Reclusive, Neurotic, Psychotic: Writers on Film & TV

 

When it comes to the big screen and the small screen, it seems writers don't fare too well.

There's definitely a stereotype at play in big and small screen version writers - and it's not a good one. In general, writers are either annoying geeks meddling with police departments or socially inept recluses and in most if not all cases, mentally unstable neurotics on the verge of cracking up.

The first writer I ever witnessed on television was the inimitable Jessica Fletcher, of the classic Murder She Wrote TV series. Here the writer in question was popular crime writer Jessica Fletcher, as famous for her crime solving abilities as her bestsellers. And here was the first and infamous installment of the writer as detective aide extraordinaire. Jessica's writerly expertise on the area was always the special ingredient that helped solve a case and save the day. Indeed each episode played out as a murder mystery novella. We rarely saw Jessica at her typewriter but rather on the hunt for clues in a case. Apart from the ingraining of a stereotype, the only negative connotations associated with this version of the small screen writer was her meddlesome busybody personality (albeit a mutation of a writer's natural curiousity) and the annoying jingle-jangle theme tune!

This popular TV incarnation can be seen today in US crime series Castle which follows the adventures of Richard Castle, bestselling crime writer who shadows a detective in the NYPD for research and ends up on a permanent working placement, thanks to his unique insight into criminal caper. (Quite the modern day mutation of Mrs Fletcher we note, but Castle is not near as meddling or annoying; on the contrary he is quite witty, charming and a humorous addition to the department.) The series sways from the serious and dramatic to the comic and romantic. It regularly pokes fun at the notion of the writer as the ultimate nerd. But nerds get to save the day. As it turns out, it is always Castle who provides the missing link to a case and solves the unsolvable. And ultimately comes off as cool. He even gets to wear his own 'writer' imprinted bulletproof vest when in the field in a declarative coup for geeky writers everywhere.

But crime buffs are about as good as it gets for screen versions of writers. Speaking of -  Jack Nicholson's character in the Oscar-winning film As Good As It Gets is quite an example of the stereotypical writer, namely - grumpy, unsociable, obsessive compulsive, neurotic and reclusive. When we first meet this disdainful character, we need not wonder what the heck he does for a living (apart from attending psychiatrist appointments and his preferred restaurant) - what else could it be but a writer? When we see all the books in the apartment, it's a big hint. And what does Mr Sarky do in the evening? Sit down at his computer and work on his novel of course. So that explains his general ill-temper and all round misanthropy then... (And I'm not even going to mention The Shining....!)

It gets worse. Johnny Depp does a genuine creepy impression of a writer on the brink of breakdown in Secret Window.  Think you've finally stumbled upon a normal representation of a writer, a good-looking young disheveled Mort Rainey? Think again. His genre is crime: and you either go one way or another with that - to the local police department as an aide-de-camp or to the teetering edge of sanity. Depressed after his divorce and suffering from writer's block, he ends up writing his own murder mystery into real life in a schizophrenic twist that even the most unimaginative of writers can see coming.

Seems murderous intentions are an inevitable side effect of being a writer. In the 1987 black comedy Throw Mama Off the Train Billy Crystal's lead is a frustrated writer in the midst of a debilitating writer's block. And what better way to unleash the creativity again than to go on a murdering spree with a student who just happens to need his annoying mother murdered off and then turn it into a bestselling book at the end? Just shows you what writer's block can do!

Michael Douglas's writer and professor in The Wonder Boys (main pic)  doesn't come across much better. Here we have a failed writer, halfheartedly teaching a class while trying to reconcile his failing marriage. A weekend's adventure with his student protége and an earnest editor takes him on an existential quest which only confirms his failure further. Yet again, another depressed and mopey and whiskey drinking writer. Tobey Maguire who plays the gifted student is (as expected) introverted, dark, silent most of the time, and just plain weird. What we learn from this film seems to be that writers are strange creatures who sit about all day in dressing gowns at a typewriter or spend all their time dealing with the black clouds of existential burden.

