self-esteem, are better able to deal with difficult situations and have superior sleeping patterns.

The sleep and depression I don't agree with.


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7. To avoid openly drinking vodka in front of elders, which would be disrespectful, Uzbek men sometimes drink it from a teapot.

What about the women?


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8. Your ability to lie peaks in young adulthood and then gradually declines.

As you get older you just don't care to be tactful any more.
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9. Horses have 17 recognised facial expressions.

This is number 18!


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10. Every London Underground line's Twitter feed has either the Myers-Briggs personality type ESTJ ("The Doer") or ESTP ("The Guardian") - with the exception of the Waterloo and City Line, which is ESFP, "The Performer".

Pardon?
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God Bless