Words Unlimited

Inspiration at The Lookout

The Lookout in Aldeburgh, with its programme of residencies, performances and exhibitions, is an inspirational venue. Caroline Wiseman keeps surprising audiences, as she finds artists to re-imagine the space.

The current installations, by Lynn Dennison, Lookout and Shipping News, make one of the most mesmerising exhibitions I’ve seen there. If you’re in Suffolk it’s worth a detour, on until 5 January 2014.  If not, you can view the videos via Vimeo, but there is no substitute for the real thing!

Lookout takes the sea inside and high up, a compelling disorientation.

 

The Shipping News, that Radio 4 institution, is much loved by poets. You can read Carol Ann Duffy’s poem, 'Prayer,' here. It ends with these lines:

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

It's interesting to compare with Dennison’s visual interpretation of those hypnotising words and the way she has played with ideas of inside and outside:

 

 

Are You A Perfectionist?

David Foster Wallace on the tragedy of perfectionism. You know the feeling - you can see the novel/story/poem in your head, but what comes out on the page seems to fall short... what to do?

 

Thanks to Cheryl Moskowitz for alerting me to this animation.

On Getting Away from Your Keyboard

Little Scraps of Paper is a series of short documentary films about how creative people develop ideas and thoughts ... In this latest film, screen writer Tony Grisoni talks about the need for writers to walk - look out for all those post-its on a roll of brown paper...

 

Don't be fooled ...

 ... by your frustration with your current work-in-progress. If you're sitting there thinking 'this novel will never work out' or 'why did I think this image would ever make a poem?' you should be happy. This is the creative process at work. Time to embrace your writer's block. Go and dig the garden, do the ironing and all, eventually, will be well. Don't believe me? Watch this video ...

 

On Starting New Work

I did a lot of scribbling in my notebook over the summer. Today, I sat in this gorgeous October sun, reading back to see what still had energy, what  tugged at me.  Does this bit of overheard dialogue really belong in the current novel? Maybe that image needs a short story rather than a poem. Of course, I reminded, myself, what matters is starting something, who knows where any of this will lead.

So I was pleased when I came in for trawl through YouTube to find this from David Foster Wallace ... 

 

Atmosphere

The word atmosphere has been reverberating in my head all week since watching the latest episode of Prof Brian Cox's astonishing BBC 2 series, Wonders of The Solar System.

As writers we aim to create atmosphere in our work - a mood, a prevailing emotional 'weather' that shapes the story or poem. Watch the concept expand before your eyes as Cox brilliantly reveals how different atmospheres shape each planet. Fantastic filming and his enthusiasm effortlessly reveal the correspondences between patterns and forms found on earth and those found billions of miles away.

You can watch the whole episode here for another 19 days.

Do you really want it?

How strong is your need to write?

Enough to sit down and do it everyday?  

What keeps you going?

Former Booker Prize Winner Anne Enright nails it:

Cliché?

It may be a cliché to quote Martin Amis on cliché

but I'll risk it -

Day Dreaming and Laser Printers

Got five minutes to spare?

This might make you smile...