The writer as recluse is the main subject of the film Finding Forrester, with Sean Connery's writer based loosely on the notoriously reclusive Catcher in the Rye author, JD Salinger.  After writing the definitive American novel William Forrester disappears from society and is stumbled upon by a young promising African American writer Jamal  who strikes up a friendship with the reclusive writer. There's no doubt that Forrester appears as a great writer, but again, a socially inept one. He suffers anxiety attacks when out in public and prefers solitude to society. But hey, at least he's not psychotic. Meticulous yes, neurotic no. There's a reverence and respect this character demands, but alas, it portrays the writer in yet another negative 'outsider' light. 

Cantankerous is another word that describes writers on the screen.  A relatively small scale 2005 TV film Shadows in the Sun featured Harvey Keitel as a grumpy, alcohol-guzzling writer living it up in his rural refuge in Italy.  Weldon Parish was quite the writer in his day, but in his old age is suffering from writer's block and prefers to find inspiration at the bottom of a bottle rather than with a pen. Joshua Jackson is the aspiring young writer who stumbles upon him and acts as the catalyst for the pending realisation and mending of ways. It's yet another cliché of the writer as an alcoholic or substance-dependent. Also, I remember vaguely years ago in Australian soap Home and Away there was a writer featured in the story - a drunken, down-and-out former great writer and Irish too - to add insult to injury! Writers hitting the bottle when block strikes is an all too familiar adage that film and TV likes to exploit to no end.

Women writers are just as badly portrayed (if at all that is - another stereotype of the screen writer is that they're always male). Emma Thompson's novelist in Stranger Than Fiction is neurotic in the extreme. The story is a quirky parable on the relation of fiction to reality and the main character played by Will Ferrell is at the mercy of this author as the puppet-string-controlled main character in her current novel. (It takes the term 'omniscient narrator' to a whole new dangerous level.) Thompson's novelist is the stereotypical brilliant yet tortured writer, a chain smoker and an obsessive eccentric who is obsessed with death and the emptiness of existence. And, in yet another stereotype, she has the obligatory straight-talking practical editor to keep her on schedule and sane while in the process of finishing her novel. (Note to self - writers are the crazy ones; editors and publishers the normal ones who keep these mad geniuses on a leash.)

Carrie from Sex and the City is perhaps the most glamorized and popular version of the TV writer (and the most positive perhaps). Rather than being mentally unstable, neurotic,  psychotic or manic depressive, she's upbeat and optimistic and leads a normal life (and an empowered one). Her writing is not an obsession, but a profession and one which helps her comprehend the reality of her own life and the complexities of modern love and romance.  But then again - she is a columnist - not a real writer per se and so escapes the occupational hazards that fiction writers come up against. But there's an exaggeration here too - do writers really live such glamorous lifestyles? Can they afford regular splurges on designer clothes from a singular weekly column?? And is international book deal success and celebrity status so easily garnered from said column?

Ahh. It's a pretty depressing depiction isn't it? Recluses, schizophrenics, eccentrics, manic depressives, psychotic murderers.... why are big and small screen writers so darn.... crazy? WelL I think it's a result of exaggerating normal writer traits into these more dramatic and dangerous transgressions in order to make appealing drama. Otherwise, they'd be too ordinary to feature in a screenplay. Writers infact lead a boring life - typing in solitude for hours on end without anything exciting happening, interspersed with eating, moping, bathroom breaks, staring into space . Not exactly the stuff of great action flicks.

Or maybe these Hollywood executives are merely paying homage to the 'strangeness' of the profession. Expressing their intrigue about it. Because it is mysterious. And rightly, very psychological in terrain.

What writers have left an impression on you from TV or film? There are loads more, but I'm sure all displaying the same typical characteristics. Or are there exceptions to the rule lurking out there?

I'd love to know!

~ Siobhán.

*Addendum

Oh and as an exception to the rule - I have to mention my favourite writer out of them all - Lucas from US TV series One Tree Hill. The series begins with Lucas (played by Chad Michael Murray) as a high school basketball player (clearly not a geek) and a budding writer. And how refreshing to see that he's young, good-looking, sociable and leads a NORMAL life with none of the stereotypical negative writer qualities! He's a tad brooding yes, but only in the endearing way. His writer self only serves to deepen his character - sensitive, honest, contemplative, philosophical and wise - not deform it! A feature of the show is his voiceover narrations (incorporating quotes from the likes of Shakespeare) which highlight the theme of each episode and are taken from notes he pens on the events of his life and those around him. After graduation he acquires a publishing deal for the novel he puts together from these and goes on to enjoy bestselling success, with the only ensuing dramas being the emotional kind not the murderous - of which, like all good writers - he turns into fiction. At last, a positive, normal and authentic representation of a writer. Film directors - take note!

The Sunday Poem: Sunshine Glee

Here's a poet I love - former American Laureate Billy Collins. Mostly because he has a sense of humour. His poems are tongue-in-cheek meditations on life and pretty self-deprecating most of the time. But within the wit, there lies wisdom. 

Billy Collins is definitely a poet for people who think poetry is pompous. He likes to mock this notion to no end. The poem below is a good example of this. In it he ridicules gloomy mopey poets and poems, preferring instead the infectious simple glee of real life. And maintains how poetry should be a medium for exploring this joy rather than the stereotypical despair so associated with it. Here, here I say!! 

And on a beautiful sunny day like today, there's poetry enough in the golden-lit scenes and how light falls like grace on surroundings... but to accentuate it,  the last verse of this poem is perfect.

(And in testament to the Collins effect, it's surely impossible to refrain from yelling out 'yee-hah' at the end in unison with the sentiment -  and in your most gleeful tone!)

Enjoy, 

Siobhán.

Despair - Billy Collins

So much gloom and doubt in our poetry - 

flowers wilting on the table,

the self regarding itself in a watery mirror.

Dead leaves cover the ground,

the wind moans in the chimney,

and the tendrils of the yew tree inch toward the coffin.

I wonder what the ancient Chinese poets

would make of all this,

these shadows and empty cupboards?

Today, with the sun blazing in the trees,

my thoughts turn to the great

tenth-century celebrator of experience,

Wa-Hoo, whose delight in the smallest things

could hardly be restrained,

and to his joyous counterpart in the western provinces, 

   Ye-Hah.

*For more on Billy Collins click here

Cloud Contemplation

Aren't clouds the most glorious things? 

Here in Ireland, when we are privy to blue skies, you'll find me with my face tilted upwards. Soaking up the sun yes, but more so as of lately revelling in not just the blueness, but the great white clouds that accompany it. 

Yes, the clouds! Not those overcast grey monstrosities no, but the fluffy white ones floating around the blue like ships or mountains, or super-sized cotton wool. They're so huge and vast and majestic. So perfectly shaped and sculpted. So grand.


There's something just so optimistically picture-perfect about a blue sky with some cumulus clouds (the big fluffy-on-top-ones). They succeed in making the sky seem so endless. So mysterious. We're more aware of our planetary orbit while clouds are shimmying by in the sky. Cloud-laden skies remind us that we are moving through this universe, and time is moving, even though we ourselves may think we are standing still. Clouds beg to differ. They yell out horizon like nothing else.


And get this, they're not just white. I always remember a line from Tracy Chevalier's novel 'Girl With a Pearl Earring' in which the artist Vermeer talks about painting in relation to clouds. How full of colour they are - lilac lined and gold and silver-flecked and navy and purple. And this is not just from an artist's eye. Light plays on them offering a palette of colours.


I remember my first ever plane journey. It was dusk. We were above the clouds and the sun's light had them billowed in gold. Light streaming through cracks and crevasses and it was just beautiful. Ethereal. No wonder then, that clouds were referred to as 'essences' before being scientifically explained. And to this day I'm still delightfully amazed at the 'angel rays' of light dusk's stage show reveals. Sunsets you may argue are grandiose, but I've always been more taken with the moment just before the colour, the lit anticipation, when the sun dipping its head in a crown of clouds shines a light on all their glory.


But back to the blue. There's nothing happier and no natural phenomenon that induces happiness as much as blue skies I think.  And that got me to snapping (photographer I am not - spontaneous snapper I am...) super-awedly (new word creations are a symptom of giddy fascination!) and came up with a few pictures (below) that are most in need of words I think.

And that got me to googling these sky creations and discovering names like stratus and cirrus and cumulus. (And the Irish word for cloudy keeps popping into my head: 'scammalach' - the sound of which perfectly captures the fluffy volume and appearance I think!)

Which further led me to a poem by Carol Ann Duffy about the Londoner who first named clouds, Luke Howard.  Imagine that. Being so entranced by the great sentries of the sky as to create names for them, scientific or otherwise. Now that, as Carol Ann so powerfully points out, is pure love.

Cloud-watching,


(and PS/ most utterly writerly happy again on my new turquoise HP Pavillion :)

~ Siobhán. 



Luke Howard, Namer of Clouds - Carol Ann Duffy

Eldezar and Asama Yama, 1783,

erupted violently; a Great Fogg
blending incredible skies over Europe.

In London, Luke Howard was ten.

The sky’s lad then.

Smitten,

he stared up evermore; saw

a meteor’s fiery spurt,

the clamouring stars;

what the moon wouldn’t do;

but loved clouds most-

dragons and unicorns;

Hamlet’s camels, weasels and whales;

the heads of heroes;

the sword of Excalibur, lit

by the setting sun. Mackerel sky,
mackerel sky, not long wet,
not long dry.

And knew

love goes naming,

even a curl of hair - thus, Cirrus.

Cumulus. Stratus. Nimbus.

*All photos taken proudly by me!

The Sunday Poem: Wedding Bliss

    Oh, I did sincerely hope that two Sunday poems would not come together, but here I'm afraid they did. (It's my lack of laptop and limited borrowing time on another that prevents me from blogging efficiently! Still not sorted on that front....)

    But back to the poem. I know I intimated that I would not be including the so called traditionalist poems that are so well-known they're loathed, but here, I have to make an exception, my only defence being that it is not a common classic poem, and definitely not a long and rambling one!

    My mind has been on weddings this week due to a relative of mine getting married -  more specifically, the language and etiquette of weddings - and namely, how poetry should feature more prominently at these events. For isn't poetry the language of love and love, poetry in itself? So why aren't more poems read at weddings I ask? They're more common at funerals! Death, it seems, needs the expression of poetry to be explained, to be accepted, but what about Love?

    Is it fitting that love should be filtered through staged comic speeches, general greetings and inebriate stuttering declarations? I could never imagine having a wedding without a few poems embroidered into the event! How is it that quote goes - 'there are too many mediocre things in life and love should not be one of them.' So many times it seems weddings are more about a grand 'shindig' than an actual celebration and reverence of love. Especially here in Ireland, where people can't seem to express their emotions, and instead of gushing loved-up couples, we have take-a-hand banter and alcohol-fuelled jollity to take the place of real articulation. (Oh, do not get me started on this topic!!! Let's just say real romantics are left cold by most wedding celebrations!) All I'm saying is a poem or two would bring the ceremony back into its intended realm of romantic.

    Anyway, this train of thought led me to having a look again  at a collection of love poems I have, edited by Daisy Lowe, selector of the real Sunday poem for many years. There's a section on weddings, and instead of the well-known verses - Shakespeare's sonnet 'Love is not love which alters where it alteration finds' or the Corinthians passage defining love, there are a few lesser-known but suiting stunning poems.

    And one of them is the Tennyson one below, in which the marriage day is described in terms of light, golden to be precise. I just can't help but swoon at the line, 'Here is the golden close of love'. Ahh. What better more accurate way to describe the marriage ceremony? And the light, filling the land 'so low upon the earth.' Light as a metaphor for love is a fairly common one, and epecially gold. We merely need look at the wedding rings. And it always seems to remind me of alchemy, the transformation of ordinary substances into gold, by some mysterious magic. It's a fitting analogy of love don't you think? And this poem captures perfectly this awe at the light and indeed, its ability to sustain through hardships, 'a love that never tires.' Powerful stuff.

    So here's a toast to more poems at weddings! And this one, 'Marriage Morning', by Tennyson, would be one of my chosen to read.

    Enjoy,

~ Siobhán.

'Marriage Morning' - Alfred Lord Tennyson

Light, so low upon earh,

You send a flash to the sun.

Here is the golden close of love,

All my wooing is done.

Oh, all the woods and the meadows,

Woods, where we hid from the wet,

Stiles where we stayed to be kind,

Meadows in which we met!

Light, so low in the vale

You flash and lighten afar,

For this is the golden morning of love,

And you are his morning star.

Flash, I am coming, I come,

By meadow and stile and wood,

Oh, lighten into my eyes and my heart,

Into my heart and my blood!

Heart, are you great enough

For a love that never tires?

O heart, are you great enough for love?

I have heard of thorns and briers.

Over the thorns and briers,

Over the meadows and stiles,

Over the world to the end of it

Flash of a million miles.

The Sunday Poem: Shakespeare

I'm a little late with the weekly poem today - I've been waylaid by the gorgeous summery weather we've been having!

Maybe the most famous of 'sunny day' poems (even though it does not explore the subject matter) - is Shakespeare's infamous sonnet and love poem 'Shall I Compare Thee?' in which the bard compares his beloved muse to a summer's day.

And how can you better that simile? Summer's days are the epitome of happiness with everyone's spirits uplifted as if by magic. The ultimate compliment indeed to be compared to one

I personally love this poem for its lounge-worthy tone, its breezy shuffling manner of thought and the delighted revelling in a lover's perfection that parallels to that incomparable contentment of lying in and basking up the sun's rays, with not a care in the world. (No, not even aging, Mr S...)

Enjoying the sunshine,

~ Siobhán

Sonnet 18 - William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.     
  So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,     
  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

RIP, My Beloved HP!

I am devastated. I am so sorry to say that my beloved HP laptop, after 4 years of excellent service to me, has met its demise. And oh dear reader, the loss!

I feel like I've lost a limb. A phantom pain. So I thought I'd write about it - to offload my grief, to give you all a heads-up on my maybe future absence and to pen an honourable epitaph to my trusted writing machine for so long.

I enjoyed such a special relationship with my HP. It was my trusted steed that carried me into word battle, not just my writing instrument, but my writing incentive. How it would assent to my every demanding whim and finger tapping frenzy without freezing, without complaint, without malfunctioning. It was one of the sole things in my life that could live up to my fast-paced synapse-firing thinking. (I am currently using my sister's laptop, an obstinate Dell - how many times it has tested my patience - and although I am thankful, it will never compare to my beloved neat and nimble and speedy and extraordinarily efficient HP.

My HP was conducive to sporadic writing fits. Its keys were soft and responsive to fast typing (whereas these keys are heavy and cumbersome and not made to glide with the speed of a writer's words!) Oh how I long for its black keys, finger smudged lighter in the middle from use. I love the sound they'd make as they tapped frantically along to the sparking of thoughts. God I miss it!

And I've been so less prolific now because of the loss of not just my writing medium, but all my files, that have been banished to hardrive limbo until I invest in another new laptop. (No I didn't back-up - the pain!)  And how to do that exactly? Where would I start? Losing a laptop is like losing a pet. How can they be replaced?

I feel so lost without it. So cut off. Feel like I'm floating along in limbo ever since. My laptop connected me to my power source: my writing. Sure, I scribble in notebooks, random pieces of paper whenever inspiration strikes, but it's NOT THE SAME. For me, computer script has always been synonymous with a  finished written product, the professional draft, not the pencilled one. The ease of editing and pasting and chopping lines can never be equalled with pen and paper.

I know most writers would profess their love of the quill and paper method, the alchemy of ink transforming a blank page, but I don't! I need my computer to do that for me! Pen and paper just screams amateur, reminiscent to me of diary scribblings, doodles, and worse -feather-light ramblings that will never be committed to digital permanence and weight, ideas, in their most infant stage, with no hope of growing into fully-fledged scripted pages.

Oh the ache of it! To be disconnected from all my years of wordship is hard to take. I feel so wordless - the intellectual equivalent of legless I'm sure.  And to be writing on another person's computer doesn't feel right. I can't find my groove. Can't navigate through this model's slow and bedamned programs compared to my own! (By the way, any Dell owners ever experience random demonic cursor leaps?? I'm typing along and suddenly I'm three lines above typing----- malforming a perfect sentence into gibberish. It's out to get me, it really is. I feel my nerves fraying every moment I'm on it - THEE most annoying thing a writer could experience while in writing mode, ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

So I'm going to have to sign off and maybe not write again until I can find a suitable replacement. Every day without my familiar blue screen and hundreds of Word files of thoughts at the click of a very compliant mouse is one in which I feel blanker and blanker. Can words really affect us so much? Yes! I'm sure if you emptied out my insides you'd find Garamond fonted words, entrails made of sentences and ink where there should be blood.

And my poor desolate HP now lies with its heart (hardrive) removed, a big blank black silence. I am sorry to think I will never see its blue light power up again or hear its welcoming start-up ping or  be comforted by its blue-sky Word backdrop or feel its heavy weight on my lap or comfortingly smudged keys fit snugly beneath my fingers.

Nope.

If you don't see any posts from me in the next while, know dear readers, that I am in mourning for a dear friend. A medium and a mentor. Know that somewhere out there, in the non-digital universe, I am surely scribbling, but only on paper. Until that opportune time, when I meet the next ideal HP and take to the neon lights of Word again.

Laptopless and lost-in-limbo -

~ Siobhán.

The Sunday Poem: Alice Oswald

Hmm. This is my new venture - the Sunday poem. Sounds very literary doesn't it? But, it's just this: a poem offered as a whisper, a piece of peace in a sometimes chaotic day. Instead of a 'thought for the day', a 'poem for the day.' Like in the Sunday papers, but better choices of course! (Why, oh why must they serve up the traditional pickings as predictable as a Sunday roast when there are so many more fascinating poems and poets out there??? They certainly aren't doing anything to help poetry's reputation!!!)

I thought I'd start with one of my favourite poets - Alice Oswald. Why? Well honestly, because I just happened upon a collection of hers I have -  'Woods Etc' and opened it randomly. And how appropriate to May this one, with dandelions in full bloom, their fuzzy heads an invitation to fits of childish picking and blowing and wishing.


Alice Oswald is renowned for her original use of language, which can be clearly seen here, comparing the dandelion to an old woman being shaken to pieces. It is the flower of amnesia she points out -  ditsy and forgetful and scattered and scatty.  But it is also much more than that, a playful invitation to contemplation. The tipping point in the poem comes in the last line, with an unexpected reference to Osiris (mythical god of the afterlife) weighing the soul with a feather. (There are lots of mythical references in Oswald's poetry.)



Who would have thought the dandelion to be representative of the soul? Well, that's the beauty of poetry - uncanny comparisons that'll jolt you awake and link the seemingly ordinary everyday with the extraordinary world that exists parallel to it, layered in beauty  and meaning and spirit.

You can read more of Alice Oswald here.

Have a great Sunday,

~Siobhán

Head of a Dandelion - Alice Oswald

This is the dandelion with its thousand faculties

like an old woman taken by the neck
and shaken to pieces.

This is the dust-flower flitting away.

This is the flower of amnesia.
It has opened its head to the wind,
all havoc and weakness,

as if a wooden man should stroll through fire…

In this unequal trial, one thing
controls the invisible violence of the air,

the other gets smashed and will not give in.

One thing flexes its tail causing widespread devastation,
it takes hold of the trees, it blows their failings out of them,
it throws in sideways, it flashes the river upriver;

the other thing gives up its skin and bones,
goes up in smoke, lets go of its ashes…

and this is the flower of no property,
this is the wind-bitten dandelion
worn away to its one recalcitrant element

like when Osiris
blows his scales and weighs the soul with a feather.

642 Ways to Kick Writer's Block!

Stop the presses! Alert the media! Step away from the blank page! - A cure for writer's block has just hit the shelves! - '642 Things to Write About' is a book to beat the block like no other.

Not a writing manual or guide. Not a meditative reflection on creativity. No. It's a book of writing exercises to be precise. 642 of them. Designed to beat writer's block. And put the fun back into writing.

But wait, listen. It's not like all the other writing exercises us writers know and loathe. You know - the classic workshop ones like: write about your morning, your journey to the group, an interesting character, an overheard conversation blah, blah, blah... Or the classic writing guide staples like: describe an object right in front of you or write up observation notes. Nooo sir-eee.  

These exercises are unlike any others you will have come across. They're uber original and quirky and fun and laugh-out-loud ridiculous and zany and zeisty and exciting and so out-there as to be encouragingly and enthusiastically do-able.

I fell in love with this book when I saw it masquerading as a copybook/notebook in a bookshop a few days ago. I memorised some of the exercises and tried them at home, and voilá, today I have purchased this bible of creative nurturing due to: a/its insanely cool exercises and b/my innate writer's block now in remission, hurray! If there's anything that can kick its butt - this is it!

Don't believe me? Have a look at these random samples and try to stop your mind from galloping into its wild imaginative recesses:

-You are an astronaut. Describe your perfect day.

-Write a poem about a tomato.

-What can happen in a second.

-Write a love letter to a person you dislike.

-Describe a sneeze.
-Write about a tree from the point of view of one of its leaves.

-At a romantic restaurant on a Saturday night, a guy gets down on one knee and begins to propose. You are a sportscaster doing color commentary of theoccasion for a live television audience.

- A beginner's guide to getting up in the morning.

-Describe a red item without mentioning the colour.

-A superhero's bucket list.

-Write a bathroom wall limerick.
-Describe your favourite part of a male/female's body using only verbs.
-Describe a tree from the point of view of one of its leaves.
-Write a stand-up comedy routine to address the United Nations.

It's the zaniest writing book ever! And the most entertaining. Written by a group of San Francisco writers, thirty-five to be exact, and the exercises, all 642 of them, were penned within a day. In the introduction, writer PO Bronson explains that the book was written to stir up creativity, but also 'to remind you that no, not everything has been written, not every good idea is already taken by someone else. There are infinite number of things to write about and so many fresh directions for your story to go.'

The book itself is like a notebook/textbook, with ruled lines for each exercise, so you can carry it around as a journal and keepsake of your progress into the creative unknown. And the feint ruled lines beckon to be filled in right away - no room for planning or putting off. It's genius! A revolutionary writing handbook - in a store near you!

Me, I can't wait to dive in to these exercises and see that, even on boring blank page days, when no words are willing to show  and everything seems so sombre and serious, writing is truly meant to be fun. A playground. Where the imagination exhausts itself in enjoyment.

I think I have just stumbled upon the anti-dote to block, and this one, unlike all those other medicinal exercises the doctor ordered, is gonna be fun.

Let the spontaneous scribbling begin!

~ Siobhán.

*Read more on '642 Things to Write About' here

Sakura Season

It's Cherry Blossom Season! May. All blue skies and pink-petalled trees. I LOVE cherry blossoms! They're so beautiful. They have the wow factor, with the power to stop you in your tracks with their fluffy bunched blossoms beckoning and the petals swishing around in the wind like confetti.

There is something so special about cherry blossoms and whenever I see one, I'm stunned in my tracks. They are beautiful from a distance, their sprawling pink blossoms magnificent against a blue sky. Or even up close, where the papery flowers hang like decorations, their darker centre like a face. And petals softer than any Kleenex ad maintains!

They're especially special in Japan, where they are called 'sakura.' The cherry blossom is not only a thing of beauty for the Japanese, but also a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life. Impermanence is what they represent. They only bloom for a few weeks, then shed all their petals and return to ordinary green-leafed trees again.

But the Japanese make the most of this special time. They hold cherry blossom festivals - 'Hanami' (which translates as 'flower viewing') all over the country, where they come together in parks and gardens to picnic and hold parties beneath the trees, celebrating the beauty of the blooms and all the blessings that go with it. It's an annual custom that dates back many centuries in the country and has even spread to some places in America, and I'm sure, many an appreciative cherry blossom lover's garden worldwide.

I love this idea of Hanami, of celebrating the beauty that nature offers and with it, simultaneously, the blessings of friends, family, get-togethers and gratitude. And of course, the symbolic bloomings of our own selves, happiness, love, hope and everything else that flowers in this season.

What I love most of all about cherry blossoms is their ability to uplift. You can't help but feel buoyant when you see one. Their very appearance seems festooned for Spring. They are celebratory, waving bunched blooms around like pom-poms, a pink flush against the sky, and at their best when the petals are shedding and the ground below them becomes carpeted in pink.

I'm sure many of us missed the news story last year that occupied only a little square in the newspapers but represented so many ounces of hope - about the 1,000 year  old cherry blossom tree in Fukishima, blooming after the terrible nuclear disaster there.  Scientists and spectators alike were amazed to see the flowering of the cherry tree, not far from the plant itself, flowering in March last year. It represented a potent symbol of hope for the country.

(Read more about it here)

For me, cherry blossoms mean so many things, but namely: beauty, happiness, inspiration, hope - and a buoyant declaring of all these joyous Spring feelings. I've included a few of my own poems below celebrating the cherry blossom, as I'm afraid I couldn't find very many poems on them - does anyone know of any? Or even any of your own? I'd love to read them!

So whatever cherry blossoms mean to you - get out there and enjoy them while they're still here in all their baby-pink or cerise glory! Because like all things of great beauty, their allure lies in their transience.

~ Siobhán.

Cherry Blossom Haiku

Like careless pennies

lucky cherry blossoms fall

soft wishes granted.

***

Hanami Haiku

My heart sits under

falling pink cherry blossoms,

basking in blessings.

***

Cherry Blossom Blush

Each blossom is a blush.

Look closely and you’ll see,

beneath the bluster of blooms

a pale white petal, like a face

demure and pure;

and then, the delight

of its most striking part:

the inner cerise heart

at its centre, deep

and dark and sweet,

keeper of nectar secrets.

And how it has stained

the outer petals a pinched pink,

like a dye overrun;

just like love

has run through you

like a raspberry ink,

colouring every pale insignificance

into a tell-tale revelatory pink.

Now I see how you blossom

when I'm around,

long-held buds of love burst

into blushing blooms

in this Springtime of flowering sentiment;

now ripe-ready for shedding

like cherry blossoms falling

floating, fragrant and soft

from a blue sky smile,

their confetti petals

celebrating the tumble

to earth,

to telling,

to truth.

Each causing the ground beneath

to blush pink in acceptance.

But all before
transient Time

whooshes in like a wind,

and withers and wounds them

into tissued tears.

© Siobhán Mc Laughlin (May 2011)